Family Fridays: Visiting With Birth Family

Dear Friends and Family,
It's been a while since I updated on how things are going since our adoption of Noah.

Family Friday: Happy Blogging Anniversary!

Dear Friends and Family,

It's hard to believe that it has been 14 years since I started blogging. I remember my husband telling me that I had enough crazy stuff happening with our sweet little family that I could write a book, so why not start with a blog. It hasn't been a continuous 14 years. There were a few down times in there. But the following post is the first one I wrote that started off my journey. I hope you enjoy!

Family Friday: The Ever Changing Numbers of a Foster Family

Dear Friends and Family,

One thing that is ever changing in a foster family is your numbers. By that, I mean the numbers of children in your home. If you read last week's post about Adoption you know that we recently adopted and added to our permanent family. We now officially have four biological daughters and two adopted sons!

However, change is always happening when you foster. We currently are fostering a sweet baby boy and a teenage girl which brings our household to a grand total of 10 people! The baby was placed with us through DHS and has been with us for a couple months. The teen was a mutual placement with her parents' consent to stay with us for a period of time till things evened out in their home. We don't know how long either of these placements will be with us.

What is funny to us is when people comment on how many are in our family! Honestly, we don't notice it. Until days like today when 6 out of 8 kids are gone for the weekend. Then it seems SUPER quiet!

Praying that your weekend is blessed!

If you missed last week's post:Adoption!

Until next time...

Have a blessed day and embrace the craziness in your life!

Heidi
Numbers 6:24-26

Family Friday: ADOPTION!

Dear Friends and Family,
In getting back in the groove of blogging, it seems appropriate that the first Family Friday post should be about our recent adoption!
A little backstory: if you are new to my blog, you would need to know that we are a foster family. We have been doing this for ten years and despite the sometimes challenging and often hard times, it has been worth every moment. Through this, though this was not our original plan, we have added two boys into our family of all girls. You all know our son, Tony, who has been in our family since he was 9 months old. What you may or may not realize is that we have been fostering a little boy since Thanksgiving 2016. On the blog, he has gone by a couple names: Stuart Little and Little Mr.
It is my privilege to introduce Noah James as part of our family! He always was a part of our family, as all our foster kiddos are, but now we have the blessing of adding our last name to the end and making it, as my mother-in-law says "official"!

I'm still waiting on pictures from friends and family so I can make him a photo album but here are some fun ones from his Gotcha Day! I hope you enjoy!

He was counting down the days for MONTHS!

Such a happy boy!

So excited to go inside!

He can hardly contain himself!

Sitting on his birth mama's lap and asking what is happening next!

It's OFFICIAL!

One of his foster mamas and her son.

For his adoption feast, he wanted sherbert and grapes!

There were several amazing things about this day of September 6th. One is that the courtroom was jam-packed with people from all over: DHS, church, family, and friends. The other is that we had the blessing of having his biological family there to share the experience as they have become an extended part of our family! It was such an amazing time and we feel so blessed to have had so many people come to celebrate with us!

If you missed the last Family Friday post:Kudo Tokens

Until next time...

Have a blessed day and embrace the craziness in your life!

Heidi
Numbers 6:24-26

Fostering Friday: Staying In The Lives Of Families Afterwards

Welcome to Fostering Fridays!

 Our hope is that you will be able to get a taste of what it's like to foster by reading 

our experiences and thoughts!

Last week, I talked about how to stay in touch with birth families while the child is in your care, offering them support and help.

I'm Thankful For: My Husband and Children

As I sit here thinking about my family....I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for each one of them...

So let me tell you a little about each member in my family and why I am thankful for them:

Where To Go From Here....

I'll be honest...I really haven't known where to go with this blog. I had numerous family members and friends let me know over the past couple years that they missed my blog and wanted me to write again...

So I did. On October 9, 2016, I got back on the band wagon and was really excited to do it!

However...

Update on me!

For One, my hubby sent me away on a week long trip to visit with my momma and daddy in Wisconsin!!!

Then when I got back, there was Easter....

Then......drum roll............we FINALLY had the judge sign papers on Lil Mr's adoption! It's a done deal!!!

Now, Lord Willing, we are back to our normal life of well...what is called normal around here! I look forward to getting back to my regular posting!

