If it seems we are crazy...

I had lots of goals planned for 2011 , only a few of which were actually accomplished. Despite that, we had the biggest and best year of our life. I gained 3 children this year, all in the past 3 months. I had someone sarcastically ask me the other day, "So, are you ready for a couple more?" And I could honestly answer, "Absolutely, if I had a bigger house." Many people don't understand how we do it. I don't understand how we do it. I was exhausted and overwhelmed with my 3 biological children. The only explanation that I have, is that the Lord gives us the strength, the patience and the joy every day to do this job that He has called us to do. I am so, so thankful for these children. When the days are long or the nights are short on sleep, I might complain or even cry a little. No matter how difficult it gets though, I haven't once regretted a decision to take any of them. They all fit so perfectly into our family. Our sweet 4 year old foster daughte

Today or possibly tomorrow we're supposed to be getting our third foster child, which will bring us to a total of 6 children in our home. I opened up my devotional this morning and it was entitled, "Enlarge Your Tent!" I was cracking up, because it just shows how God has a sense of humor. Come on God, how much more can we enlarge this tent?! Back when we got our first foster daughter a couple months ago, I posted a status update on Facebook about how we are DEFINITELY maxed out with 4 kids in our home. God really enjoys using my own plans and words to prove me wrong. For example, I had planned on fostering a newborn baby boy. God had planned for me to foster a 10 month old baby girl, followed by a 4 year old little girl a month later. lol I truly am glad that God doesn't let me know these things in advance because I would have really been freaking out. Life is pretty great over here. The more we say, "Yes" to God, the more we are blessed and I don't m

I heard this song yesterday when driving and I almost had to pull over because the tears were streaming down my face because the words fit so perfectly with our life right now. Listen to this song by Matt Hammitt and say a prayer for these sweet children in foster care. Oklahoma shelters are more full than they've ever been right now. We need more foster parents. These kids are worth risking a broken heart. I promise. "Afraid to love, something that could break,  Could I move on, if you were torn away? I'm so close to what I can't control I can't give you half my heart, and pray it makes you whole You're gonna have all of me, you're gonna have all of me,  You're worth every fallen tear, you're worth facing every fear You're gonna know all my love, even if it's not enough Enough to mend our broken hearts, giving you all of me is where I'll start." 

What a whirlwind these past few days have been. Thanksgiving day we picked up a darling 3 year old from a foster care shelter to spend the day with us. Our family fell in love with this precious girl with deeply troubled eyes. When we went to take her back, she started screaming the second we pulled into the driveway. They had to peel her off of me because she was hysterical. I promised her that we would be back. 4 days later, we picked her up and brought a smiling little girl home to stay with us. In under 24 hours, God provided another set of bunk beds, a mattress, bedding, a booster seat and lots of other things headed our way this week. Has it been a crazy 24 hours? Absolutely, but it has been joy-filled. I took the two "twins" (found out Little Miss is only a month younger than Maggie) to get matching haircuts and their toes painted. I feel so blessed to have this baby girl in my house. She also has a baby brother in a shelter right now and I am very much desiring to

On Nov. 17, 1999, I gave my life to Christ. I woke up the next morning a new person. Desires I had days before had disappeared and all of a sudden I was on fire for the Lord. Best feeling in the whole world. Eventually, life got in the way. I stopped reading my Bible and stopped attending church, not because I didn't believe, I just began to put other things ahead of God. Mostly my children, myself, t.v., I always had an excuse. I got to the point where I couldn't even pray anymore. Satan had pulled me so far away that I felt mentally incapable of praying. I had pushed away many of my friends and family members with my judgmental and condescending attitude towards any opinion that disagreed with my own. My marriage was being held together merely by the fact that neither one of us had anywhere else to go. It is only by God's grace that He called us back early this year and woke us up from our self-indulgent, unhappy life that we had somehow spiraled into. I thank Him every d

Fatherless no more.  " Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed." Psalm 82:3 

Don't worry, I'm not about to bad-mouth sippy cups, you'll see the correlation in a paragraph or so. I feel like Satan has been attacking our family since the second we picked up our foster daughter a couple weeks ago. Since her first night here, I have had a child vomiting, sneezing snot everywhere or lethargic with a fever every single day. I came down with strep throat a couple days ago and Seth broke his toe yesterday. Really?! In all honesty, I have been dealing with everything fairly well. We've been living off of frozen meals I'd stashed away and homemade chicken soup. There was one incident when I threw a sippy cup at the wall because I couldn't get the lid off because my joints were aching so badly from my fever. Shortly thereafter I realized that was exactly what Satan wanted and by giving into frustration, I was letting him steal my joy and peace that the Lord has blessed us with. The night before we brought baby girl home, I remember laying in b

