A new addition to our family???

So I have been meaning to blog about the for forever but have not really had the time to sit down and explain it all and write it out, so here it goes...

Anyone who knows me well knows that we have wanted to adopt forever!! But the timing has just not been right or we ended up getting pregnant with Soley.  Well now is the time :)  Back in December Jon and I sat through the initial meeting for Foster to Adopt, and we signed up for our classes. (You need 30 hours of classes and a home study to be registered foster parents. Plus about a zillion pieces of paper filled out, fingerprints, background, physicals, credit, reference checks, etc, etc!) So over the past two months we have been taking our classes, and this Sat we officially finished our last class!!! It was so exciting, but in a way sad.  I have actually really enjoyed these classes, we have learned so much about being a parents in general and being a parent to these kids!  In addition to that we have also met some new friends! Some friends soon we will be relying on for help, and friends who will only understand what we are going through very soon! So what's next???

Now that we are done with our classes, we wait for a call from our new social worker (we have our own social worker and the child will have one too) and do our home study, once that is approved, then we wait for a phone call, this phone call could be one day after we are approved or 1 year, you never know.  It could be at 3 in the morning, or 7 at night, you just never know! All that we do know is that we have agreed to take a child 3 years old and younger, we don't have a care in the world about the gender of that child or of the race, we know that the lord has placed this on our heart and we know that he will give us the strength to accept the match that is for us, and if needed decline a match that would not fit our family right now.  Going through these classes we were able to meet birth moms who had lost their children, foster parents who had adopted, and children actually in foster care right now.  It really is such a amazing experience that we are so excited to take part in!

Over the next few months I ask that you pray for our family that we are able to finish our approval process in a timely manner and that our family will follow whatever God's will is for us.  Also that Soley is able to adjust to our growing family.

As for us we have decided to do what they call concurrent planning.  This means that we will be looking to accept a child that will more then likely be adopted out, we want to have a long term goal of adopting.  Now please be aware that there is NEVER any guarantee that you will get to adopt a child, the first priority is to get the child back with their parents, place them with a family member and if those don't work out then they want them with a forever foster home to be adopted.  Going into these classes I had a hard time understanding why it was in this order? Why should a parent get there child back after doing all of these horrible things? But during these classes you really learn that the best place for a child is with there family.  We also got to see moms who had really changed and tuned there life around and needed their kids back, and the kids needed their moms back.  Now I am not saying that is going to be easy in any way if we take a child and have to give them back, but we now have a better understanding on how important that is.  

I had thought I had a pretty good idea of how this all would play out, until one class we actually got to ask questions to a panel of current foster parents, some who had adopted and some who had not.  One couple up there was a mom and a dad with their 4 month old baby that they were fostering.  Just seeing this little girl up there made me so sad! I just could not even imagine what it would feel like to not have your baby with you.  I also realized that you can't make anyone change, that these parents have to do it on their own.  So whatever happens to us it's a win win, if we take a child and get to adopt it then GREAT! If we take a child and love on it and make it's life better and the mom/dad gets everything together and their life back on track and the baby back, then GREAT! WIN, WIN!

And in the end God's work is being done, all the GLORY goes to him!

If you have any questions please feel free to email me, I would love to answer them! I am so excited to have all of you on this journey with us! 

What a fun week!

Soley getting ready for ballet class, she gets dressed early and practices her recital before she heads out for class, she is actually getting pretty good at it :)

We spent the other day with our friends Kara, Amelia and Henry.  The girls had such a good time! Soley has been taking naps again, so I tried to skip her nap and we did not end on a good note but had a amazing day! Luckily most moms have been there and understanding a child screaming throwing a temper tantrum.  Thanks KARA!!!

Girls eating Qdoba together and sharing a straw.

Playing at the playground.

Soley holding Henry, she asks all the time to hold him, she loves babies!

Jon has been working A TON!!! I feel so bad for him but I am also very thankful, but it can be very lonley!  Soley and I went to the park the other day and I got these cute pictures.  Soley loves her baby, she calls her smile. She will ask me to go to the top of the slide and send her down so that she can catch her. She is smiles mama.  So this was a pretty big playground, with a long tube slide.  I went to the top and took Smiles clothes off and sent her down, all the sudden Soley starts laughing so hard! She said, mom you have to come down here, you wont believe what happened, smiles clothes came off in the slide.  It was so cute!  And yes, she did say mom! She calls Jon and I mom and dad, I HATE IT!!! 

Since returning from Disney world Soley likes to put on her Cinderella costume and have to sit on her lap or next to her to take your picture! It's so cute! Below we are skyping with Jon's parents and she wanted them to take a picture with her.  It was so cute!!!

We were playing in Sole'y's playroom and having a picnic, of course Smile was there! 

And.... Baby Charlie, with her carrots :)

Next it was on to being Doctor Soley. She loves giving shots!

