Update....1 step forward. 3 steps back

Tuesday was supposed to be the day we found out if we were going to get the kids.....we didn't find out. Last week we had talked to the case worker, which I wrote about. We found out that the hearing to terminate parental rights had been pushed back until April because the bio-dad was going to trial on related charges. His lawyer managed to motion the court to push back the hearing, even though all the other stuff that has happened to these kids is enough to terminate rights on their own. Yeah, some people are real pieces of work. The case worker, last week, said that they were going to move forward with the committee meeting and with placement since the risk was really low for the bio-parents to get these kids back. So we did our interview, answered all their questions and waited. Then we get an email on Tuesday, about noon, (9am Oregon time) that they had cancelled the meeting. LAST MINUTE! The case worker has decided to wait, and move a little slower since the rights won't be terminated right away. great, thanks for getting our hopes up. I could have waited to bring the kids home, it would not have been a big deal. just GIVE ME A F$&%#&#G ANSWER!!!! So, we move on. We'll keep them on our radar, but if something else comes up before they get their act together, well, we tried. 

Frustration

We talked to the case worker in Oregon last week. She asked a bazillion questions. Most of them pretty hard. For example: What will you do when all 4 of the kids melt down at once, and what about their special needs, how will you address each individually, and why do you want THESE kids specifically? ugh! we thought we had answered pretty well. Sean said a prayer before we even started and answers from us seemed to flow. thennnnn.......I got an email on saturday. Actually I read it on Sunday cause I always forget to read my email on the weekend, but something (someOne) told me to check. So I did. grrr, what the hell?! Now they want to know how far in debt we are and what we are doing about it and do we have money in savings for emergencies. And what are we planning on doing to attach with these kids. And how exactly am I going to be able to work from home and take care of the youngest child. And you were in therapy at one type, can you tell me why and if it helped...... The "what the hell" is because people can have biological kids everyday and no one asks them these questions. If they did I guess there wouldn't be any kids for us to adopt, but STILL!!!!! What parent knows when they have a kid how things are going to go? not a single damn one of them. They have ideas, just like we do, but I can pretty much guaran-damn-tee half or more won't work, and then we'll be back to square one and need to reassess the situation and try something else. Either way, we find out tomorrow. We'll see what happens. On another note, the courts out there were supposed to terminate parental rights last week but the bio-dad's lawyer motioned the court to wait until after his trial for sexual abuse was completed. Not that the kids haven't had to deal with all kinds of other stuff and that's low on the totem pole as to why the kids were pulled from the home, but anyway. The court granted the motion, so now the rights won't be terminated until April. We don't really know how this will impact us because we don't know where the other family that we are "competing" with is from. If they are from Oregon, it might tip things in their favor. sigh. tomorrow is going to be a long day!

Decision date

The date has been set. We talk to the independent council (lawyer??) tomorrow and then the decision will be made on Tuesday December 17th. So we will know in less than a week if we are getting our kids. Here's hoping.

Update

The latest on the kids we hope are our kids is that their case worker really likes us. We were supposed to find out right before Thanksgiving if we get them or not, but now that decision has been pushed back 2 weeks. :( The good part is, they really like us on their end. The caseworkers, that is. We are waiting from a call from the independent party that represents the family. I guess they want someone who will objective when they convene for their committee meeting to decide if the kids can be placed with us. Supposedly the call was to be done before the end of the month, but I'm not holding out much hope for that, since the end of the month is next Friday and Thanksgiving is in the middle of that. So, we wait. Our caseworker is trying to get a more definite time frame for when they will be contacting us, but she hasn't heard yet. The caseworker for the kids is hoping that a decision will be made mid-December. I'll believe it when I see/hear it. Once we get approval from their "committee" and then from each state, we will be able to contact the foster parents and the kids. Won't be able to bring them home until the end of January, but we will be able to contact them. I've stopped looking for new kids, I hope I'm not jinxing myself.

