Little swimmer

We have a little swimmer!  Caroline has loved being in the water for the past two summers but has never been a fan of getting her face wet....which is kind of a problem if you are ever going to be a swimmer.  We heard about this lady who lives in Canton, GA, 45 minutes north of here that could teach the kids to swim in 1 week (3, 45 minute lessons).  Sign me up...literally...because of Caroline's age a parent had to take the class with her.  We missed the first day because of rain.  :-(  The first 15 minutes of the second day of class was a true nightmare.  Caroline was screaming and hysterical, kicking, fighting and crying for 15 minutes.  I would tell give her lots of positive encouragement and then count to 3 and put her under.  At one point I said "Remember your Bible verse, 'I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.'"  She flexed her arm when I said it so I knew she was still hanging with me through her tears.  It was just a couple of minutes later that it was like a magic switch.  All of a sudden there was a sparkle in her eye that said "I just swam under water and it wasn't that bad."  Then she couldn't stop.  She kept asking me, "Can I go under water again?"  Now she's a little fish and loves it!!  She is so proud of herself and keeps asking me the funniest things..."Mom was that super good?!"  YES!  We are so proud of her!!

Fair/Foster #3

Friday night our foster care agency held a fair for all the foster families.  There were tons of rides, games, clowns, food trucks and more and it was all FREE!  Yea for free!!  We headed over there after Mark got off work and enjoyed some time together.  It was such a treat!

I was so surprised that Caroline immediately wanted to hop on one of the rides.

However, she stayed out of the petting zoo area and chose to stick just a finger in to touch the bunny.  :-)

Train ride...

Libby couldn't do any of the really fun stuff but they did have a whole tent of little people toys.  

While at the fair, one of the folks that works with the agency walked up to us and said....(surprise, surprise) "We have a referral."  We accepted the referral for a 4lb, 7 day old little girl Friday night.  She was not ready to be released from the hospital yet so we got her Sunday night.  When they dropped her off, they told us not to be surprised that she would probably be leaving Monday morning.  Although we were sad not to have her longer, we were so grateful to not be surprised again.  She was a precious little peanut.  Needless to say all this baby love as made us anxious for our next call.  :-)   

Foster #2

When we started the foster process I said, "NO BABIES!"  Of course, we've been getting calls for babies like crazy and not just 6 month old little ones, brand new babies, just a few days old!  After the second phone call, in just as many nights, we decided to start saying yes to the infants (for now).

Foster baby #2 was 3 months old but was born at 25 weeks so she was a little miracle.  Mark and I spent the day at Grady being "trained" on how to care for her...which basically meant feed her slowly.  She was precious and we were immediately in love!!  We were told by several different sources that we would have her with us for a while but that was not to be.  At her 72 hour hearing, DFCS argued that she should stay in our care but the judge overruled and placed her back with her mom. Our family consultant was shocked, as were we.  I will say that the sadness that came with her leaving was really a surprise.  I'm not real sure what caused the sadness but I think it was a combination of the surprise, the fact that she was just a little snuggle bug and the emotional roller coaster of planning life around a foster child.  We were all so sad to see her go.   

Caroline is doing well overall but she has such a tender little heart and she LOVES the babies.  She literally would sit still as could be for 30 minutes and just hold her and rub her little head.  She told me over and over how glad she was to have this new little sister in our home.  

I'll probably say it a million times but I'm so sad we cannot post pictures.  If you could see a picture of Caroline loving that little girl or Mark holding her for the first time in the NICU like  a proud father anxious to bring his daughter home then you could see the love!  We were so honored to bring this little girl home from the hospital for the first time.  God's been so gracious to grant us this opportunity.  

Since we were all sad to see her go we decided to have a big family night after she left.  God has been so gracious to allow Mark to be home for our first two placements.  We joked with our family consultant that we were only going to accept placements once a month...when Mark was in town!  

Anyway, we decided to hike Kennesaw mountain with the girls.  It was so good to be outside and soak up some of God's goodness.  As we got started on the trail, the path diverges and you can take the easy or hard way.  We asked Caroline which one she wanted to take and she chose the hard way.  Mark and I just smiled at her little adventurous heart but I think we smiled knowing that it kind of reflects the roads we've chosen recently.  :-)

Libby was a trooper as usual and huffed and puffed the whole way up!  (We didn't actually make it to the top but about 2/3 of the way before we decided to head back.)  

Mark then carried her down.  She got a kick out of messing with his hair.

 After our trip up the mountain, we went out to dinner and then went to the neighborhood pool for a quick swim before bed time.  I was so thankful for this fun night with family!

Father's Day

Father's Day was a big old mash up of stuff this year.  We took Mark to dinner on Friday night at Ted's where he enjoyed a veggie burger!  Sometimes I still can't believe that he is not eating meat (or rarely eats it).    

Sunday morning we enjoyed a pancake and eggs breakfast.  The funny part was that we were all sitting down and enjoying our breakfast when all of a sudden the fire alarm started going off.  I rushed over to the stove and found our last batch of pancakes still cooking...a little too much!  Thankfully, we all enjoyed some that were light and fluffy!

