Another Year

As the world is celebrating another year tonight, I began my celebrations early by celebrating another birthday today. Ahh! I am now 33. I remember turning 30 and having a couple of friends saying they were glad I was no longer in my 20's since they weren't anymore either. I guess we don't like to feel old alone :) I really can't believe that I am in my 30's. When I was in my 20's, all of my 30's friends seemed so mature. But I have to be honest, I don't feel that way. Sometimes I wonder to myself "Am I mature enough to have a husband, three kids, own a home and make decisions on my own?" My parents always seemed to know what they were doing. I sure don't. Maybe when I turn 40 I will feel that way. I guess I have 7 years until I find out. In the mean time, I will ask God to give me wisdom for each day and thank Him for the blessings that He has given me. Whether I thought I would feel more old or mature than I do as a thirty something, I know that I am blessed more than I could have imagined.

Thank you, God, for the wonderful 33 years you have given me, my family and my friends. Most of all thank you for you and the work you have done in my life.

Fingerprinting

Well we had our appointment today. On the way to the office we explained to the kids that it was very important to be on their best behavior. I even went a little further and explained what that meant, just in case they forgot. My biggest fear is that one of the kids will have a melt down and the social worker will figure we can't parent and that will be the end of that. The kids were great though, I was nervous because prior to leaving the house Clay had to be reprimanded for one thing and as the kids were walking out to the garage Drew had to be also. So I was praying that it would be the end of the misbehaving.

So we handed over our stack of paperwork known as our application. It was basically our lives in a nutshell, including references, diagram of our home, all the money we make and spend, physicals, and questions about every aspect of our lives. We were able to meet our social worker face to face. She seemed nice and encouraged me to call whenever I had questions. I liked that. She looked over everything and said it looked to be in order. Then we waited to be fingerprinted. We have been fingerprinted so many times between Drew's adoption, our last attempt and this time, that I wonder if criminals are fingerprinted as much as we have been.

The next step is training. That will begin the end of January. We will have a 3 hour class once a week for 9 weeks. During that time our social worker will come out to our house to look it over. In addition we are waiting on letter from the Adoptions office to state when the meeting for that is. Adopting through the foster system requires some additional steps, then if we are just wanting to foster parent.

So that is that. It is official now, we are on the road to foster parenting. As I was having my fingerprints done, the lady in the office asked me if we were going to be foster parents. I said yes, and she said "thank you, you are needed".

Are we still adopting?

I've asked myself this question several times over the past year. We desired to adopt again several years ago while still living in Indiana. We knew, though, that we would be moving so postponed beginning the process until we were situated in our new home (where ever that might be.) So once we relocated to CA, I was ready to begin the process again. Korea was on my heart, so that was the assumption that I made, that we would go with Korea. However, once we arrived we were made aware of another possibility through the California Foster System. Sounds scary, but we learned about a private agency where we would have personal care, and more protection. They won't do high risk placements, meaning a higher risk of the child going back to birth family. So we investigated this process and through a lot of talking and prayer felt this was the way to go. That was two years ago. The homestudy process was a bit rough, a lot more paperwork than we had experienced with adopting Drew, we also had to take about 3 months off for family reasons. But we stuck with it and began child search in October of 2008. The weeks dragged on waiting to hear about a placement, then the months began to drag on. We were told about a few possibilities, our hopes were up to only find out that the child was placed with someone else. During this whole process the question continued in our minds, aren't there thousands of foster children in the system? Where are they? Why aren't we hearing about them? Unfortunately, the answer was timing. The economy is bad, California is bankrupt. What does that have to do with the children? Well the counties are cutting down resources, social workers are being laid off, things are moving slower, counties aren't spending the money to place children far from their location. Frustrating because most of the counties our agency worked with were around 3 hours away. Sad, because there are children, and they still need homes. And we are a home waiting for them. But after more talking and more praying, we have come to realize that we are on a dead end street. Spinning our wheels. After talking to our social worker several months ago, it was suggested to look into leaving the agency and work directly with our county.