Good News

I knew it would be this week! I just knew it. ha, hoped is more like it. But it could still all go down the drain quickly. But, we have made the short list for a group of kids. Yes! Now we have to wait until right before Thanksgiving to see if they picked us. If they pick us we will then have to wait until after Christmas to go get them. They've been dealing with some stuff lately and their caseworker doesn't want to create more trauma by pulling them right before the holidays. So, I can get behind that. We are one step closer, and I only have 3 weeks to wait to see if we are closer to that finish line, or we are are back at the beginning. Here's hoping!

quilts

A friend sent me an email the other day and it had an article from the 2013 Ensign   (LDS church magazine) and one of things she pointed out was a way of thinking that I might just have to consider. She said "okay, done with that, what can I do next?" in regards to preparing for our kids to be home. Last Christmas I made quilt for my nieces and nephew. I had lots of flannel left over, not to mention the flannel from the PJ's I had made for the girls and for my nieces & nephews on the other side of the family. Needless to say, I had a LOT left over. So I decided to make some quilts. Right now, I have 2 strip quilts with all the panels done, and one that I have sewn the panels to the borders. My goal is to have them for our kids when they get home. So I guess I started thinking along those lines of "what can I do next?" a while ago, just didn't want to admit it. I'm really screwed if we end up with 4 boys instead of 2 boys & 2 girls. HA. Today is a good day, I'm totally optimistic that we will get an email from our caseworker this week. When Friday rolls around, we'll see how optimistic I am. here's hoping.

Foster kids

I've seen a lot the last week about the Florida boy Davion and his plea for a family. He's 15 and has been in the system for his whole life. And now there are 10,000 families interested in him. I am so happy that he will get his forever family. But I'm also frustrated. There are people like us that want kids, want them out of the foster care system, have our papers completed and our home study done, and are waiting......a long time. We are willing to take boys & girls, up to 6 siblings, and can't find our kids. We feel that we honestly cannot deal with kids that have serious mental and physical handicaps, but we feel we can deal with the PTSD and behavioral issues that these kids some with. There are LOTS of those kind of kids out there in the system and not many families willing to take on more than 1 or 2 kids. Which leads me to my comment that something is wrong with this system. There are over 100,000 kids in the foster care system any given day that are ready for adoption, and 300,000 that are there for a short stay until their parents get their lives back in order. So why can't we find our kids?! I totally understand the need to make sure the parents actually want the kids and aren't planning on abusing them or selling them. I get that, I seriously do.....BUT! I know one of the issues is just the vast number of kids and the "un-vast" number of case workers. They, like teachers, do not get paid enough for what they do, and there aren't enough of them. I also know that some of the problem is the laws in each individual state. For example, in Ohio the state favors bio-parents and they get chance after chance after chance to screw up. Meanwhile the kids are in foster care for 7 or 8 or more years while their parents will never get their act together. Those kids deserve a real, stable, family. One thing I like about PA is that they have a law that bio-parents have a set number of months to show improvement or their rights are terminated. (it's slightly more complicated than that, but that's the just of it) Those kids don't languish in foster care for years, the people in government understand that there are just some times when the parents aren't going to be fixed and the best thing for the kids is to sever ties. And the number of kids in foster care in PA is half what it is in Ohio and there are more people in PA. Kinda backwards, ain't it? I guess all the little issues everywhere combine to make one big cluster storm. (name that movie :) Meanwhile we wait. And our kids wait, cause I know they are out there somewhere, I think we've seen them, we just can't have them yet. sigh.

Same stuff different day

Obviously, since I haven't posted since August, nothing exciting is going on in our lives. The girls started back to school. Abby is in 8th grade and Sabrina is a junior. Yikes!! Totally crazy. And within a month they will each be another year older. I'm feeling old, let me tell ya! On the adoption deal we haven't had much success. Actually 2 weeks ago we got the "thanks for your interest, but your family doesn't fit the needs of these children," email. And we got it 4 times. It's worse than a job rejection email. So we are still waiting. waiting. waiting. Have I ever said I'm not patient? like not at all. moving on. We got another call back from a worker about some kids we were interested in earlier this year. I thought the case worker had found another family for them, since we haven't heard anything since July, maybe August. They called our case worker yesterday. This whole process has really had a negative impact on my excitement response. I'm not excited that they called. I can't seem to work up the energy so that I can get shot down....again. So, we wait. I don't think I'll be getting excited until I'm on the plane or in the car to go pick up my kids. I'll let you know when that happens.