After 2 calls and 2 placements that got cancelled before we picked them up, we have finally brought home our angel. Third times the charm, right?! And I know how much easier it is to say now, but I wouldn't change anything about what happened to get us to this point. It has been a long 9 months, but I am so glad we never gave up. This sweet baby girl fits into our family better than if she had been born into it. She actually makes the dynamics of our family run better and she makes my job easier, oddly enough. I told Seth today that if I could have controlled this whole situation and picked out every detail I couldn't have done a better job. God is extremely unpredictable, but always outdoes himself when it comes to blessing us. Her and Owen are so cute playing together and she seems to have adjusted very well. She took a 3 hour nap today! Woo hoo! We are all having so much fun with her and feel blessed beyond belief. We have no idea what will end up happening, but rega

Owen "driving" our new truck!  Back in August, I wrote a post about God answering my prayers for specific items. I believe that He provided for us because we have continued to be obedient to His calling to become foster parents despite many, many obstacles. 2 months ago, shortly after my last post, I made another list of things we needed/wanted and began to pray for them. One of the little things was an activity for Maggie to do outside of the home. We were blessed when my mom offered to take her and pay for a gymnastics class. Maggie is a natural at it and loves it. I'm so excited that she can use up some of her adventurous and fearless energy at class! One of the big things I wrote down was a work truck for Seth. I felt it was a bit of a stretch asking for something that big, but God didn't waste any time letting me know that it wasn't. Seth picked up a work truck last night that was donated to us by someone we don't even know.  No one knew I was prayi

We received a call this week from DHS telling us that there is only one thing we're lacking to keep us from opening our home, a 3 hour class that was not included in our previous training. Thank God, we found an open class late next week. We are approaching 8 months in our journey just to become foster parents and we are praying that this is our last obstacle to overcome. I can't even begin to tell you how much we've learned by obeying God's call, I am a bit nervous and excited to see what He will teach us once we actually have a child in our home. This past month I've been visiting a darling 4 month old baby at the hospital with failure to thrive. She is in state custody, so the only visitors allowed are DHS approved ones. There is a wonderful program in place here in Oklahoma City, called Operation Lullaby that  connects volunteers cleared through DHS to visit these children in the hospital or at the shelter. Seth and I decided this month that we would recruit v

We were blessed to have my best friend take our family pictures at the OKC Zoo this month. They are beautiful and I can't wait to get some developed!

I just received my first issue to The OCHEC Informer , a free magazine for Christian homeschooling moms in Oklahoma. For being such a small magazine, it was packed with great articles and info. One article, written by my friend, Beth Harkins, was about homeschooling foster children. Read her article, here . Another article was titled "The Power of Play," by Cari Ebert and it had great tips for toy organization and storage, but my favorite part of that article was a "Not-So-Trendy but Recommended Toy List." I thought it would be a great idea to just type it up and then copy and paste when we get asked ideas for gifts for the kids. So, I figured if I was typing it up, I might as well share. :) Shape sorters Chalkboard & chalk Art supplies Large mirror Dress-up clothes Mr. Potato Head Magnetic letters & numbers Toy cars and a garage Toy doctor's kit Dolls & stuffed animals Puzzles Play dough with tools, cookie cutters and gadgets Stackin

My favorite beverage!!! From Wikipedia : "Kombucha is an effervescent tea-based beverage that is often drunk for its health benefits or medicinal   purpose." 1 1/2 gallons of Kombucha ready to be strained.  Our whole family LOVES kombucha! It costs me 90 cents to make a half gallon (64 oz), compared with a 16oz bottle for $4 at the store. I feel like I've somewhat mastered the process and wanted to share. Some of the benefits of Kombucha include: *Probiotics – healthy bacteria *Alkalize the body – balances internal pH *Detoxify the liver – happy liver = happy mood *Increase metabolism – rev your internal engine *Improve digestion – keep your system moving *Rebuild connective tissue – helps with arthritis, gout, asthma, rheumatism *Cancer prevention *Alleviate constipation *Boost energy – helps with chronic fatigue *Reduce blood pressure *Relieve headaches & migraines *Reduce kidney stones *High in antioxidants – destroy free-radicals that c