Our First Year

It will mark one year this week since the judge ordered placement in our home. Our year has been rough, but full of memories too! I thought I would share some of our big moments with you!

January 21st--The kids were ordered to be placed in our home.

January 25th--We met our kiddos at their church. What a beautiful day this was. We played dolls, legos, play dough, and house for hours.

January 31st---Vist #2. McDonalds and the Indy Car Museum. The kiddos loved sitting in the race cars and pretending to drive. This is the day I realized an outing with three kiddos is WORK! :)

February 7th---We brought the kiddos to our home for the first time and they saw their new rooms. Little man loved his new toys and the girlies played dress up with their new clothes for hours.

February 8th-- First visit at our church. They were SO nervous, but to our delight when we returned to children's ministry, they were begging to go back. After church, little man bought me flowers. It was the sweetest gesture.

February 15th--First night in our home. I have sweet pictures of all three in their new beds. I wish I could show you. They are too precious.

February 22nd--After a long week and some unplanned events, the kiddos were placed 9 wks early.

February 24th---First day at their new school.

March 11th--First scary moment as a mom that included a gash on peanut's head and 4 stitches.

March 14th---Hubby's 25th. First family gathering at the house since the kiddos had been placed.

March 21st--My first date with little man at chik-fil-a's Date Knight. Ever since, he has had the nickname valiant knight. Brenton also had a date with the girls. They ate ice cream cones that were basically the size of Montana. Way to make their dietitian mommy proud. ;)

March 25th--First trip to the Children's Museum. It was too much! We haven't been back since.

April 3rd--Little man got glasses. :)

April 4th--First Easter Egg Hunt!

April 5th--First Easter!

April 9th--Peanut was no longer failure to thrive according to her specialists.

May 8th--Carnival at the new private school!

May 9th-- First manicures! It was a BIG deal :)

May 10th--Mother's Day

May 15th--Girls' first hair cut! Big deal considering they came with about 1 inch of hair. :)

May 13th--Little man was bat boy for my brother's baseball game.

May 16th-- Peanut and I sold Lemonade together at her school. She was too cute with her big girl serving gloves on. :)

May 21st--Muffins with Mom at school. Best breakfast I had ever had, hands down.

June 6th--Professional women's basketball game!

June 15th--The day little man fell in love with baseball. My dad took him to a clinic and he got second place in a fielding competition. He's definately fitting in with the baseball lovers in the family now!

June 18th--1st dance class. I thought they were going to continue as statues for the entire class, but halfway through they loosened up!

July 6th--1st swimming lesson. Little man and beautiful butterfly were rock stars and quickly rose to the top class. Peanut stayed in the "cutie pie" class as my husband and I liked to call it.

July 11th--Little man's birthday party lego style at the park. This was such a fun day for everyone.

July 18th--First big out of town trip to Lego Land and American Girl. Yes, we got our first American Girl doll. BIG MOMENT for Peanut.

July 26th--Little man's first day of church camp. He still constantly talks about this. I think it is his favorite memory.

August 1st--Peanut's birthday party, fairy style at the zoo!

August 11th--First day at the new private school. Best decision we have ever made.

August 15th--Gymnastics championships with the girlies. Needless to say, we had to register for gymnastics class after this.

August 21st--Zoo trip with our beautiful butterfly. She loved this day, basically because she was able to feed a giraffe.

August 28th--New HOUSE!

September 7th--Frozen on Ice. Beautiful Butterfly's favorite memory.

September 12th--First soccer game. Little man made a goal!

October 3rd--Apple Orchard. The kids loved it! We will definitley be doing this again next year.

October 10th--I dumped soup on myself. I had to go to the ER. The kids cried for hours. It was sad...

October 31st--First Halloween with three little minions!

November 16th--Beautiful butterfly's birthday get together. Homemade pizzas, cake, and jewelry making. It was a good day.

November 26th--First Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful day filled with food and family. Little man and beautiful butterfly thought eating a turkey leg was the best moment of their lives. I personally thought it was icky.

November 27th--Christmas decorating!!

December 5th--Breakfast with Santa! This was the day the kiddos truly believed Santa was going to come to leave them presents for the first time ever.

December 6th--Christmas parade. "Watch me whip whip"

December 17th--Little man had a special part in the Christmas program and he rocked it!

December 23rd--First family christmas! May we say we have some spoiled littles? Yes!

December 24th--Christmas jammies, books, gingerbread houses, and cookies oh my!

December 25th--First Christmas. My favorite memory thus far.  I loved seeing the littles faces when they saw that Santa remembered them this year.

December 27th--Family Christmas #3. Did I mention that the littles love their cousins?

December 31st--1st New Year's Eve. Thank you Netflix for your New Year's Eve countdowns. We love you FOREVER.

January 1st--Family Christmas #4. Yes, you read four. It was filled with Bingo, bingo, bingo!

January 6th--Dia De Los Reyes (Day of the Kings)- Little man found baby Jesus in the Rosca de Reyes cake and the kings left a little gift in our little ones shoes.

And many more to come.


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Spanish Words of the Week

Here are Spanish words of the week! Enjoy!

Food: Comida (co-meed-a)
Fruit: Frutas (fru-tas)
Vegetables: Vegetales (ve-he-tal-es)
Meats: Carnes (car-nes)
Beans: Frijoles (fre-hol-es)

Carrots: Zanahorias (sana-or-ias)
Asparagus: Asparragos (as-parr-agos)
Broccoli: Brocoli (broc-o-lee)

Apples: Manzana (man-san-a)
Oranges: Naranjas (na-rawn-ha)
Grapes: Uvas (u-vas)

Fish: Pescado (pes-cad-o)
Chicken: Pollo (po-yo)
Pork: Puerco (p-wear-co)

As always, try to fit a few in if/when you talk with the kiddos!