up, down, up, down, down, up

Which direction were we going again? Oh, right, we aren't going anywhere. At least not at the moment. I guess the case worker that was interested in us in Oregon isn't interested anymore. Haven't heard anything from that area in over a month. sigh. We thought we had a line on 3 kids about 2 hours from here. The case worker there is really interested in us, had a little confusion with how many kids we can have in our house. I wish I could have talked to her to tell her that at any given time we have 4 empty beds in our house, all made & ready to go. Most days we have 6 empty beds and just 4 days a month those extra 2 have someone in them. So I think we are good. Our case worker has been trying to get in touch with her the past week, well I guess now there is a bump in the road because the foster family has decided that they want the kids. oy, okay. I guess they didn't want them before, but now they do. whatever. can I just find my kids, PLEASE?!! There was an adoption celebration thing last weekend at the zoo that Sean and I went to, we finally met our case worker face to face. She's been great to work with over email, but we had never actually met her, so it was nice to finally put a face to the name and the emails. She is really great. She told us that Oregon was great to work with but they were also one of the slowest states to work with. great, just what I wanted to hear. So, we wait some more. Have I mentioned that I'm not a patient person?

Shut yo MOUTH!!

Oh my gosh, why can't I keep my mouth shut?! Sean accuses me of being a social butterfly, something I don't deny. but man, with this adoption stuff I need to SHUT THE HECK UP!! We got an email from our case worker last week that a case worker in another county wanted us to come for an interview. Never having been through this process before and because we neglected to ask lots more questions, we got REALLY excited. We were thinking that we might be getting kids this weekend. hahahahhaha, uh, no. I feel like the girl who cried "wolf," like every other flippin' day. sigh. I'm so mad at myself. It's like this never ending yoyo thing and oh, maybe we'll get these kids, oh, maybe we won't. ugh. just let me get off this damn ride please. And I tell people. like every time. Just SHUT UP!! but the filter on my mouth isn't working. so I tell people, there might be a possibility, we  MIGHT be getting some kids, we have an interview, etc, etc. And since we have some awesome friends they get excited for us. and then nothing happens. or we get rejected, or we don't hear anything else. Like the kids in Oregon, it's been over 2 weeks. nothing. not a peep, so I guess we didn't make that short list. I guess I should be grateful, since the roller coaster that we will be getting on, once we get off this one will be even more crazy! But it's kinda hard to enjoy anything when you feel like a complete manic-depressant all within one hour. now, the case worker needs to email me back. like, NOW!

Roller Coaster riding

Maybe I should have titled this "Hurdles from Hell." On facebook I posted that adopting children is like running the 400 meters hurdles. I don't think most of my friends on facebook have a clue how hard that race is! They all said, but you're halfway there. (My original post mentioned being on the 4th or 5th hurdle) When you run those or even the 300 hurdles, you hurt at the end. They suck, plain & simple. It's a sprint, but a long one, that has 10 hurdles in it. One time around the track, yeah, it sucks and it's painful. I can't tell you how many times I've hit the last hurdle and crashed, or the third to last hurdle and crashed, or even as early as the second one. I still have the cinders in my knees and legs to prove it. So this adoption "race" is like those hurdles. We had a group in AZ that we looked hard at and the case worker there was looking at us. But the one HUGE hurdle was that the kids are Native American. yep, you guessed it, once it was known that some white people wanted those kids, someone from the tribe stepped up. I just pray that they will be okay and will be happy. And in the 300/400 hurdles that would be like one of the workers forgetting to lower the hurdle in between the girls and the boys heats and you have to jump a REALLY tall hurdle. Yeah, you usually face plant on those. not fun. So we are back at the starting line again. We put our profile out for some kids out west again and have heard from the case worker. We'll see how far we get in this heat (that would be what you call a prelim race you have to win to get into the finals, in case you didn't know ;)) Hopefully we make it to the finals. It's worse than a roller coaster! At least with a roller coaster you know when it will end, and you don't have to do anything, just sit there and take what comes. 

