Dear Friends and Family,
I had truly thought there was a possibility that I would be able to get into my blogging full time again. Trust me, there is content coming out my ears of all the things I would love to place on here! However, having a foster baby and extra teen these past few months makes an impact on blogging time, believe it or not!
Today it was in my heart, with it being Thanksgiving weekend, to give an update to our "peeps".
I want to thank all of you for being supportive in our fostering and adoptive journey. It's not a journey we planned but one we have happily traveled as the Lord has laid it out in front of us. I think it is fitting that at this point I give a loose update on where we are currently with the placements in our home:
If you read this post a few weeks ago about The Ever Changing Numbers Of A Foster Family, I mentioned that we didn't know how long we would have either of our extra blessings. That has since changed a bit: The teenager that has been living with us will be going home next weekend. As every change, it is bittersweet. It's time for their family to be reunited, which is our desire and prayer. She will still come over regularly for respite, as she has for the past two years. So we will still get to have her around! Our little baby will also be going home sometime in the next two months, more than likely.Their little family will still be monitored for months to come by DHS per protocol but they will be all together. We sure have enjoyed having this sweet little one in our home! He has been a joy and blessing. We will absolutely miss him. (Although I will enjoy sleeping at night again!!)
In other foster news: We will be taking a break from fostering for a undetermined period of time. Since our adoption of Noah, we feel it is important for him to completely understand that he is a permanent part of our family. With the coming and goings of other kiddos, it reminds him of his early time in DHS care when he was moved regularly before coming into our home. So he assumes that means he will have to move on as well. As a result, it's important for his emotional well being that we focus on our core family and take a sabbatical from fostering. This wasn't an easy decision to come to, however, our family is our first concern. We have taken a poll with the girls and they also agree that it's time for a break.
That being said, there are many other ways we can continue to support the foster care system. I plan on doing a blog post on this soon as we have had many people ask how they can help out. So look for that to come out!
In other news, school is going good for all our kiddos. There have been some changes that have come along, but all in all, they are changes for the good that our family has embraced. The girls, that are in school, are still homeschooling. Tony continues to homeschool and use the resource (or SPED) room at the local elementary school. He has been receiving a little more help there this year. I'm not sure if I mentioned before but we had more testing done at the beginning of the school year and intellectually, he is not where we hoped he would be at this point. However, the team at school still continues to believe that we are doing the right thing for him. So we continue doing what we are doing! Noah continues going to a private school we found for him last year. We are so blessed by the team there and their willingness to help us train him with his social behaviors!
We are looking forward to the holiday season! How about you? This year sees us blissfully scaling down the activities outside the home to concentrate on our family and the blessed meaning of Christmas. Recently we had everyone write down their favorite traditions or even traditions they thought might be fun to start. It was neat to see what the kids favorite traditions were. What struck me, however, was that most of them simply had to do with spending time doing different activities with our family! And that, I can appreciate!
Does your family have any favorite Christmas traditions?
Well, my free moment of time is swiftly disappearing as the house is starting to wake up! Our little baby is gleefully chuckling at Peter, Noah is tossing in bed waiting for the all clear to get up and play while Tony tucks his head under his blanket for a few more minutes of sleep. I don't expect the girls to wake up any time soon, but once they do, we will be decorating the house for Christmas!
Praying that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!
From our house to yours: God bless
Heidi
