the here + now

Dear mama trying to hold it all together. To do it all. Dear mama trying to reach ridiculous standards. To the mom who is crying cleaning because you're just so overly tired. Stop. Stop it all. Take a nap, a bath, paint your toe nails, play with chalk outside, jump on the trampoline. Because those standards in our heads will always put us below the line.  I had a realization this week. I can't do it all. I will try and clean when I'm actually home. I'll work hard & seek joy. We'll make the appointments. I'll meal plan. I'll smile & sometimes crazy dance. But there are days when I'm just going to need to nap. That this house will look like a zoo has trampled through because there are SEVEN people living here. I can't do it all. I can't. It's impossible. I can't expect that every room looks immaculate.  /////This new realization will be so sad for our teen & 7 year old twins when I start pack...

Guys let me be honest. I talk very passionately about foster care & knowing God has called us here. Rainbows & sunshine. Not really. It is in our hearts. We're here. We are present.  We aren't walking away. But guys, some days it's just HARD. Bringing in children who you didn't birth. Children that you will fall in love with, knowing they just can't wait until the judge finally says "it's time to go home" Children who you have not raised. The appointments, and meetings and visits. The lack of communication. People making decisions about these children who do not live with them, do not see the need for this or that. People who make a decision & sometimes you do want to punch them in the face. And other days you're so thankful you do not have that burden. I've never been so thankful for social workers. I've also discovered. NO WAY. Would I ever want to be a social worker.  But there's...

When my twins were toddlers I remember moms freaking out about the upcoming summer. Moms not wanting their bigs home all day. Trying to figure out how they were going to end the summer with their sanity. And me in pride just couldn't understand, why. But now that my twins are older & bicker like crazy. I GET IT. But I don't want to enter into SuMmEr (yes, I just did that!) 2014 in fear or grumpiness. I want us to have a summer. You know, lots of fun. I want to seek the joy. I want us to laugh & get dirty & stay up too late & swim & play with sparklers (because I'm a wild mom like that) & dance & jump on the trampoline til I pee my pants, which isn't long &....... Where it stops my heart & makes me stressed, grumpy and fearful ----> 5 kids. FIVE. A teen, twin 7 year olds, a 3 (next month) year old and a toddler who is not quite 2 but we know how those month before 2 are. There are 10+ birthdays, all of our birthdays, but the young...

I washed the grapes, dried them and removed each and every beautiful grape from the vines & then into the growing old tupperware. The toddlers were at my ankles crying to eat them. Thankfully it was almost lunch time. They were so happy when I finally sat them in their high chairs, with the animal plates filled with said grapes, goldfish crackers, apples, cheese & raisins (yes I know...) I then took a grape and ate it. SEEDS. What? The Kroger sign said seedless. I then took the grapes from the toddlers which if you have toddlers know how that scene went. Took the cutting board out and got to work. Frustrated, I knew I could learn something here. So I prayed, God what can I learn from this? We are just like those seeded grapes. I am just like that grape. At times the sins can seem so small, so unimportant. But can be choked in the throat. My sins, I can push the "little" ones aside, because sheesh I'm not cheating on my husband or using heroine. But the truth is...

There have been a lot of posts this month on foster care, but this is the first one I'm sharing from an adult who not only was in the system but experienced foster to adopt. This story from my friend, Elisha shows pain, loss, heartache, kindness, redemption and great love. I'm so glad to share Elisha/s story with you today. - - - - -  I remember hearing someone knock on our door in the middle of the night. I was woken up by my biological mom packing a bag and crying, telling me I need to wake up. I cried and cried because I didn’t understand what was happening as I was put in a car with a stranger (who later became my social worker). My older brother who was 8 years old at the time held my hand in the car and said everything would be okay. I remember finally falling asleep and waking up to Mary, our social worker gently shaking me awake. My older brother was gone, they said he went to live in a different home but would visit soon. I walked into the home I would live in ...

I have asked my friend, Natalie, to come share about Safe Families.  My husband and I began an international adoption of twin boys when the timeline for completion was right around one years. Twelve whole months. It was to go quickly, and they would be in our home. Baby showers were generously held for us. We started thrifting some essentials. I bought way too many little boy clothes. And then we began to see the timeline grow. More delays. Another six months. All the while, our hearts were aching for these two boys to be in our home. But more than that, we realized we were aching to have children in our home. To parent children from hard places. And we realized they didn't even have to be "ours." We had all the necessities, so what should we do? I'm a social worker in the foster care system. Foster care was on our minds. But my husband's schedule as a med student and now medical resident didn't lend well to foster parent training. Or the full-time, ex...