The Doldrums

Yeah, you  know what the doldrums are, don't ya? Officially they are an area near the equator where the wind doesn't blow. Or at least it doesn't blow hard enough to move a ship with sails. And that would be were the phrase, took the wind right out of our sails originates. or maybe it doesn't, but it sure feels like it.It is where the phrase doldrums comes from in relation to going nowhere. And it feels like we are going NOWHERE! Especially after we got an email that doesn't look good yesterday. We are really excited about a sibling group of boys out west and they are part Native American, part Latino. We have no idea where we are on the "list" of prospective parents, but we feel really good about it. And our case worker said we'd be a good match because we really want siblings. pshaw, one kid at a time, who needs that?! we want them all at once! Anyway. So, this group of kids look good for us, then we get an email from our case worker that a Native American woman is interested in the boys. %$^#^@%$#^$& yeah, all those words went through my head and some probably made it out of my mouth. Felt like I had been kicked in the gut, punched in the head, any other little metaphor you want to think of. Needless to say, I feel like the wind has just been taken out of our sails. So we sit. and wait. The tribal case worker has the file, if the woman is a good fit, she gets the kids. I'm have no idea what would make her not a good fit, but who knows. she's native. If my sister could only find the paperwork to prove I am part native american, I'd be bumped to the top of the list. damnit. Sean says he still feels good about those boys and that they will be ours. I'm not as hopeful. But then, I'm the pessimist in this situation.

closer...closer...closer...still waiting

There is nothing new to report. At all. Well maybe some new stuff. We got all the mattresses in, and sheets for everything. We actually found some inexpensive mattresses that weren't awful & they delivered them for free. We got a comforter set for the day bed that makes it look like a couch. It's a great place to read, Sean and I have already tried it out. The sad thing is that we have to keep a layer of plastic over it so the stupid cats, that like to throw up on everything, don't get it all yucky. The girls have even tried it out while they were here. They seem to like it. For them it's a great place to hide from us. At the moment we are waiting for a reply from the case worker in the state were our kids are. Or at least the kids we want are. We are really hoping that we can go get them and bring them home. sigh, but we wait.

Getting ready......to wait

Yesterday Sean and I went to Home Depot and got the plywood for the 2 bunk beds in the "blue room." 1 more thing on our list of stuff that needs done that has been completed. Sean also spent the day putting together the day bed for the girls. That stupid thing takes up half our basement! It is bigger that I planned, but eh, what can we do? We'll make it work. Now I just have to figure out where to put my huge steamer trunk. Might have to go up in the attic for a while, like until we move and get a bigger house. We also did our research on mattresses. sigh, what a pain. We need 4 of them, so we would like to get something inexpensive, but has anyone laid of those cheap mattresses. yikes!! You could get tetanus from the springs poking you. seriously. anyway. We found a couple that were okay and won't break the bank, but we didn't get them, since it was pouring down rain and we will need to transport them ourselves. Still no word on any kids. We've put our profile out there for quite a few groups, but no bites yet. We are hoping that we will get a call this summer. so we are waiting. me, not so patiently :)

in the blink of an eye....

Sean and I went to DC last weekend to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary. Can't believe it's been 8 years, I feel like we just got married last summer. I guess that is a good thing. Our trip was not as fun & uneventful as we had planned. I booked the hotel online on Hotwire.com a week before we went. We left at 8am, after dropping the dog off at a friends. Then we headed to the temple, no traffic problems, no construction problems, nothing. Got there, did a session, did some sealings, had such a nice peaceful time. Then we went to the hotel. I have this thing with hotels... I don't trust them. Not sure why, might be from when I coached basketball, I NEVER park the car until I know we have a room. Sean doesn't know my rule. Well, he didn't, he does now :) The parking lot of the hotel was a madhouse. I went in and told Sean to stay with the car. He parked it in a parking garage that charges by the minute. grrrrr. I went in to check in, they were overbooked and didn't have a room... grrrrrrrrr. So they said that they would give our money back & give us a voucher to stay in another hotel in the area that was on par with the Hyatt. I'm thinking, ok, whatever, as long as we have a bed. We go back to the car, try to leave and they want 6 bucks for 10 minutes of parking. HA, not gonna happen. I'm driving and Sean is in the passenger seat yell  talking loudly to the guy in the booth. But I have to say, Sean had a point, they didn't have a room, we weren't paying for parking! And if they would have had a room we wouldn't have had to pay for parking anyway. If I would have known he was going to park, I would have talked to the desk so that whole scene could have been avoided. Anyway. We head to the new hotel, check in, and head to our room. yyeeaaaaa. We open the door and both of us just stand there.... it's got a DOUBLE bed. And since Sean and I are such small people at over 6' tall...... And of course my battery died in the camera so I couldn't even take a picture to show the minuteness. There was only enough room on each side of the bed to walk. At the end of the bed, same thing,  there was a space big enough to walk through and then the dresser with the TV on top of it. And then the bathroom. I think the room was maybe 10' x10' and that included the bathroom. So we dropped the bags, headed back to the front desk, told them the problem, and got nowhere. They told us that the Hyatt hadn't called them about what rooms where available and the one that we got is one that they usually give to single business people or to employees that have to stay on site for some reason. fun, I tell ya. The girl at the front desk told us she would call around and see if there was anything available while we went out to dinner with the nieces and nephew. When we got back...nothing. It seems that DC is a super busy place on Memorial Day weekend and rooms are hard to find. Well, now we know!
Another eye opening/blinking moment was a call we got on Friday before we were supposed to leave. Sean and I have been kind of lollygagging in the painting, setting up the rooms department. We've been thinking that we'd get to it eventually, we have time.....blah, blah, blag. Lazy is probably a better word :) So we got a phone call on Friday asking if we wanted to come pick up 2 girls, ages 2 & 6.....like NOW. Needless to say after praying about it, Sean and I felt that those girls were not our children and we didn't go get them. BUT, it opened our eyes to the fact that we could get a call any day and have to come pick up our kids. yikes! We were not prepared. So when we returned on Sunday we put the first coat of paint on the other room and on Monday I put the second coat on. All painted and reset. So now all we need is 4 mattresses to go on the new beds we have. We also have to put up the day/trundle bed, but we can do that some evening, since there aren't any more new shoes until September. We are hoping that by next week we will have all that done. I was able to empty some space out of the closets by getting rid of a bunch of stuff I was hoarding in the garage. I finally got sick enough of it sitting there that I took it to the Goodwill. Then I went to Target and bought metal shelves and 4 Rubbermaid containers. Hmm, I need a photo of that. The garage is now nice & neat and I was able to move stuff from the closets out to the shelf in the garage, mostly the space bags full of winter clothes. I'll need another shelf & more containers, but for now what I have works. Our first priority is some beds, then it's onto my obsessive organizing :) Hopefully this means soon we will have a houseful of kids. We can hope, right?!