We knew about our county's program in the beginning, but did not choose that way because of the risk. We could possibly have several children come and go to be reunited with the birth family. I didn't think I could handle it. After dragging my feet (Jathan was willing to switch a while ago) I have been reminded that when God calls us to something it isn't always easy. We both believe we are called to adopt, now we have to be willing to obey even though this road could result in heartache. We do know that even if children come and go, we will have the unique opportunity to be a family to them for a period of time. During that time we can love them, care for them and teach them things of the Lord.

So here we are ready to begin the process. Last week we closed our file with our adoption agency. I have to say there was sinking feeling in my heart when we did that. We have our appointment today with the county to get fingerprinted and turn in our application. We are specifying that we would like to adopt. With this they will try to place children that it looks like there will be a strong possibility to adopt. Of course, with many there are a lot of unknowns as far as the amount of risk. That is where faith comes in. We have to believe that we are doing what God has called us to do. We will pray and ask you to pray for protection on our family, especially our kids. We are proceeding with the attitude that we are taking care of children for a short period of time, if God opens the door to adopt one of them, we will be grateful and proceed.

So that is the story of where we are at right now. I will try to post later today to update on the fingerprinting and what the rest of the process is.

Please pray as we begin our new adoption journey. I want so bad to be an advocate of adoption and how special it is to God's heart. But I fear that when I share the heartaches and problems we have gone through, it will scare people off. It is hard, if you asked 100 people who have adopted about the process you will get many varying stories, some will be smooth processes where everything fell right into place, others will tell of the long wait as looked at the picture of their child on the fridge and longed for the phone call to bring them home, others have had matches to have them only fall through in the end. So many stories, but I would bet that of those 100 people you ask, not matter what their story was about the process, they will tell you they wouldn't have traded it for the world, because they now have that child, or children that God placed in their family. I have learned with adopting, it is so much more than helping a child, for me it is all part of God's sanctifying process in my life. Lord willing through it I am becoming more like him. All that to say, I hope that any of my adoption talk will not scare you off if you are thinking about adopting. Look back a few posts in my blog about our journey to get Drew. I know it is worth it. Hard, but so worth it.

Pottery Painting

My sister collects mugs from her travels and decorates her kitchen with them. She has yet to get one from our town in CA. She has some from others that she has visited in the state but not from here. She decided to have the kids each decorate a mug for her to have as her souvenir from here. So a few days before Christmas Mandy, Mom, the kids and I headed to a "paint your own" pottery place and the kids each painted a mug for Mandy and a take home treat for themselves.

Below, Drew is decorating the Mug for Aunt Mandy. He also picked out a transformer to paint. he was a bit disappointed to find out that it was for looks only though, not to play with.

Paige picked out a dragon for her take home piece. It did turn out quite cute. She concentrated so hard that I would find her sticking out her tongue as she painted, so cute.

Clay choose a jeep for his take home piece. He painted it in camo colors (his favorite). It turned out quite nice.

The kids did enjoy using their creative abilities painting. And they were very pleased when they saw their finished work after the pieces had been fired and were all shiny.

Christmas Celebration

We had a great Christmas. Mom and my sister, Mandy, flew in from Indiana a few days before Christmas (and are in the process of flying home as I am typing). We actually celebrated Christmas (meaning we had the big meal and opened presents) on Christmas Eve. On that day Mom, Paige, Clay and I helped bag cookies for a local jail ministry. Our rule is to be 6 years old before you can help with this, so it was Clay's first year. One of the chaplains attends our church. On Christmas day they will hand out the cookies along with other items and scripture to inmates. It is a great personal contact that helps develop relationships that can be used throughout the year in ministry. After the cookie bagging we headed home, worked on the meal and started our family celebrations.

First, we had a very nice meal (if I do say so myself).



Then we took pictures by the tree.



Then we spent some time in the Bible talking about Christ, the reason for this wonderful holiday.

Then we opened presents.

The big gift for the boys this year were Bionicles. Clay was pretty sure that one of his packages had one inside and was pretty excited to open it.



And Drew was pretty excited himself to open his own Bionicle.