Using her real otoscope, she loves this! It's actually a real one, that uses a light and everything, very fun!

Checking temperatures :)

Rocking a pony tail.

Look at these amazing eggs, soley loves dying easter eggs.   We have already done two rounds of these! 

Cooking fun :)

Surprisingly Soley loves treats! HAHA, but really considering she is allergic to milk she really can't have much, so we decided to make some Rice Crispy Treats with Vegan butter.  Soley made everything her self, the only thing I did was pour out the ingredients in bowls for her to pour in.

Here she is letting the "butter" melt, siring very nicely! 

Rice Crispy cereal, and marshmallows!

Tasting the finished product :)

LOL, and below is what happens when a 2.5 year old cooks all by herself! She was stirring very fast and out flew sticky marshmallow and rice crispy all over me!!! LOL, it was so funny she was laughing and laughing! 

Eating the finished product!! YUMMY! What a good cook we have! 

Soley is showing off her new hand me downs from her big cousin Lilly Kate! Thank you Samantha!  Soley calls them down handy's, it's pretty cute!   

Dancing with Amelia at story time!

Finally, Soley and I go on Adventures when it's raining, and she loves to find worms and pick them up.  It totally freaks me out, but I keep calm on the outside and cheer her on! She actually held this poor guys for like 10 min pretending to be his mama, and petting him! LOL

Have a great weekend! 

Disney World

OH MY GOSH!!! If you have not taken your kids to Disney... THEN GO!!! This was SO much fun!!! Soley had a blast! I can't even tell you how much fun this place is! It's so funny because you see so many kids so happy but you also see so many kids CRYING!!! LOL, I think it's so hard on some of the kids because it's so TIRING!!! I would not suggest that anyone take there kid if they can't do with out a little sleep, because it's just not realistic to go back and forth to the hotel all the time.  My other advice would be to stay in a hotel that is on the monorail!! It seriously takes forever to get into the parks, especially Magic Kingdom.  We all had so much fun this trip, I can't wait to go back again, with Jon this time!  We started out our trip on a little bit of a rough note, we rushed to our hotel when our flight landed so that we could rush over to the light show off of Cinderella's castle, and see Tinker Bell fly out of the castle.  Well in the craziness we took a taxi from our hotel $25 to go like 1 mile, and still had to take the Monarail!!! (the swan and dolphin, it's in the park but not owned by Disney, and the monorail does not go to it, so you have to ride a bus) and we left the stroller in the taxi cab!!! AHHH, I had to carry Soley through the park for the rest of the night! We got to show and after Tinkerbell flew out Soley was bored and hungry, so we got two hotdogs $16!!! Next we took the bus back to the hotel, 40 min later we were back where we started strollerless and out $41! Needless to say not a good start to our trip but it's pretty funny now to me and my mom now! 

So the next morning we got up and had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel (food was amazing) and we waited for our best friends to get there! Ilana and Olivia moved away to Orlando in December and the girls had not seen each other since then! Take a look at what happened below it's priceless! Ilana and I would get the girls together almost every day ( we just lived about 2 min apart)! I know the girls are really missing each other and so are we! It was so nice to spend a few days with them, and can't wait to go again and see baby Grayson, who is going to be born in May!

Ilana bought them matching Cinderella shirts, and you will see a recurring theme, neither one of them would take them off over the three days!  

Meeting her first character Pluto!!!

Having Dinner in the hotel with Goofy!

Having dinner with pluto!

We went to Sea World also while we were there, it was AMAZING! I suggest that you go there if you visit Orlando, it was so much fun for the kids!  Here we are riding on the train.  They had a bunch of rides for the kids, and the most amazing shows, and of course Shamu!

Getting a glow necklace while waiting on a show, so much fun!

Soley's faviorte part of magic kingdom was the parades and shows, she loved them!

Disney Junior Live on Stage, SOLEY LOVED THIS!!!

Dinner with Cinderella, Prince Charming, fairy Godmother, and the stepsisters.  This was the highlight of the trip. Soley could not wait to get to meet Cinderella!  She was all dressed up to match her and even brought her doll to show Cinderella!

This is when Soley saw her for the first time, priceless!

Prince Charming!

Taking the bus to the magic kingdom, she loved riding the bus, at least someone did!

Getting a treat in the park, yes that is a sucker, and no she did not eat it all!

Fairy Godmother

Any place you eat in the Disney hotels, if you have a food Allergy then the chef personally comes to your table, he talks with you and makes you your own special meal! It was amazing! So so sweet of them!

Stepsisters

Yes he made her this special dessert! It's compleatly dairy free!

What a week, I have so many more pictures and videos but I think this is enough, LOL!  We had such a wonderful vacation and our so thankful that my mom went with us and put up with us! I can't wait to go back again, it really is a magical place!