Waiting sucks!

We received our certificate in the mail last week. We are all official now & whatnot. We could foster kids if we wanted to. We don't want to do that right now. So, we are waiting. waiting. waiting. I hate waiting. Waiting sucks. I've been waiting for 7 years for kids, I'm done waiting. We have our paperwork done, bring on the kids. I posted on facebook last week that at any given time there are over 100,000 kids in foster care nationwide. That is such a sad statistic. But with that number you would think it would be a little easier to find the kids that are supposed to be part of our family. sigh. I hate waiting.
While waiting we are finishing up painting the one bedroom. It looks cool. Our ceiling isn't straight, so the paint job looks sloppy. Could be my painting abilities as well, but I'm blaming the ceiling. :) Yesterday I went around the baseboard with a tiny paintbrush trying to straighten the lines. I think we're just going to put the beds in and call it good! We have a set of bunk beds that will be going in there. Once we get that room all set up & the dog back in we'll move onto the girls room. Hopefully that will be next weekend. Although we'll be out of town to celebrate our anniversary. We'll see.  Now back to your regularly scheduled lives, I'll go back to waiting.....again.

Anticipation

We go in Thursday to review our profile & sign it, and then we are official! Everything was completed last week, all our paperwork was done and we are good to go. I made a major goof on Sabrina's background check paper when I mailed it in. I put Sean & my birth year, instead of hers (oops, if it wasn't such a pain, not to mention a waste of $10!, it'd be hilarious), so it has to be redone. great. But that won't slow the process any, so we are okay. Thursday Sean picked up the day bed for the girls that we will be putting in the basement, and Friday we went & got paint for the 2 rooms upstairs. We are still looking at 4 kids, although the boys we wanted have been placed with a family. We might end up with 2 girls & 2 boys, or all boys. Since we only have 2 rooms we really need to have an even number, can't have 3 boys & 1 girl. We are still looking. We actually found a group of siblings last week that is 2 &2 and physically they look like they could be our kids. ha. Wouldn't that be interesting? Lot less explaining to nosy people. Saturday, Sabrina & I painted the first coat on the one room. It looks awesome. Sean wasn't sure of the color, he should learn to trust me in matters like this. ;) The dog is totally confused because he's been locked out of his room. He nosed the door open this morning & didn't even go in since it still smells like paint. Dumb dog. We also had fun getting all the yucky drool off the walls before we painted. We set the computer up down in the basement after we moved the desk downstairs. I should have filmed that, cause it was funny trying to get the solid oak desk down the steps. Sabrina was some help but her skinny little arms don't hold much :) Now all I need is a rack of cubbie's with drawers so I can stash all the stuff that is everywhere. Especially the books. Some days I wish I didn't like to read so much! I guess that about covers it. Hopefully we will still be able to have children by the end of May. We'll see. I would really prefer the kids come during the summer so they have time to adjust to one thing before they are thrown into another. Keeping our fingers crossed and prayers said! Can't wait.

