Christmas

Monday before Christmas, we dropped B off for a bio family visit. We left the visit very sad, I was crying. The look B gave me as I left her crushed me, leaving her for visits with her bio family have become more difficult for me. JC took me to Cheesecake Factory while we waited for her to return, as we waited for a table my phone rang and it was our agency's foster placement number. I answered and stepped outside to hear what they had to say...they were calling about a 3 year old boy who needed a forever home, we spoke quite sometime about him and I finally told them I'd talk to JC and call back after we picked up B. I had barely finished telling JC everything when I knew we would be saying YES! Funny how we went from being sad and in tears to excited about the possible new family member. I called back and said "yes please just bring him"! Plans were set in motion for us to meet him and bring him home the next day. During the planning we were told that this little man had told Santa just the night before that he wanted "a mommy" for Christmas, it was heartbreaking but I knew I could give him his Christmas wish. We spent the entire night preparing his room for him the next day, using JC's childhood furniture we had the perfect 3 year old boy room ready for him!
We went the next day to meet him. We played with police cars and trucks in an office while we visited with him. At one point I just went for it and I told him I had heard that he wanted a mommy for Christmas and asked him if he would like to come home with JC and I and let us be his mommy and daddy, he responded "YES, THANK YOU"! There was not a dry eye in the room. He quickly started to talk about "mommy's house" and wanting to go there. So we packed him up in the car and as we drove out of the parking lot he said "I'm so excited"...
Christmas was a blast! It was B's first Christmas and our first Christmas with children...2 children now! Our new little guy met many new family members and remembers all of their names. He is pretty sharp! His favorite is Ryan (of course), and for the last several days all we have heard is about visiting Ryan at the beach and going fishing. He fits right in!!!
Our sweet little guy loves B. It has been the sweetest thing to watch. He asks at least once a day "can I hold the baby?", and he will sit with her as long as she will allow. When B cries he will tell me "I think B pooped in her diaper" or "the baby is hungry, she needs a bottle". He learned quickly to be quiet when she is asleep and will promptly tell visitors to "shhhhhhh B is sleeping". When she is on the floor playing, he wants to sit right next to her just to be near her. Today in the car she was fussing and he started singing to her, she stopped crying as he talked and sung to her. Also today he was telling us that "Mommy is a girl and Daddy is a boy" so I asked "what is B?" and he responded "she's my little sister". We've never referred to her as his sister because we were just giving him time to adjust to our family, he came up with that all on his own. One of my only fears bringing a new child into our lives was how it was going to affect B, again I'm shown daily that God has got this!
He also loves, Willie, our goldendoodle. He loves to yell at him and play chase with him. When he can't find him, he will question you until you help him find Willie. Willie can be found sleeping at night with either one of the kids.
Christmas 2014 was the most memorable Christmas of our lives, we are looking forward to many more upcoming holidays with our two precious gifts! God has blessed us and we continue to put our faith in Him as we look forward to 2015, and the futures of our kids!

Random B Facts

Yesterday marked our B's 4 months in this world! So I just wanted to write a blog about her, so this is just a random list of things about B!

*She loves to watch TV even though her choice in shows are sometimes questionable. (She's currently trying to eat and watch Happy Gilmore.)

*She loves to kick! She will kick the heck out of you if you are in the way if her feet! Her favorite toy is her mat where she can kick a piano and make tons of noise.

*She HATES her car seat and once cried all the way home from Galveston for over a hour.

*She goes to bed every night by 7pm and anyone attempting to prevent her will regret it. She usually sleeps 12 hours a night so she fits in at this house!

*She loves her bath and always has...she loves sitting in the sink for as long as you will stand there with her.

*She has beautiful blue eyes like both her foster parents!

*She has a bigger and better wardrobe than either one of us.

*She loves to smile and laugh when she is trying to eat.

*She loves the recliner for rocking. We bought the recliner just a few weeks after she came home to us and it has been worth every cent!

*She has already been on a fishing trip and multiple trips to the beach.

*If she's smiling, laughing or doing something cute and you pull out your camera phone...she will stop immediately. 

*She loves to "stand" up but standing up means you hold her up so she can look around.

*She turns over from her stomach to her back.

*She has so many nicknames she probably doesn't know her name...B, Beezy, B-Bear...just to name a few.

*She saves her loudest truck driver burps for inappropriate times in church.