Paige is the one who cracks me up. She can be so girly and yet love, and I mean really love football. She got some Polly Pocket doll accessories, which she asked for and a Pittsburgh Steelers 2010 calendar, her favorite team, (we are a bit disappointed that the Colts aren't her favorite but they are in 2nd place) and football cards. She was so excited. Here is a picture of Paige organizing her football cards in the neat little binder that she also got for Christmas.



On Christmas Day we relaxed, played with our new toys and Jathan helped distribute the cookies to the inmates in one of the jails. We had a great time.

The Day After Christmas

I remember when I was a kid the day after Christmas was a huge let down. Not that I was disappointed with Christmas, just that I looked forward to it for so long and then in a flash it was over. There weren't any more presents under the tree, in fact the tree was about to go back in it's box, we would say goodbye to cousins and grandparents and head back home, lights came down from our house, decorations back to the attic, it was over. A months preparation and then it was over in a day until the next year. So sad. The month leading up to Christmas day was so busy, filled with cookie making, decorating, Christmas programs, wrapping presents, peeking in presents (and I have to admit I was terrible about that, my mom had to double wrap gifts and use code to mark who they were for, but I always seemed to figure it out anyway, I was so naughty!) looking at lights, listening to Christmas carols, not to mention the night before when I would lay awake for what seemed to be hours trying so hard to listen for hooves up on the roof. Looking out the window anytime I thought I heard something or saw a flash of light, hoping that I could catch Santa. The morning seemed like it would never come. So when it was over it was disappointing. For some reason though as I have gotten older, I don't feel that way anymore. I don't think I am grinch and just don't care much about the holiday anymore. Maybe it is because we are out of routine and I like things in order so I look forward to the day after so that order can return to my house. Or maybe I can finally feel finished with all of the preparations and just relax a little. Or that I finally get to see the kids enjoy what we have been hiding from them for a while. I don't think it is any of those things though.

I would like to think that it is because I have realized the reason for the season. God gave us his perfect son. The perfect gift to us. And after celebrating his birth on Christmas we can celebrate his perfect life and his perfect sacrifice for our sins. So the day after Christmas shouldn't be a let down, because it should be us celebrating the beginning of God's work of redemption that he had been preparing the world for since the beginning. So if we are truly focused on Christ's birth and all that that entails, the day after should be a time of joy as we continue to celebrate this gracious gift of the Savior.

So, I pray as the Christmas season has come to a close, that the true meaning will be in the front of your thoughts and produce a grateful heart of joy. We are celebrating Jesus, his gift of salvation doesn't end on December 25.

"Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

Luke 1: 30-33

Missing Dad

I don't know why some days missing Dad hits me more than others. I know that holidays can be hard, but I don't think that is what it is. A couple of days ago the kids and I looked through a photo album that my sister put together of my dad's life. Paige looks at it all of the time, but she wanted me to look at it with them so I could tell them more about the pictures. It is nice to have the memories that I can share with the kids, hopefully keeping their memories of dad alive. Oh how I miss him though. It is little things like watching a Purdue basketball game and remembering all of the games that Dad and I went to together. Thinking about how excited he would be about how well they are doing this year. Looking up at the mountains as I drive through town and think about how Dad loved visiting us here and getting to go up into the mountains and exploring them. Remembering driving with my Dad across the country as he helped us move out here. Seeing the kids growing and learning and knowing how proud Dad would be of them. Talking to Mom and knowing that she is alone. Listening to Paige rattle off dates of crazy things like when she lost all of her teeth and so on and knowing she is exactly like my dad!

I miss talking to him and hearing his voice. I miss his smile and gentle spirit. I miss him.

His life on earth was relatively short, not quite 58 years. But he had a good life and I was blessed with the time I had with him. I never questioned his love for me, it was very evident. The time was shorter with Dad that I would have liked, but the time I did have was a blessing from God, for which I am very grateful.

As much as I wish Dad was here right now, I am thankful that Dad is with his Savior. I am thankful that my heavenly father is good, and I know that all is for his glory. And I am thankful that he uses my family in displaying his glory.

I miss you Dad.