Home Stretch

We had our final home visit last week and our case worker has to finish up our profile. We are almost done with the initial stuff and on to the matching phase. Our agency has a couple of workers that have the job of matching all couples to their children. We are hoping that we will be matched with our kids sooner rather than later. We also found out we have to do 15 more hours of continuing education while we are waiting. I'm not sure if we will have to continue with that after we have kids placed with us or not. Maybe I should check into that. We've sent in Sabrina's paperwork for her background checks, so those should be back soon. We've gotten rid of all the furniture we didn't need that was in the basement and are just waiting for the day bed to show up. We'll also be getting some bookshelves that will hopefully hold all the books & other stuff that we have in the basement. We are almost there. And then we will have to wait..... hopefully not too long.

Closer, closer

We've completed our first home visit with our case worker. Sean has completed all his classes. All we have to do it get Sabrina's background checks done. Since she is 16, she has to be checked out. Even though she doesn't live with us, I guess they want to make sure we have it, just in case some other state would require it. Sean and I are soo excited to move forward. We are starting to move the house around so we have room for some kids. We really want 4 boys, but would settle for 2. ha. We would actually love more than 2, I'm just worried that 3 would be hard on one of the boys for sleeping arrangements. We have 2 bedrooms and have bunk beds for both. I don't want one boy to be in a room all by himself, in a new house, a new situation, far away from what they know. It just kind of worries me. I don't remember what I've posted but we really want boys. Or, maybe I should say, I really want boys. After dealing with the 2 girls we already have, I don't want anymore. If I get to pick, so going with the boys. Saturday we went out "looking" for a day bed with a trundle under for the girls when we move them to the finished basement. We should know better! We went to several stores and were not having any luck. At our last stop we found this really cool day bed that looks like a couch and the trundle comes with the thing. Most of the other places and other sets had the trundle for another $300. yikes. so, we bought the bed, it'll go in the basement. I offered our couch, chair and futon (that we recently acquired) to friends and they were snapped right up. YES! so excited. I spent the day yesterday washing the cushion covers and vacuuming the rest. One reason to not like my cats. hairy little buggers! But the couch, chair and futon are all clean and ready to go. We have a roll of plastic drop cloth, so I cut off a piece and covered the furniture so the cats can't get them all hairy again before they are moved out. Once those are gone we can move the other stuff around. We also got some paint chips for the rooms. We have to paint the smaller bedroom because the dog has managed to sling spit all over the walls. yeah, yuck. And because the guy before us used eggshell paint, when we clean the spit the paint will come with it. so much fun. The other room is just a boring pastel green which I've hated since we've moved in, so now is a good time to change it! So we are looking at some cool blues & greens that brighten up the room and will be semi-gloss for easy cleaning. Still haven't figured out where the dog is going to sleep once all this is finalized. I guess we'll think on that later

Excitement is in the air

We are getting really excited to be done with all this preliminary work and be approved so we can go visit our kids and then bring them home. My last class is this weekend and Sean's will be on the 16th. I have to go get my TB test done tomorrow and read on Friday. ya, one more thing out of the way. I got the physical part done already. Sean had to have one for school, so his is all done, he just needs to go get the paper filled out. The "homework" we have to do for each class is kind of annoying but I guess they want to make sure you are paying attention and really thinking hard about what you are about to do. We have kids in mind that we want and we check on a daily basis to make sure they are still there. We really hope we can get them cause those are the ones that we are drawn to and think they should be ours. We got an offer the other day for a free set of really nice bunk beds. so now all we need to do is get a trundle/day bed for the girls in the basement and we are set! We will probably be painting the 2 rooms before we move in all the furniture. I will also never ever be able to use my garage for a car. It was a goal of mine, but I think that ship has sailed. We are totally going to need that space for some kind of storage. I've also been thinking about ways to make the space in the closets more usable. They aren't very wide, but they are 3 feet deep, and most of the space in the back gets wasted. Never realized how many details there were to getting our house ready for some boys. crazy.