God bless!

Break? What Break?

While on a break from school we have been working on our garden and lanscaping. My hubby wrote such a nice blog about it, that I will just link up to his blog for you to read! Just go to PTSGP to read about our adventures.

Today: Less is....well, less!

For weeks now, I have been going through the house...giving away so much that I think the kids might start wondering if they are next!

Today we finally got to one of the things that has been on the back burner for weeks: the clothes. We LOVE hand-me-downs and get them frequently. When hand-me-downs come into the house, I don't let them get any farther than the couch. I sort them and decide what we can use. Since the last batch of clothes, I read that after you have sorted through the hand-me-downs, take them out to the car to be taken to the next person or donation drop off. Then they are not in the house to be "absorbed"! I will be doing that from now on. Last time I was not so careful and the extra clothes were cluttering up the hampers, the closets, the bedroom floors, the laundry....TOO.MANY.CLOTHES.

Some people have the misconception that the more clothes you have, the more you have to wear/the less laundry you have to do/etc... There have been studies done that show we only wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 skirts...you only wear two of them 80% of the time. You wear the others, just rarely. I believe this is a very accurate study. Also....you have MORE laundry to do, especially with little ones cause they change their clothes more often...after all, there are more in their drawers...And, you have more laundry to do because you are going through more clothes. The clothes take up space, which takes up your time to dig through and find what you actually do use.

I proved this recently with our towels. We had a ton of towels...when I say a ton, I mean you could probably have filled a small row boat with our towels. Seriously. At least 80% of these towels were from our wedding almost 13 years ago!!!! What annoyed me is how often I had to wash a load of towels!  We had so many, that everyone (yes, including me!) would use a towel once and in the laundry it went. They weren't getting hung up for a second use, thus making me have to wash at least a load of towels every day. So....several weeks ago, I went through the towels. I saved enough bath and hand  towels for two per person as well as some for company. I gave away at least 3-4 garbage bags of towels....did you read that? THREE TO FOUR GARBAGE BAGS! (What I want to know is: How come almost every person that gave us a gift for our wedding gave us TOWELS? Sigh....) Anyway....back to laundry...I now only do about one load of towels a week. YES! I love it! We use a towel, hang it up to dry, use it again. After the second use, it is thrown in the laundry.

Side Note:The same concept can be used with anything in your house. If you haven't used it in the last 6 months to a year, give it away. 
There is only one exception for me and that is holiday/seasonal stuff. You only use it once a year, so of course you need to store it. However, what I do is when I bring it out to use, I mentally look over what is in the box. If I find that I haven't used it for the last year or two, out it goes. When you buy something new, find something to give away. Even better, when you find something new, give two or more things away. Then you are always on top of it!

Now...back to what we were doing today with the girls' clothes. I had them bring ALL their clothes out to me in the living room. We sorted through everything, putting aside things that were ruined/stained/or for donation etc..then they folded their clothes back up and put them away. We ended up with several bags for donation as well as a few pieces of clothing that will be used for rags or something. Now, to finish this job, as the clothes come through the laundry over the next couple days, I will be sorting them and putting aside any for donation.

I hope you don't have an over-abundance of stuff. But if you do, and you are not sure where to start, try this:

• Start small. Pick one drawer, one cupboard, or one shelf. 
• Make three piles: to keep, to give, and to throw away.
• Re-organize what you are keeping. 
• Promptly give away or put in your car what you are giving away.
• Toss what is not being saved.
• Move onto the next small area.

Good luck!!!

A Low Key Day With My Son's Birth Mom

Today, was a low key day. We didn't do much besides the usual household stuff. Mainly because we were waiting for a phone call. My son's birth mom lives about 3.5-4 hours away from us and we hadn't seen her in months. We have a very open adoption and like to keep in contact. In fact, hardly a week goes by that we haven't exchanged several texts just chatting about life in general.

Around lunch time, we got the call that they were in town and ready to eat, so off to the pizza place we went. We had a lot of fun catching up with Mamalicia, as we call her, as well as Lil Mr's bio siblings. It was great fun! They are getting so big! We also got to meet up with "grandma Shari" who has been a grandma in the Mamalicia's kids lives since they were tiny.

All in all a very nice day and so much fun to catch up with family!