Lunch Time

The kids are back in school and I am thankful for a normal routine.  One thing that I commited to last year was to pack my kids healthy lunches.  I have become a bit obsessed with it :).  I love finding perfect containers and boxes.  I have tried several from the inexpensive Glad & Ziplock to more expensive click lock containers found on Amazon.  I found these really great ones at Wal*Mart this year and they were only $8!  I'm loving them!  So I'm going to share lunches with you.  For one reason...I find it so helpful to see what others are doing and get ideas and for another...because I'm proud and I want to show off my creations!!

I do my best to pack whole, nutritious, low-sugar, organic meals.  I also do my best to pack all of the basic food groups.  My son loses his mind when he has sugar and dyes so I do my best to limit those to save the sanity of his teachers.  This lunch was from Tuesday.  Monday was a pack your own lunch day.  I think one of the kids has two bags of chips and a brownie that day...but I digress.  Tuesdays lunch...ham & cheese sandwich on horrible white W0nder bread, processed ham that I got at Sams and Kraft cheese.  Not my best work.  Half a peach, and some Laughing Cow herb & garlic cheese.  Laughing Cow cheese is gluten free and made with whole milk as opposed to powdered or weird varieties.  I added some wheat crackers (Keebler brand, nothing special about them), some pistacios (Pistachios are an excellent source of copper and manganese, and a good source of phosphorus. They’re also an excellent source of vitamin B6, offering 20% of the Daily Value per serving. In addition to vitamin B6, pistachios are a good source of thiamin (15% DV) and have lesser amounts of other B vitamins, such as folate and biotin at 4% DV, and riboflavin, niacin, and pantothenic acid at 2% DV. They are also a great souce of fiber.), there are some chocolate covered rasins hiding uner there (it's a sweet treat without a lot of sugar), a Fiber One brownie and apple sauce.

My kids...and my husband...love the Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies.  Here is a comparison on the Cosmic brownies and the Fiber One.  The Fiber One brownies are a good alternative.  Especially for my son who can't handle sugar.

Calories in Little Debbie cosmic brownies

Serving Size: 1 serving

Amount Per Serving

Calories 300

• Total Fat 13.0 g
• Saturated Fat 4.0 g
• Cholesterol 10.0 mg
• Sodium 170.0 mg
• Total Carbohydrate 43.0 g
• Dietary Fiber 1.0 g
• Sugars 27.0 g
• Protein 3.0 g

This was today's lunch.  Left over Panara bread, Oscar Meyer Deli Fresh Chicken Breast (getting better, but still not a great cut of meat), peanuts, ants on a log with chocolate covered rasins sprinkled with Chia seeds, fruit rope, and a half of a papple (pear/apple).

It does take some practice and research to come up with yummy, interesting lunches for your kids, but it is possible!  It does take an extra bit of time, but it is worth it!!

Tonight's the Night!

Tonight's the night! Rich & I complete our final class!  27 hours down in 4 weeks!  90 minute drive one way...over!  Monday & Thursday 18 hour days..no more!!  Don't get me wrong, these classes have been wonderful.  Our instructors have be awesome and we have learned soooo much, but I am ready to be done with the long days!  We have our final homestudy meeting at our house on 09/7.  After that we just have to wait for the fingerprint clearance to come through.  Once that happens we will get a letter in the mail and then we wait for a referral call.  To say I'm excited is weird.  Obviously the circumstance of a child coming into our home is not good.  Any child that enters the custody of the state has been throught trama and no child should have to go through pain and suffering.  I am grateful that we are able to help.  It's sad that there is such a need for qualified foster parents.

Our kids grow so quickly.  Before you know it they are in high school!  We are looking forward to having little feet in our home again.  This picture is of my dad and my Goddaughter.  He was reading many books to her this weekend and I said to my step-mom "won't it be nice to have little ones around to read to again?"  My kids are to big to sit on your lap and let you read a book.  I can't wait to be able to cuddle up to a toddler and read to them.  To let them know that they are loved and wanted.

Back to School

Kaitlyn Nicole, 15 years old, Sophomore

Khloe Elaine, 13 years old, 8th grade

Drew Allen, 11 years old, 5th grade

It's that time of year again!  When the kids head back to school and the mamas cry and say how fast time flies and how they can't believe their kid is in ___ grade!  Yep, that's me!  I can't believe how fast they grow up!  I wasn't ready for them to go back to school, but I was.  I am looking forward to the house not being messed while I am at work every day!  I am also looking forward to a routine.  I like my kids home though.  I like the laziness of summer and no rushed schedules.  Having two teenage girls and one grumpy boy in the house trying to get ready in the mornings has proven to be a bit of a challenge.  We need to make some adjustments but we'll get it!  As I was driving to work this morning feeling frustrated and a bit bad about the way things went this morning I wondered how adding more kids to the mix will work.  We are rushed as it is, I can't imagine trying to get other kids ready in addition to these three!  Time will tell.  I'm anxious to see how things will work out.  What age kid will we bring into our home?  How many?  What sex?  What if we get two of the same sex?  How will that work with bedrooms?  So many questions.

Tonight is session 8 in our classes.  One more after this and we are done!!  So close!  It's hard not to get excited and start looking ahead and asking those questions.  I want to be able to prepare, to have the right sheets on the bed, to have clothes ready.  But I guess in the world of Foster Care I need to get used to the fact that there isn't much preparation that you can do.  You just take things as they come and know that it will all work out.

Fall is approaching, a change in the season, a change for us soon in our home.  I wish I could turn a few chapters and peek ahead. :)

Session Six!