Encouragement?

Third training meeting down, 1 more to go. At least for me, Sean has 2 more. Then the home visit, then approval!! I think I've written on here before that I coach our young women at church for the annual basketball tournament. Over here in the eastern part of the US we don't have regional basketball tourney's like they do in Utah & Idaho :) Anyway, I've missed two practices and last week I let them know that I would be missing this Saturday as well and I told them why. So yesterday at church I had several people come up to me and say, "Rumor has it, you are adopting kids." Why yes we are, that's the plan anyway. And their immediate response, at least from two people was, "you know those kids are damaged, right?" WHAT??!!! What does that have to do with the price of rice in China? Seriously, we are looking to adopt kids who might not normally have a chance at having a "forever" family and you tell me they are damaged?! what the hell? Yes these kids will have issues, but don't your kids? My kids probably won't have the same issues as yours will, but we are being given tools to deal with them. Yes, we are going to be getting more than one at once, we will figure out how to deal with that too, but you've had lots of time to deal with all your kids and they still have issues. And who knows why they are in the system. What if they just had the misfortune of both of their loving parents dying in a car accident and they don't have any family left. Yes, they will have to deal with the grief of losing both their parents at one time, but that doesn't mean they can't love and be loved. Sometimes people annoy me. Luckily I know when to hold a grudge (my sisters can tell you I'm really good at that) and when to just shake my head and think, "they have no clue," and brush it off as total ignorance. Yes my kids are going to have issues, but we will deal with them in the same way that you deal with your kids issues. Find something else positive to say please, thanks.

Nice family pictures

Here are some of the pictures that actually came out nice this year. If you got our Christmas card then you've already seen some of them. The kids & Sean clean up nice. hehehe

 These are from the girls birthday. As you can see, they tolerate my photography but not very well :)

 Abby has always got to make us laugh!

 We went for a walk on the river trail on a really nice day. The girls did nothing but whine the entire time. Especially on the walk back to the car. oy. But I got a few nice pics. So they can complain all they want :)~

Changes are coming

Our major dilemma with adopting kids is our tiny house. Seriously tiny house. It was great when it was just Sean and I and the girls every other weekend. It's looking pretty darn small at the moment. So we are looking at some creative ways to save some space but have enough room for more kids. oh, yeah. We have a finished basement that is all the rage in the summer since it's way cooler than the rest of the house. Winter, not so much, but we have little heaters to warm it up a little. I speak from experience since I use the little heaters when I am working in the craft side of the basement in the winter. Since it's not a very large space, it doesn't take long to get warmed up. It's kinda nice. Our idea is to have the girls, since they are older and enjoy their independence, to move downstairs. AKA: hiding in their rooms for hours on end playing on various electronic devices. No adults needed or desired. My original idea was to get 2 futons that could be left as couches when the girls aren't at our house. But now I'm wondering if maybe I was thinking too big. A friend suggested a day bed with a trundle underneath. hmmmm, while this would negate the space under the bed for storage it was free up the entire wall in the basement for storage. I'm liking this idea. However, another friend of mine was giving away a futon that was in nice shape so I grabbed it. crap, now what am I going to do with it. decisions, decisions. I still have to figure out how to store the couch & chair we have, since I know we are planning on getting a larger house when we move across the country and we will eventually need it. Or we could just buy a new one when we get where we are going. Like I said, decisions.....
As for our classes Sean and I are headed to one this weekend. 2 for me, 1 for him. The sweet part is that we have them all scheduled and we will be done with the classes on March 2!!! I'm so excited. I'm hoping that we can get everything approved and arranged so that we can go for visits during Sean's spring break. I guess if that is the way it's supposed to happen Heavenly Father will make it happen. We are doing our part, He will do the rest :)

Moving right along

Sean and I have filled out a large stack of paperwork. Yikes! I think I mentioned before that they know you're serious when you are willing to subject yourself to the mound of paperwork that needs filled out. anyway. I was able to go to one of the training meetings on Saturday. Interesting and enlightening. I was able to get another perspective on what happens when kids are removed from their homes and put into foster care. I am hoping that we will be able to help these kids get back on track and feel safe in our home. Sean is going with me this weekend to the meeting. So I will have 2 classes done and he will have 1. Can't wait until we have them ALL done. it will take us until mid-March to get everything done with classes, but it will be worth it. I'm so excited to have a large family :) Some may say I'm crazy, but hey, I would probably agree! 

