TGIF

It's Friday!

Since I'm home all summer, it seems weak to say "TGIF", but I am thankful for the weekend nonetheless. It means Jimmy's home and, as of late, we've had less going on during the weekends than during the week. The weeks continue to be full of appointments for our foster daughter and summer fun. This week we added a rush hour hit and run accident to the mix of "fun"- Jimmy is fine, thank God, but his car is not.

Let's focus on more fun things... in keeping with TGIF, here are a TWO things I'm thankful for today...

1) Olympics! I love the competition, the athletes' stories and even the cheesy/inspiring commercials. I also love all of these crazy moms who have time to make cool Olympic activities that I can then steal/borrow. I just stumbled on to this 3 Dinosaurs blog that has a bunch of Olympic themed kid ideas. Thank you, Mrs. 3 Dinosaurs Super Mom, for sharing!

2) Church camp/lake week! Next week our foster daughter is going to church camp. I'm super thankful for the student ministry crew who has welcomed her and supported us so much already. I am thrilled that she feels comfortable enough to go! So she has a week of playing in the lake (it's a former Kanakuk Kamp so there is every kind of fun activity there) and hearing good, encouraging, challenging teaching. And I get a few days at my parents' lake house with the boys, which leaves my hubby as a bachelor at home. I know, must be rough. I think it will be a good week for all!

P.S. We got more postcards this week- Colorado and South Dakota. Have you heard of the Corn Palace in South Dakota? I had not and was intrigued! We watched a video about it on the internet and Samuel was pretty impressed. Thanks, Mary and Erin!!

Post card lessons...

We have started receiving post cards and Samuel loves getting the mail. We have a map and are putting up the post cards around the map with string between the card and the state on the map. We've had some very simplistic geography and history discussions so far. Thanks to those helping us- you are making learning fun!

Here are our first two post cards- thanks, John!

John is a friend from my high school days. I met him when Manu, my AFS (foreign exchange) sister from Brazil, dated him. He is partially to blame for my love for the Spanish language and travel. Samuel loved the Postagram postcards with pics of Chip- John's childhood stuffed monkey (I think that's what Chip is??) visiting the places. I know I'm a "late adapter" when it comes to technology, but the Postagram ap is pretty cool! When you sign up you get 5 free postcards, so if anyone wants to send us postcards using the ap, that would be awesome, too! You can use your own photos that way :).

And our second two postcards came from Liz in New Jersery. Liz and I were roommates during a study abroad program in Seville, Spain. We became fast friends and travel buddies. Muchas gracias, Liz!

I have no idea why Samuel posed like he's going to karate chop me, but it was the best we could do :). Thanks again for the help!

P.S. Update on the hair crisis (with our foster daughter) I referenced in the previous post- I am not lying when I said the hair was stressing me out! I almost kissed the stylist at our appointment on Saturday for doing some super cute and stylish braids that will be perfect for the HOT weather and church camp. Hair crisis averted... at least for now. We got more tips about how to handle it "natural". Thank the Lord, seriously.

Hair Conundrum

I had a few stressful moments this week totally related to hair. Sounds ridiculous, right? I have an entirely new respect for African American women who wear their hair natural. As a foster mom, it is important to me that our kiddo knows that she is well cared for and that others can tell this as well. For a preteen girl, this includes having cute hair, so I am determined to learn and get this right!

For the first few months, we had microbraids- recommended to us by an African American woman. The braids were pretty, but expensive ($220!! and another $50 to get taken out) and also a little rough on her hair. Upon taking them out, I got nervous. So I dutifully signed up for the "ethnic hair care class" offered by Children's Division. The teacher of the class was very informative. I took copious notes while casting my fear of looking stupid to the wind and asking lots of questions much to the entertainment of the others in the class. Jimmy's comment was "I learned one thing. This is really complicated." The class focused on natural hair care and not getting hair relaxed to avoid chemicals and to help hair be healthier and grow more. So my initial plan went out the window and we decided to give natural a try. All was well until the first shower when I realized what kind of curly hair we are dealing with. Yikes. So I jumped into action... and we watched the entire movie Slumdog Millionaire while I combed out hair and tried to help her tame her locks.

Thanks to the class and a friend's recommendation of the website Chocolate Hair Vanilla Care I have purchased all of the right products, but I'm still nervous. We are not good at styling and I have to say that the two trips we've made to salons have been a bit intimidating. I'm the only white girl in the room and I'm asking lots of questions. I understand the stylists I'm interacting with may not be used to this dynamic, but I'm trying to communicate "I care about this girl and I want to learn to do this right!" It's just a little annoying when I get the vibe that they don't care to help much! I am not deterred and have been asking for advice from African American women I know and even some I don't know!

Just another learning experience in this foster parenting adventure!