We are chuggin along in our PRIDE training.  We complete session six of nine tonight.  We opted to take the fast track and complete the 27 hours of required training in one month instead of the standard 9 weeks.  In order to do this we drive 90 minutes one way.  It makes for a very long Monday and Thursday.  Today I was up at 6:30 to get two kids to cross country practice and then to work by 8.  I will work until 4 and then make the drive to Urbana, have class and return home at 10:30pm.  *yawn*  It makes me tired just thinking about it.  But...that is how serious/dedicated we are :)  Or crazy, I'm not sure which. 

We had our second homestudy visit this week with our licensing worker.  It was short and sweet and to the point.  She checked out our new beds and verified that guns and meds were locked.  She answered questions from training and said she would be back for her final visit once we had completed our classes.

We are eager to see what God has in store for us.  We are eager for the first call and the first placement.  We are eager to finish up on our classes!  This is going to be an adventure and I can't wait to see it all unfold!

Two years passed?

Has it really been two years since I've written anything? Time flies.

With a new journey for our family on the horizon, I thought I would come back to the blog to document.

Let's start with an updated picture of what our family looks like today...

Khloe, on the left, is 13 now. Drew, in front, is 11 and Kait, on the right, is 15.
We are a very busy family. The kids are involved in many activities and sports. I still work full time and Rich still travels. We still have not adopted. We "borrow" our God-daughter a lot. She is 2 1/2 and brings much joy to our family! We love her to pieces and the kids fight over who gets to spend time with her and who gets to sit by her in the car! We have her every Sunday. She has been a huge joy and blessing to our family!

Where have we been over the passed two years? We did pursue Miracles In Waiting Embryo Adoption and only received a few emails of inquiry, nothing that was ever returned after the initial response. In April of 2011 I had another Laparoscopy to clean out the endometriosis. By August the pain was unbearable. Some nights I couldn't even walk up the stairs to bed. My Dr had me keep a journal of pain for several months, and after seeing in black and white that I averaged 3 days a month pain free, I finally agreed to a hysterectomy. I had a complete hysterectomy and oopererectomy in September 2011. I was ready to be pain free and I had conceded to the fact that we would not have any more biological children. My heart and soul were finally at peace with that. I am happy to report that I am 99% pain free and it is wonderful!

I am back here posting to document our journey into Foster Care. We are currently pursing our Foster Care license and praying about what that will mean for our family.
My mom has done relative and non-relative foster care for 28 years. I have seen relatives in our home for care while their mom got her life back together, I have seen relatives adopted, I have seen severely medically fragile children adopted, severely medically fragile children die, healthy toddlers placed and adopted, newborns placed and adopted, teenagers placed and removed, teenagers placed and adopted. I've seen the system fail and I've seen the system work. I had always said that I could never do foster care. As a young adult, I resented the fact that my mom couldn't be as involved in my life and in the life of my kids that I would like her to be because she still had small kids of her own (she is now 57 and her youngest is 18 months). I didn't think that foster care was for me or my family. However, the Lord's plans are not always our own.

I have felt the tug of foster care for about three years now. We looked into it about three years ago and had a licensing worker over to the house for an application and interview. She stressed how the State's goal is to return children to their parents and that was enough to scare me away. At the time, I wanted to adopt. I want to add to our family, forever. That is when we started to consider Africa. We wanted something more guaranteed to be forever and decided that we couldn't take the risk of foster care. We started on a wild goose chase to adopt from Africa. What a hot mess that was. I know in my heart of hearts that God spoke to me. I know that we were to pursue that, but...we kept hitting brick wall after brick wall and it left me confused and spent. It was about this time that my God-daughter was born. I think that she was my saving grace. She was the balm to my aching heart. I got to hold her and love her and rock her to sleep sometimes. We borrowed her every chance that we got and we loved on her every minute we could. I think she brought me out of the haze of that all consuming fertility fight and brought me to the here and the now. She has been a breath of fresh air and we are blessed to have her in our life!

We have been busy living our lives, traveling, running kids here and there, working, etc. The yearning for another child has gotten less and less as the years have passed. Recently, we were handed an opportunity to possibly take custody of a newborn. My mom's youngest foster child's bio-mom was pregnant. Bio-moms rights have been terminated and so the baby would immediately go into DCFS care. My mom is licensed for 6 and has 6 at home, so she could not take the sibling. We thought it would be perfect for us to take the sibling so that they could be raised to know each other. We were working with the placement agency to secure all required paperwork/classes. Our initial call was in May of 2012. We were trying to get into PRIDE classes that started in early June. The class was full and they would not make an exception or let us apply on a stand-by basis. My husband & I had our physicals & fingerprints done in early June. I was pushing to get classes done so that when the baby was born we would be through that part. Rich would be working in July, so I registered for a class by myself. I drove the 90 minutes to the class only to find that the location had been moved and I was not notified. I re-registered Rich & I for another expedited class 90 minutes away and we had our first class this week. In the meantime, the baby was born and the mother disappeared with her. They were missing for 11 days. DCFS, our Agency and many people were looking for them. They resurfaced after 11 days and revealed that the bio-mom had signed the baby over to the baby's grandfather. Baby's grandfather did not even raise his own children due to drug & alcohol abuse. As of this week, DCFS has released the baby to the care of the grandfather and dismissed the case. I still have many many questions and I am not 100% that the baby won't end up in DCFS custody sometime soon, but for the time being we have to move forward and ask ourselves, what now. Do we continue forward with foster care? Do we want temporary placements in our home? What is best for our family? What is best for our kids? Are we being "called" to do this? How many? What age? So many questions!

For now we are moving forward with our classes and hoping to complete those this month. Our licensing worker has been to the house once and she has two more visits scheduled this month. By the end of August I believe we will have everything completed. That gives us plenty of time to think and pray. Will you pray with us?