*In four months she's been to Blue Bell, a dog show, junking in Round Top, multiple Buccees, a photo walk on the Galveston sea wall, Bellville and many other fun adventures with us.

*Most importantly JC and I love her very very much and thank God for her! 

Soap Box

I've spent this morning broken hearted for the children in the foster care system. There are so many who will go through this system and age out without ever experiencing what it is like to have a mother, father and family, something we just take for granted. JC has been teaching in a high school and has had the opportunity to form relationships with some really good amazing kids and this is their reality. As teenagers they are living in shelters and have never felt wanted or loved by anyone. I think back on my teenage years where my biggest concern was if my latest crush liked me or not. I always had a place to call home and parents that were there for me, it never occurred to me that there were kids out there who didn't have that.

Why aren't children a bigger priority in our society? I watch on social media people posting constantly about "adopt don't shop" when it comes to animals (people really get passionate if they hear about you buying from a breeder). (No offense intended if that is you!) Why aren't we concerned with children like we are about animals? They should be the first concern as a society. We have all been blessed with more than we deserve, we should be sharing it with the innocent children who are less fortunate than us. We have received 7 calls since becoming licensed to do foster care/adoption for children under the age of 4. I wanted to say "YES" to all of them but fortunately I have a husband who is more realistic than I am. But I say this to show that this is a real issue in our society, we heard a quote recently that just in our county there are 5,000 children in the foster care system. Every single last one of those children, deserve to be loved unconditionally by a family. They don't deserve to hear the multiple excuses we hear daily from the public in regards to foster care. "I just couldn't do foster care." or "I'd rather have my own." Well believe me, I'm sure if these children were given a choice they wouldn't be in foster care and they were would born to loving families capable of caring for them but guess what they weren't given a choice in any of this.

I hope that we can all step back from our blessed lives, set aside our selfish desires and share unconditional love for the most innocent in our society. God didn't bless me with all he has given me to do anything less.

3 Months

Our little B just turned 3 months old which means we've had her about 3 months! I want to share a little of our story with B, we are not allowed to share info regarding her case but I wanted share our story and a little about this sweet little girl who has changed our world.

We received a call from our placement coordinator on a Friday about 445pm, there was a nine day old baby girl being sent home Monday from a local NICU and she wanted to know if we were interested. She wasn't able to give us any info about the baby's future or about whether this would be a short term placement, long term placement or forever placement...we were driving after leaving the gun range, and I had her on speaker phone so JC could hear all the details of the call...I looked at him and to my surprise he said "yes"!!!! After the painful relocation of our previous placement, I was surprised to hear him with so much certainty say "yes"...it was an answer to my prayers! Then we waited the whole painful weekend to see if we were the ones "picked" by CPS for this baby girls placement...this was the most exciting and painful weekend ever!!!! Monday morning I received the call that we had been picked and I could expect a call from her caseworker about going to get her from the hospital. I was dancing and squealing with excitement, JC was excited too but he doesn't show it like me!! HA!
Her caseworker called me and we set up a meeting time at the hospital, she told me "you are going to love her, she is so cute and loves to smile"...the anticipation was almost too much!
We arrived at the hospital and had to wait outside the NICU until the caseworker got there...being on the other side of the NICU as a parent was a interesting place for me to be! Once we were allowed in the NICU, I saw the caseworker holding the baby and she said to me "here's your baby" and I ran washed my hands and took her. She weighed 5lbs and was the sweetest little thing ever!!! I changed her and fed her, talked to the neonatologist about her medical history, signed my life away to CPS and the hospital and then we had her in the truck and we were on our way home! The CPS worker had told us several times that this would be a short term placement, she didn't think she'd be with us very long for various reasons...well three months later she is still here and will be here for the holidays, and we continue to pray for her future after that.

When she came home, she slept and never cried. In fact JC was sure something was wrong because she never made a peep! This lasted for about 2 months, well now this little girl has opinions about everything! She has our entire lives upside down and we are loving every minute of it! She smiles and laughs and then a few seconds later will be yelling at us to do something different with her. She is so much fun and has brought joy to our lives that we didn't even know we were missing!
She has fit right in to our lives, and our friends and family have accepted her as our baby whether that be temporary or forever. The people close to us who have supported us and love this little one as much as we do, are priceless...the kind words, prayers, visits, texts, gifts and love we have received are overwhelming and I cannot thank y'all enough! I ask that y'all continue to pray for our little girl, and that the future outcomes of her case are what is very best for her!!! She deserves nothing less!

