The AMAZING Circus!

When I heard that the circus was coming in town, I knew that I wanted to take Soley.  She has seen a circus on a Barney episode and talks about it all the time! This Circus was AMAZING! My parents were a little disappointed that it was not like it used to be, but I said that it was such a modern twist with still keeping the old circus theme! HAHA! Anyways, Soley had so much fun, we went on opening night at 7:30, because it was a Thur we were able to get a discount on our tickets.  Of course we Soley has no trouble staying up.  What really surprised me was that the circus was 2.5 hours long, including about a 20 min intermission.  I had no clue it would be so much fun! Anyone who is thinking about doing this in the future or next year, GO IT WAS SO AMAZING! Only down fall, Cotton candy $14, yes $14! Crazy! All in all we had a great time and were so glad my parents could share this experience with us! Thanks Jon for working so hard and taking us all to the circus! 

Soley showing off her Cotton Candy

All the happy campers :)

Eating her Cotton Candy!

Enjoying watching with Poppi!

The Elephant!

The Tigers, I was defiantly waiting for one to eat this guy in the cage, it was really scary! They were completely caged up!

There were tight rope walkers on bikes, it was really cool!

This was a hit, this lady was shot out of this cannon and did a flip, was pretty neat!

These were dancing poodles, Soley kept calling them pluto's, like from Mickey mouse, haha!

Lots of dancing and singing 

Easter, better late then never...

Easter week was a blast! Jon's parents came in town the Sunday before Easter and headed home on Friday morning. (When your a pastor you always have to be home on Sundays :)  We did a ton of stuff this week, one thing that we did was make a bunny ginger bread house, Soley loves doing these.  We have only done them for Christmas but I thought this one would be a hit, and it was! 

I learned my lesson over the past two years, hot glue it together! It will be so much easier for the kids, and it will actually hold up! It's not like I'm actually going to let her eat this processed food! 

She loved putting the candy on! I did catch her eating a few pieces! 

For Easter Jon's parents and us decided to go in together and get her a big girl bike! She had out grown the little bike that we got her for her 2nd birthday.  So I will post a video of her riding, she is so good! The first day she really struggled because when you peddle backwards it stops the bike, her old bike the peddles went all the way around.  As you can tell from the video below she was SO excited! This is priceless! 

We went to a Easter Egg Hunt at all about kids! It was so much fun and Soley's cousins were in town from TN so we all went together! 

How cute is Isaac? He is so sweet! He smiles almost 24 hours a day! He is so much fun and we love him so much! Also he is only 4 months old in this pic! He is huge, and his gross motor skills are so advanced! Can't wait to see you again buddy! Oh ya kudos to my sis in law, delivered Isaac at home completely naturally, he was 10 POUNDS!!!

Lilly Kate and Soley played together the ENTIRE weekend, they were so cute together, Lilly Kate is so sweet with Soley and she just adores her. She actually pretends to be her all the time! Love you LK!

SO CUTE!!!

Soley was so excited for Thunder this weekend! Jon advertise for his company in the Louisville Family Savings Magazine, so we have gotten tickets from the owner for the past 2 years, it's been amazing! if you can see in the background we are literally right on the river and in full view of the bridge! And there are only a handful of people for this huge area!  It also comes with a parking pass! I can't wait for next year! 

She also got this amazing rainbow from the baloon guy! How cute!

Her first funnel cake, it was so good! She ate about half and said can I have another one!!!

Swimming Lesson Fun!

No News is Good News?

So just a update for everyone, we have not heard anything since my last post.  I have talked to several other people from our classes and no one had got that call about there home study either.  Our Group started a facebook page for keeping each other update, and apperently no one in entire group have received a call yet.  (We don't do facebook in our house so this is info from a friend from the class.)  So we are still waiting...

With that said, we have been pretty busy around here.  Jon's parents came in last week, and my brother and sister in law came in with their two children for Easter.  It was SO much fun being able to spend time with everyone over the past few weeks! It was a little depressing here after everyone left, we really like company around here! I will post a separate post on Easter, I need to steal some photos from my sis in law!

On another note, we have been watching our neighbors little girl! Her name is Aubrey and she is so sweet! It's been great for Soley to have someone to play with.  It's a little bit of a adjustment with two kids but we are doing great! A Few random pictures below!

We put this light in Soley's room this weekend, I just love it!!!

Jon put in this gorgeous chandelier this weekend too! We have been working on our kitchen for a while now, we have just a few things left and then I will show some before and after! Light looks so good!

Soley and Aubrey posing for a picture!

Me attempting to make the girls balloon animals! Take a look at the mess in the background! That's a adjustment :)

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!