I met Elisha through social media I would say a little over a year ago. I loved her mama heart and felt so drawn to her words. She's encouraging. And she loves her boys fiercely. She recently wrote an ebook. I've read a few ebooks lately. I love the idea of an ebook, simple ideas that don't take 400 pages to explain. Hers is just the same. She gets to the point of motherhood & offers practical tips to help you navigate this journey a little more smoothly.  "It seems being a homemaker, being a mom and staying home are job today's society doesn't know how to handle so it is laughed about and teased." You can read this ebook too by either subscribing by email on Elisha's  blog  or you can buy it for $2.99 on  Amazon

I am a put on my big girl panties, put on the tough boots and get to work type gal.  No asking for favors or help or admitting I need a mommy time out. Recently I have been overwhelmed with the word REST. And not in the good way where I should feel overwhelmed by the freedom of it, but annoyed. I have been so sick of reading blogs about rest. Hearing my husband tell me that I need to be taking time for myself. For my best friend telling me I need to rest. And then, THEN. I'm part of the Thrive Moms social media team, so I of course, had to do the Hiding Place devotional. Truth be told I've done it, sat there looking at my journal page wanting to burn the book. Like literally, put fire to it & watch it burn. Because rest has felt so outside what is available. Because when I choose to take on two extras while I already have 3 biological children it meant that it was my choice to be here. That because I choose this, I had to buckle down and just work...

I listened about her case. My heart broke as to be expected. And we said yes. Then I went into a fit of hysteria. While this would be nice to be just an exaggeration. I scream cried. I questioned God A LOT. How can I care for a teen mom? And not only care for her but "you'll need to teach her to mother also"? Then we waited. We waited for the phone call after court.  She wasn't coming, a family member stepped up!!  I had decided after that call that we were not called to foster teen moms, that it was just a situation where God was seeing if I would say yes. And then a week later...... We got another call.  That was the call. After months of nothing. After weeks of several calls daily. This was it. I could feel it in my bones. I was ready to fight for them & never felt so un-nervous about a possible placement.  It's been a ride. A beautiful one. We've had our ups and our downs. I've had days wonder why God thought I could moth...

"You know God is going to lead us to foster teens, I know it, we're just waiting on you to know it" the mr. - - - - - -  When Doug and I first started taking our classes we decided on ages 2-7, we felt done with the baby stage & we wanted the children to be Alex and Olivia's age or younger.  But then God started working through others to push us to lower our ages, so we decided to lower our ages 0-7, to do this another home inspection has to be done. While our home inspector was here Doug asked her if there are any children they've been having a hard time placing. "yes, actually 'the county we live in' is trying to find a home for a teen mom and her baby."  You know that feeling. That feeling where you feel like someone threw a baseball bat at your stomach and God is standing on your head at the same time? That happened. I pulled myself together, looked at Doug and said no. But the moment our inspector left, you k...

Guest Post from Christy //// May is National Foster Care Awareness Month In honor of  Foster Care Awareness Month , many foster parents are taking the opportunity to talk about their experiences as foster parents and offer some tangible, relevant, constructive ideas for how folks can help make things better for the little ones in the system. Today, I'd like to  talk about school pictures.  "School pictures?" you  say? Yes, school pictures. I had an experience last week that was very emblematic of the way kids in foster care simply miss out on some of the things most of us just take for granted. We got our two kids in January, and we are the third foster home they have been in since September. When they arrived at our house, they came with TWO car-fulls of "stuff." Clothes, toys, and papers in plastic garbage bags and old diaper boxes. It has taken me all this time to finally sort through it all. Last week, I discovered a three-ring binder from my foster son...

I was having a day. My kids had me completely exhausted. And I saw  THIS  post shared all over facebook. I read it, and said, yes I'm sick of it. I'll never be the mom that creates spectacular birthday parties, who celebrates 1/2 birthdays with mini cupcakes or uses the creepy elf on the shelf. But the truth is. I do want my kids to have a magical childhood. I am a woman who loves surprises and doesn't want to know the ending to the book. I love watching magic shows and you better not tell me how the tricks work. I love watching the sunrise. I love the light in kids eyes when they see Santa in the parade. I am a magical being. I love the awe & the unknown.  I do want my kids to have a magical childhood, because not all do. I want kids who are not my biological kids to have a magical time here because I don't know how long we will have them. I want to be able to take our kids to Disney World because all the movies come to life and it's magical. I want my kids...

Every month there are causes people get all passionate about. May is the I talk about month because it's national foster care awareness month and if you've been reading my blog for any amount of time you know I'm not only passionate about foster care but I am in the thick of it. To start this month off I want to share how we got here.  Doug and I always talked openly about adoption. After having Addison we choose for me to have to  Essure procedure  done, which is a permanent birth control. It wasn't long after that we started discussing adoption. Everything seemed to start pointing to orphan care for me. It was one of those "Ok, God enough already" type things. I decided to call our county office because Doug and I had discussed that we wanted to adopt from foster care. Or so we thought. My adoption box was busted how I thought it would work wasn't actually how it works.  "You can either go through a private agency, lawyer or become foster pa...