He's a good big brother

Without being asked to, Josiah read to Seth for a while before bed.  Those boys sure are sweet...most of the time. ;)

A lunch datedate

Going out to lunch with this little man is always entertaining, plus he's a pretty cute date. :-) He has lots of stories and if I'm honest, sometimes when we're at home I don't take enough time to listen and at a restaurant I can't get up to clean or work while he eats...I need to just sit and listen.  Now I need to work on that when we're at home!

Sneaky!

The sneaky little brother strikes again.  After Josiah fell asleep, Seth crawled into his bed with him.  He may rascally, but he's also cuddly.  Thankfully, Josiah has a very soft place in his heart for his little brother and he doesn't mind this sneaky trick, but it is a little cramped and a bit surprising in the morning. :-)

Snow day!

Since moving in with us over 7 months ago I had told our foster daughter that we would get drifts of snow that would be taller than her.  She had a hard time believing me...until now. :-)

There was no school today and we spent the entire morning outside clearing the snow and playing in it.  What a great day!

Daddy - Daughter Dance

A fun night of quality time with her daddy!  She looks forward to it each year and I love how she adores her daddy.

Life Can Change...

When we entered into foster care we knew it wouldn't always be an easy road.  Last time I updated we were close to transitioning...now we are not.  Everything has changed, we were just a couple weeks from transitioning and then just a couple days after my last post we found out we weren't.  It's a rollercoaster for us, but it's been especially tough for our foster daughter.

 

After a family meeting, we committed to 'stay the course' until the Lord provides a permaneant solution for this sweet girl.  Though I can't share details, I'm thankful that the Lord has provided a great 'forever' option for her.  We love and adore her, but the reality is she wants to be with family...we get that and we can't blame her.  Thankfully she enjoys being at our house as well, but long term we want the best for her.  Though the process will most likely be long, I trust that the best plan for her is still to come.

 

The road isn't always easy, but to impact the life of a child is priceless...

Transition

I realize I haven't posted much about our Foster Care journey lately and part of that is because there wasn't a lot of new 'information' to report and part of it was because writing out my thoughts and emotions was overwhelming.  So here is a condensed version...

 

We have had our foster daughter in our home for over 6 months now...hard to believe that much time has passed...  We are entering a new phase in our Foster Care journey, it's the 'transition' phase.  We will soon be transitioning our foster daughter out of our home and in with her mom.  She has had regulart visits and they've gone really well.  We aren't sure what to expect or what 'transition' will look like, but I pray we (the team) can find a way to transition her well. 

 

Over the last couple of months we have built a great relationship with her mom and some of her extended family as well and that gives me hope that it's not a permaneant 'good-bye', but rather a 'see you later'.  I'm a mix of emotions...on one hand I'm excited for her, this is exactly what we've been praying would happen...on the other hand, it will be hard to let her go and trust that the situation will be different this time.

 

When we became foster parents our prayer was that it would be a relationship with the child, but also an opportunity to come alongside the parents.  I feel so blessed to see how God has orchestrated that so perfectly according to His will.  Over the course of the next month or so as we transition the next question is...do we continue being foster parents??  It's an emotional journey to say the least...yet, I pray that God would give us the strength and the peace to say 'yes' in His timing.