Thanks!

Fighting the Fight

I recently watched War Room. It was extremely inspirational for me. I love how the movie highlights the fact that we cannot fight the fight alone. I am a fighter. BIG TIME. I do everything possible to ensure that my kids have what they need. I am not saying that I am going to stop working hard to get what they need, but I am definitley going to work on going to battle in prayer for my kiddos with more diligence. After all, Mommy can't fix everything. Some of the things we are going through right now seems hopeless at times. If only I would've fixed my eyes on the one who can fight for me and my family instead of looking at every therapist, behavioralist, medicine etc out there to help one of our kiddos. I know one thing for sure, things would have been much more positive for us as a family as we crawled through the muck with our little one. Instead, we hit ROCK BOTTOM. We did not have the answers and did not know what the future of our family would look like.

We were talking last night and said that we were like Peter when he walked on the water. We started out this process with our eyes fully and completely on Christ. After a while, we got busy and comfortable in our own decisions and took our eyes off Christ. We sank, but thankfully God is a God of grace and He gives second chances. We have decided as a couple that we are going to go to battle in prayer and allow God to take the lead of our family. We know that he has the power to change the effects of years and years of abuse that has affected our kiddos. He has the power to give them peace, strength, and hope. And most of all, He has the power to protect our family.

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Our Story

I wanted to take a little bit of time to look back on our journey. My husband and I met in 2006 in high school and were married in 2011. Throughout the first few years of our marriage, we served as adult leaders of our church's youth group. We saw struggles, joys, and questions cross these young lives over the years and knew we wanted to do more to help children. After I went to India in 2013 and visited orphanages, we started seriously talking about adoption. We carefully looked at every avenue, but were drawn to foster care. My husband said to me, "Parents are on waiting lists for babies and children are on waiting lists for parents." He was right. We needed to focus on the path that God laid before us and we both knew that it was foster care adoption.

In July of 2014, we started classes to become licensed foster parents and then received our license in September of 2014. We received calls about children, but nothing seemed to work out for one reason or another. We then received a call about a sibling group of three in early December. My placement specialist said, "Do you remember the group that I had mentioned a couple of months ago? The case worker is seriously looking for pre-adoptive homes. I told her you were interested." We had never heard a word about these three kids and had no idea what the specialist was talking about, but we trusted God's plan. A few weeks later, we received a call asking us to attend an interview regarding the children's placement.

We attended the interview and felt confident that God's plan was to place the children in our home. A couple of weeks later we received a call that we had been chosen as the children's preadoptive placement and that the kids would be placed in within the next two weeks.

The day for placement arrived and we made the hour drive to pick up the kiddos. When we arrived the caseworker stated that plans had been postponed and the kids future was in limbo. We were heartbroken and in shock all at the same time.

We struggled through the Christmas holiday. A couple of weeks after Christmas we received word that a placement hearing was scheduled. By this time, we had already scheduled another interview for another sibling group. We had to decide which route to take. After much discussion, we decided to attend the court hearing. One day before court we received a call for a sibling group of two. The case worker was very interested in us and wanted us to call as soon as court ended to let her know if we were still a potential placement.

We got to court and our placement worker immediately mentioned the two kids. She did not have confidence that the three kids would be placed with us due to possible kinship placement. During the court hearing everything took a turn and the judge placed the kiddos with us specifically.

We met the kids four days later and they were placed in our home within a three weeks. From that day our life has been a roller coaster of ups and downs. I have cried and laughed this year more than I ever have. Through it all we know that our valiant knight, beautiful butterfly, and little peanut were placed in our home under a divine plan. It is good for me to focus on that truth through the struggles. God is in CONTROL and He has a PLAN. He put our names in a caseworker's ear that we had never heard of and then led a judge to place them in our home against all odds. Now I know exactly why. Maybe our kiddos will share the reason with you someday. The rest is their story to tell.

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Spanish Words of the Week!

We are working on speaking more Spanish in our household this year. Due to some past traumas, our kiddos are a little afraid to hear and speak Spanish. We have decided to come up with a weekly list of words to focus on each week until we become more comfortable with open conversation. The kids are participating so far!  I thought I would share our list with all of you. If you see the kiddos, they would love to hear their weekly words from their family and friends. :) Plus, it will help them become more comfortable around their native language.

WORDS:

1.) Family: Familia (fa-mil-ia)
2.) Mom: Mama (ma-ma)
3.) Dad: Papa (pa-pa)
4.) Son: Hijo (e-ho)
5.) Daughter: Hija (e-huh)
6) Brother: Hermano (er-mah-no)
7.) Sister: Hermana (er-mah-na)
8.) Aunt: Tia (tee-a)
9.) Uncle: Tio (tee-o)
10.) Grandma: Abuela (a-bue-la)
11.) Granpa: Abuelo (a-bue-lo)
12.) Grandson: Nieto (nee-a-toe)
13.) Granddaughter: Nieta (nee-a-ta)
14.) Niece: Sobrina (so-breen-a)
15.) Nephew: Sobrino (so-breen-o)
16.) Cousin: Primo/a (pree-ma)

PHRASE:

"I love you!" : Te amo (tay ah-mo)

Ok, so I am terrible at phonics (and I don't know how to make the lines on the computer), but I tried to write out the sounds for you. Let me know if you have any questions! Please try a word with the kiddos, they will love you forever!