Rain rain go away!

We are back to our little family of three this week. It's a long story which Jimmy says I shouldn't be blogging about :), but the boys are no longer with us. It was sad to see them go, but also a relief- don't know how long I could have kept up with three little ones. I know there are lots of people who do that on a regular basis- bless you! Samuel asks about them a few times a day and we think of them lots. Lots of learning/thinking/processing going on in my head about this....

We're heading out soon for a family vaca. Thanks to my grandparents who have had a condo in Florida since before I was born, we have a free place to stay- can't beat that! This will be our first real family vacation besides the mission trip back to Guatemala last fall (which was great, but not exactly "relaxing and restful"). We are planning to go to Disney for one day and spend the rest of the time playing on the beach! My white body is going to scare some of the locals, but hopefully they'll recover and I'll get a tan.

A couple of other things that are making me smile today...

1) I give my last final tomorrow and then I'm done for the summer (well, after I grade it)! Woohoo!

2) There is now a train that you can ride around the mall. Did anyone else already know this? It's run by a cute little man with an accent. For $3 you ride around the lower level. Samuel thought he had died and gone to heaven. The "conductor" hands you a ticket and makes sure you know not to lose it before he comes by (about 30 seconds later) to "punch" it. Then there was the obligatory "all aboard" call. I was laughing so hard I almost peed. All 6'+ of my husband in this little red train car going around the mall... priceless!

Sam, Erick and Jimmy... ready to ride!


Super fuzzy (new phone and bad photographer)


And a random shot of Samuel and his buddy, Luke- love it!

Snapshot of today...

So we canceled our landline last week because "we never use it." Then, last night Samuel dunked my cell phone in water so now it only halfway works. Today I was at home with three boys and I needed to make a work related phone call. I could call on my phone, but it beeps every 5-10 seconds, which hardly seems professional, so I packed all three boys in the car and headed to my parents to use their phone. A safe outing, right? As I made my phone call, I heard one boy playing the piano and the other two seemed occupied with my parents' dog. I kept my conversation brief and ducked back in the living room just as my son ran around throwing what looked like flour into the air. Nope, not flour. He and the 3 year old had figured out how to open the door on my parents' fireplace insert and had thrown ashes around the room. Lovely. So I quickly vacuumed, cleaned up as the chaos continued. Then we packed back into the car, grabbed Chik-fil-a and headed to the park. This was my second park attempt of the week and this one was much more successful- we stayed a whole hour. The child with some tantrum/running issues was at my side and I was smart enough to contain him in the stroller while we ate lunch. Phew!

So we are surviving and learning a lot. We are not sure how long we'll have the boys, but probably no more than a week more. I have just ONE final left to give and then will be done teaching for the semester. I'm looking forward to the weekend and celebrating Mother's Day!

The men in my life

Well, I'm completely outnumbered. I never really thought about being outnumbered when it was just the three of us. Now that there are two additional little boys running around- I notice. One of the children with us is very proud that he can stand up to pee. While I'm thankful he's potty trained, I think he needs the remedial course for the stand up pee as I witnessed him successfully hitting many surfaces in the bathroom today in addition to the water. Yikes.

The past two days have been a blur- feeding, cleaning, holding, reassuring, playing with and keeping up with 3 kids 3 and under! The kids (Samuel included) seem to be doing well considering the circumstances. I prayed that Samuel would not be negatively impacted by us becoming a foster family and so far I'm so proud of him- he's sharing well and enjoying having playmates 24/7.

Our classes had done a good job of preparing us for many things, but I don't think anything could really help me fully understand the whirlwind of the first 24 hours. The kids show up with very little and we're trying to piece together clothes, diapers, food, shoes, carseats. I kept thinking... could I have been better prepared? But there is so much unknown until you get that call! So we returned the infant carseat from the last call, packed up the infant clothes, packed up the premie diapers and replaced them with booster seat, the biggest size diapers and much bigger clothes! We appreciate people around us who, instead of saying "What the heck were you thinking?" have jumped in to help. We even had Costco size boxes of fruit snacks and cheese-its anonymously show up on our doorstep!

So despite being exhausted, I am excited to get to love on these boys, even if it is just for a week. The best part for me has been seeing Jimmy interact with the boys. He's good with them and not in just a "oh, he's nice to them, isn't that cute?" kind of way. It's like a "I get goosebumps when I watch him" kind of way. I can see God using Jimmy's gifts, past, passions and personality as he interacts with these boys and they respond well to him. It's got God's fingerprints all over it. The conviction with which he has continually reassured these kiddos that they are safe, that they can talk to us, that it's ok to be sad, that no one will hurt them here- it's awesome. AND he has a magical way of calming one of the kiddos' tantrums. OK, enough about Jimmy, but seriously, you should see him in action.

That's all from here...