Mark also got to open one of his gifts at breakfast...a "nanny cam."  He's been wanting one for several months after some friends showed us theirs.  He was so excited to get it set up.  It's a bit creepy though because we can actually watch the girls when babysitters are there and Mark watches me put the girls to bed at night now.  Hopefully, I'll get used to it and he will not be so fascinated by it down the road.  :-)

After church we had lunch with the whole family and then came home to crash for a bit.  Mark then made us a pizza for dinner and then a swim afterwards.  We had a good day together as a family and of course we are super thankful for Mark.  He's such a hands on Dad... and husband too!!

Goal Update

These are the goals that we came up with at the beginning of the year.  We are hanging in there a little better than I thought...except for one section!  :-)

 Goals

• Family Goals
  
  • Create blog (or rebuild current blog) to allow weekly updates or more frequently.  -Mark
  • Update family blog weekly or more frequently.  -Nicole
  • Build, plant and eat from our own garden.  We started working on this but due to spring schedule craziness we just couldn't get our act together.  This may be on our list again for next year...
  • Take girls to the beach, either with Vern/Cindy or on our own. 
  • One weekend trip away without little ones (no matter how much we miss them). 
  • Host or plan community-building events once each month. 

• Spiritual Goals
  • Read Bible daily to complete Bible in 2013. 
  • Attend BSF. -Nicole
  • Memorize selected Psalms together.  We attempted one and then didn't follow through. 
  • Two verses memorized each month. -Caroline  We are memorizing with Caroline though. :-)
  • Read commentary on book of the Bible each quarter.  -Mark

• Service Goals
  • Serve on church committees. (Missions, women's committee, etc)
  • Take girls to nursing home once a month. I really wanted to do this but just haven't made it happen schedule wise.  I'm hoping to make some friends with some older ladies at church and then develop some relationships from there.
  • Foster care ministry. 
  • Go "under the bridges" with the church.  Still time to make this happen at least once!

• Physical Goals
• Running four miles twice per week on treadmill with long run on weekend. -Mark
• Workout four times per week alternating run, swim, weights. -Nicole
• Swim in a three-mile swim event. -Nicole
• Participate in sprint triathlon. -Nicole
• Swim 1/4 mile non-stop. -Mark
• Run two races as a family. 

Obviously, we have some work to do in the physical department.  Both of us want to do this but just not bad enough to make it happen I guess.  I can also say that my body is crazing physical exertion (crazy, right?) but it falls to the bottom of the list every single time.  There are only so many priorities that my little schedule can handle and I guess I just haven't made this one of them.  I'm still hopeful that I can find a way to get it in there.  It's hard to believe that at this time last year we were training for the half marathon!   We'll see....

Overall, I'm pretty thankful for where we are right now.  Still lots of ways to grow! 

Mother's Day

We had a good Mother's Day this year.  The day itself actually flew by but it was enjoyed.

Caroline did a few crafts/projects at school that she brought home for Mothers Day.  One of my favorites was the "All About My Mom" worksheet.  Here are her answers...

I show my mommy I love her by helping her feed my sister.
My favorite thing to do with my mommy is crafts.
My favorite thing Mommy cooks is mac and cheese.
My mommy is really good at making mac and cheese. Maybe she was hungry??
I love my mommy because she makes lots of things for me.  Hmmm....

I hope her teachers next year do the same thing.  I've seen lots of people post theirs on facebook and they are pretty cute!

I'm so thankful to be a mom.  I love my girls and could not imagine a more rewarding (and challenging) role!

Fostering

We've been going through the process to become foster parents for almost a year.  We had a few breaks in the process for other things but finally completed it about a month ago.  People often ask why we are doing this and there are 3 reasons...1) All the books we were reading in Sunday School talked about us taking action.  I read a good quote recently that sums this up, "Instead of telling people you are in our thoughts and prayers, we should tell them you are in our actions and prayers."  2) Mark and I have always had a love for children (one of the reasons I fell in love with Mark was seeing him interact with children).  We met and dated while working together with a youth group.  3) We have always viewed our home as a gift from God that should be shared with others.  It's been a blessing to open it up to others.  These three reasons led us to pursue fostering as a way for us to serve God and give back to others.

Two weeks after all documentation was complete we got our first call.  We took in a 3 year old little boy.  He was with us for a week, until he was moved to a home that could care for both him and his sister.  I so wish I was allowed to post a picture because he was the cutest little guy.  He had lots of personality and an infectious little smile.

While the first week was super busy trying to get all his appointments taken care of, we were blessed by God and His people as little details were worked out over and over for us.  It's been really neat to see things happen and realize that they are due to God working!  People brought meals and shared toys and clothing.  Little things also meant a lot...Caroline learned to buckle her own seat belt and was able to move to the back seat of the van so our little man could sit in the middle.  An appointment that I knew was at 1:30 was miraculously moved to 2:00 on the day our little guys was leaving ensuring that we had plenty of time to say goodbye to him.  Those little things meant that God was watching over us in this new world of fostering.

We are already learning lots!  I think one of the biggest things is that we've realized so far is what a bubble we live in (and how thankful I am for that bubble - to some degree).  We heard all of these terrible stories in training and were horrified that those things could actually happen.  I think I swept those stories away thinking that they were just the extreme cases.  However, the situation with our first placement and a call that we received about another possible placement have made us realize that these horrors are real life for these children.  Mark always teases me about my big heart but his heart is growing like crazy too because we just want to take them all in!!  Although we don't know what is ahead for our family we've been repeating, "Let's trust God together."  We are looking forward to our next placement.