Next Step

We made it to the orientation meeting last night. We also got the last of our background checks back in the mail. The meeting was nice, it also got us pretty excited. We were given a gigando stack of paperwork to fill out, but we can do that. We got the hard part completed, the background checks. We are excited to move on. The women at the meeting from the agency said that since we have completed the process before we may be able to move a little quicker through the process. We will still have to complete the required number of training hours, but we may be able to contact other agencies earlier. She wasn't sure, and I'm not holding my breath, but it would be cool to let the other agencies know that we are interested in a specific group of boys. So I will be going to an all day class on Saturday. Oh, yeah, fun :) There was another women at the meeting, her and her husband are planning on adopting out of foster care as well. She had a friend complete the training classes and the friend said that the classes were very beneficial and helped her to deal with situations that came up after she had adopted her son. It's good to know that we won't be doing these classes for nothing. I'm all for tools to help these kids! Another nice thing we learned is that we will probably get "child support" for them. Whew. While we really want to have these kids and know we are supposed to be doing this at this time, we were a little concerned about how we were going to make it work, money-wise, since Sean is still in school. Heavenly Father will make it possible. So, we are excited to move forward.

4 out of 6

For background checks there are 6 that have to be completed in this state. One of which is the FBI. Sean and I have 4 out of the 6 we need back already. The FBI ones are supposed to take up to 6 weeks. We got ours back in 1. Hopefully we will have the two remaining clearances by the time we go to the introduction meeting next Wednesday. Things are moving along. 

Our Journey has begun

I've been trying to post pictures from Christmas and also our nice family pictures from our Christmas card but this stupid blogger won't let me upload pictures from home. So, once I get that figured out, I'll post some pictures. But I wanted to write a little about what Sean and I have started. I think we are crazy :) About 2 months ago I was stalking The R house blog. (like always:) It's an awesome blog about open adoption and this family that has 3 little boys that are all adopted. So cute. anyway. They have something called "Matching Mondays." She had posted about a sibling group of 3 that were out west and they were in foster care. I couldn't get those little faces out of my mind. So I talked to Sean about it. I can't remember if I talked to anyone about it but about 3 years ago we started on a journey for adoption, wanting a baby, but felt we hadn't gotten the support or help we needed to get a child. So we dropped our agency and made lots of plans for vacations we were going to take, all over the world. The doctors still have no idea why we can't have biological children, so they can't fix it, so we have given up in that area as well. But, back to my point. I couldn't get these kids out of my mind. Sean was still in the "having fun on vacation" stage. Can't say as I blame him :) I talked to a friend of mine from church, Amy, about wanting more kids. I have felt for a while that our house is empty and it needs to be filled up. So I had been doing a little research on my own. Then another friend, Chelsea, called me. She used to be a social worker and now works with an adoption agency that helps families in the US adopt children from overseas. She had said that she really wanted to talk to me about it, but had been shot down too many times before by friends that she didn't want to step over that boundary. Amy told her to talk to me. So anyway. After Chelsea talked to me about international adoption Sean and I talked again about adopting kids.  We decided that maybe this was Heavenly Fathers way of telling us that yes, our house was empty and we needed to fill it up. We did research and I talked to Chelsea about international adoption and the cost really freaked us out. Then I talked to another friend and she said that money should never be an issue when it came to something this important. "Money can be a hurdle, not a mountain in your way." hmm. Well after looking, thinking, and discussing (Sean is in school) we decided that maybe be should look at domestic adoption. There are over 400,000 kids in foster care in the US alone. Sean and I have decided that we need to shrink that number by a few. Before Christmas we sent in our background checks to the appropriate departments and last Wednesday we got fingerprinted. We've already got 3 of the 6 background checks back. Crazy! And we have called the adoption agency that we will be working with and adopting kids from foster care is basically FREE!!! We will have to travel to meet and pick up the kids, but it's nothing compared to the expense we would have had to incur to adopt internationally. Maybe when we are both working at real jobs we will look internationally but for now, we'll hang out in the US. We've already been looking at kids and have a few favorites. We know that we are going to adopt a sibling group, we just haven't decided on how many for sure yet. But the process has started and we are looking forward to having a house full of fun, laughter and love. Can't wait.