Geography Project HELP

To my friends/family who live out of state... want to make this cute boy's day??

Samuel LOVES getting mail. If you live out of state, this is my plea for you to help us by sending us some! This fall I'm attempting to dabble a bit in some homeschooling stuff with Samuel. I know, I know- I'm a proponent and employee of the public school system. My private school educated husband has heard me defend public school for ten years. However, as it gets closer to Sammy entering school, I have a new perspective. I know class sizes are up in the public schools and that standardized testing is driving curriculum choices like never before. As a teacher/mom, I'm torn. SO, since this is his last year before kindergarten, we're going to give it a try and maybe do it a year or two. Or maybe I'll be frustrated by October and he'll be happily enrolled in public school next fall... we shall see!

All of this to say that I'm working on a little USA geography project for Samuel. If anyone in another state would be willing to send me a postcard or two showcasing famous things from your state (and maybe with a note telling a little bit about where you live), I would be super grateful! If you want us to send you Missouri postcards, we would gladly do so. Contrary to popular belief, Missouri is an interesting place, I promise!

If you are interested and need my address, leave your email in the comments and I'll send it your way. Muchas gracias.

Friday Fun

Two things that made me smile this week....

1) A card from my mom

On the outside the card read "Motherhood. It's not rocket science." and inside said "It's brain surgery on astronauts during a lunar launch while reciting the Declaration of Independence backwards-only with less logic." It made me laugh out loud. Some days, it feels just like that!

2) American Idol concert!

Our whole family (minus Andy) went to the concert last night. This was Samuel's first concert experience. We had watched the whole American Idol season this spring. Samuel and our foster daughter enjoyed the show so it became a weekly family bonding event. The concert ended up being great- lots of talented musicians. Afterwards we heard the contestants were signing autographs so we braved the line and met all of them except for Phillip Phillips (who apparently wasn't feeling well). Our foster daughter was squealing and about passed out (her words!) when she met Joshua Ledet. Samuel liked Colton (he was really intrigued by his spiked hair) and wanted to meet him. I respect Colton for being open about his faith. Samuel was a hit with the contestants- probably because he was the youngest fan and we were the parents who let our four year old stay up until 11 gathering autographs. It was worth it- even Sammy's crankiness today from sleep deprivation! The contestants were all really personable. Such a fabulous night!

One for the books

Well, the last week or so has been one for the books.

I believe that when Romans 8:28 says that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, it is true all the time. Believing that and walking it out are two different stories, but He's given me another situation to work on it. I found out that I was pregnant a couple of weeks ago (surprise!!) and then miscarried a week later and I haven't been sure how to process it. I have done the roller coaster of infertility, adoption and now foster care. The miscarriage has been another roller coaster experience. I went from being shocked and then anxiously/excitedly pregnant (thinking about 3 kiddos under 5 + a preteen!!) to asking God "Ok, what was that about? What am I suppsed to learn here?"

In the same week, I have had some heavy conversations with our foster kiddo. In our foster parent training, they talked about how important it is to support the child's family and to not speak poorly of them. I am seeing that played out as she grapples with how to love her family, feel loyal to them and still let us embrace her and care about her. This is not an easy task for a child. She needs to hear me say that we are not trying to take her family's place. And we aren't. I was afraid of foster care when we first discussed it because I didn't want to "share" kids and have to let them go. But there is such a blessing in being able to be a tiny little part of a child's fragile restoration. To love the child in my home well, I have to love her family well.

I don't have the answers to our latest roller coaster ride or how to ease this child's heartache. Not going to lie, I'm emotionally drained, but there is peace and comfort in surrender. That is the only thing I can land on as I process the past couple of weeks. I am too tired to even try to understand what He's been bringing in my path lately. Instead, I attempt to yet again surrender my control, my agenda, my impatience, my entitlement, my expectations, my anger and frustration. Again. So here we go, Lord, thankful for another day- and never a dull moment!

Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Making the statistics real

Thought this article did a good job of breaking down adoption/orphan statistics in a way that personalizes them- read it here!

Happy 4th!

We just returned from a 5 day trip to my parents' lakehouse. It was our first trip with my whole family (us, parents + brother). It was a fun long weekend- sunny weather, great boating and wonderful company. I can say I actually water skied. I had done it at the age of ten for about 30 seconds, but hadn't attempted it since then. Thanks to the patience of my Dad, Jimmy and I both did some skiing (and a lot of falling, too) and have the sore muscles to prove it!

I have a ton of fabulous family photos from our trip, but due to the "rules" of foster parenting, I can't post any with our beautiful foster daughter in them. It feels wrong to post only those without her (and there aren't many of those!) as if she weren't there at all, so I'll stick with this one of me and the hubs!