And on a random side note, my most favorite thing in the world is to watch Ryan with B. He LOVES her, and he LOVES to feed her! It's the most special thing in the world to watch Ryan, who I brought home from the hospital with my Mom 11 years ago love her so so much. God has been very good to us through the foster care system, and I'm blessed to witness these two miracles.


Ryan proudly and happily feeding B!

Foster to Adopt

I'm writing today to answer some of the most asked questions by friends and family about this adventure! We get many questions about "are you going to adopt this one" or "are you just wanting to foster children"...so I'm going to attempt to explain things in the foster care system as I understand them. 

There are 3 different options in the foster care system...only foster care, straight adoption and foster to adopt. I will explain foster to adopt last because that is our current option. All three options go through the same process to become a licensed home in the state of Texas (or at least with our agency that is the case).

There are families in foster care, who only do foster care. They provide homes for children until they can be reunited with family or until they can be placed with a forever adoptive home. 

There are families who choose to never do foster care and adopt children who are currently ready and waiting for adoption. This means parental rights have been terminated and there are no kinship options for their placement. This is a zero risk way to adopt a child through the state. 

Lastly and more personally, the option we have chosen at this time is foster to adopt. This means that we accept foster children and IF the opportunity to adopt the child becomes available we are ready and willing! The process of knowing if you will be able to adopt the child generally takes about a year, depending on the details of a case. The number 1 goal of CPS is to reunite children with their families, even if they are unable to reunite them with their parents they try hard to keep them with family. After all familial options are exhausted and investigated, if a child becomes available for adoption that is in our home then we could adopt them.

Maybe these explanations have explained a little or maybe just left you with more questions...please ask questions if you have any, my hope is to bring awareness to these precious kids!

...I'm cutting this short because someone is waking up from a nap!!!

Foster by Faith

JC and I get many questions and confused comments about our journey through the foster care system. I wanted to start this blog to hopefully answer questions, bring awareness to the foster care system and adoption, and document our journey!

Our journey begin back in 2003 when we were just dating. My parents were foster parents, and I was living at home finishing up nursing school. My mom got a call from CPS about a 6 day old baby being discharged home from the NICU, I heard her tell CPS she'd talk with her husband (my father) and call them back. As soon as she hung up the phone I recall saying "forget about dad, let's go get him"! So without telling my dad, we were off to pick up who is now my 11 year old brother! We walked into the NICU and the nurse handed me, Ryan, while my mom signed some paperwork. We put him the car without one thing at the house for an infant, we had to go to Target to get things for him. I held him high and shielded him from onlookers inside the store while answering questions from strangers about the baby. We took him by JC's work to show JC and we went home. Dad came home from  work to find me sitting in their room holding this baby, he looked at me confused and walked out of the room without a word. It was a day I'll never forget and it changed the life of my family in ways I cannot put into words.  18 months later Ryan was legally made a member of our family!!!

Ryan is the reason our story begins! JC and I knew from the start we wanted to adopt because of the miracle we had seen with Ryan. After some bumps and turns in our lives, January 2014 was the start for us together in this adventure of foster care. We determined that 2014 was the year we were going to get licensed to do foster care/adoption. It was just a random year nothing significant other than we knew it was time to do it! We went to orientation in January, PRIDE class in February and were licensed May 21st 2014.

May 22nd we received the first call for a placement. I immediately wanted to say YES!!!! After harassing my husband, he agreed. The sweetest cutest little year and a half old fellow was placed with us, and then two weeks later shockingly removed to be placed with family. It was heartbreaking...they came to get him and he wiped tears from my face as I told him that I would always love him. He will always have a piece of our hearts and we are forever thankful for our time with him.

So this was how it all started...we are blessed that God placed it on our hearts to be parents to the children in the foster care system. I'm not a very social person but ask me about foster care and adoption and all of the sudden I have plenty to say!!! We have been divinely lead to do this and the only reason we can do this is our Faith that God lead us here and He and He alone is in control of His children. Without Him, this journey would be impossible...hence my blog title Foster by Faith.

Ryan and I in Galveston, the day we got our first placement!

Happy, Happy, Happy