so. i have not updated this since we took in our new guy, whom i'll refer to as baby boy.

wow, how our life changed that january 3rd night! i'll never forget sitting at rex's basketball practice, chasing leo around...and the life changing text i got from our other girls' caseworker about a baby they'd need placement for in a few hours. i no joke, asked leo if we should take a baby(knowing he says no to most questions)...and he said, "yesh. i wan baby." well, okay.

that first night, he was so confused, tired and sick. i bathed him, found some old leo pj's, tried to calm him down. i rocked him to sleep that night and just cried over his story. he cried out a few times that night, but overall slept pretty well. but was completely frazzled the next morning. he still often wakes up in a completely hysterical fit. as if he has no idea where he woke up. 

all four of our other kids were just in love. in fact, that first morning i had pulled baby out of bed and was just holding him in my bed before i got up, when rex came in my room. he'd been asleep when the baby arrived, so it was his first time to see him. he crawled up on the bed, and with a huge grin and cheesy baby voice said, "oh! well dis must be our new baby! hi there!". at which point we got the first of many smiles out of baby boy.

i was worried about how leo would do with him. there is only a little over 7 months between them. potential for major competition issues. but that sweet boy rose to the challenge of being a big brother, and acts years older around him. brings him toys..talks to him in baby voices...recently we had to take a long trip to the dr for baby. leo was genuinely very ill. high fever, congested, and miserable. baby was understandably ticked about the dr appointments and car ride. but was just being fussy in the car. and by fussy, i mean pretty horrible. and leo would just repeat over and over, "it's okay baby, it's okay. don't cwy."

i am realizing now how amazingly easy our three boys were as babies. i've never had a clingy one quite like this...and i've certainly never had a baby that was terrified of kevin. to say it's been challenging to deal with the complete freak outs every time kevin walks in the door would be a massive understatement. they have gradually gotten better. he'll finally play with kevin and reach for him, even when i'm in the same room. and while i know we've only had him 6 weeks...it seems like it's been an eternity of baby steps. but he continues to cry every time kevin comes home...and it's exhausting. after 5-10 minutes...when he realizes kevin is okay, he can snap out of it. he's just a tad bit attached to me.

our biggest issue has been sleep. he slept great at first. in fact, too good, and all the time. but as he's gotten more healthy and strong, he finds much energy in the night to scream at me. running our home with 5 children is kinda hard. running our home with 5 children on very little sleep is darn near impossible. i got desperate. we just can't sell our house TODAY. or move somewhere bigger TODAY. i needed some kind of fix for the lack of sleep, fast. i knew baby was just fussing only half awake in the night...then i'd tend to him and it'd turn into a full out fit. he needed to be left alone. a few nights ago as i laid in bed, listening to him call me from 2 feet away at 2:14am, praying for God to help SOMEHOW...i got a brilliant idea. square footage wise, the boys' room is just too small to put another kid in. (in fact if our boys were foster kids it's too small for the 3 of them.) but OUR room is big enough for 4 kids. and after not much convincing...we decided to switch rooms.

kevin and i spent an entire saturday taking apart and reassembling cribs and bunk beds. ok, so kevin did most of that. i just pretended to help. we were pretty bummed to lose our nice big room and bathroom(the thought of uninterrupted sleep motivated us). the boys thought it was the best day EVER. it's actually quite spacey in there. and baby goes right to sleep(with the exception of a few nights a week...where they choose to giggle for a while first) because the big boys do.  

our new room is actually kinda cozy. and extra dark because of the black out shades.

now i'm not gonna lie to you. neither of us did this with an especially good attitude. in fact, we were a tad bitter about it. we feel like we're doing what God wants us to do with our lives. i have jokingly referred to our house as "pressed but not squished". but now i feel like it really is squished. i literally trip over a baby at least once a day. it feels like there are people EVERYWHERE. we'd grown out of this house with just our boys and the teen. and now we are busting at the seams. and we were getting frustrated that God hadn't shown up yet with something bigger. haven't we made enough sacrifices God? now we're giving up our room...come on!

but sunday at church, the sermon was about not giving up on dreams. if you feel God has promised you something, to carry on until it comes to pass. and he used this verse....

james 1:2-4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.(the message)

i feel like God is making sure i've got this patience and waiting thing down pat until something bigger and better comes along. and we'll make the absolute best of what we have and be thankful. and we'll be faithful in the little things. literally.

frustrations with space aside. we are blessed. the teen has been a pleasure. the baby overall has adjusted pretty well. and the 3 blonde boys have been phenomenal with all the change. i'm blessed daily by their acceptance and adaptability. people who chose not to do foster care only because of fear of their biological children's possible reactions, are missing out. child like faith has a new meaning for us as we watch our kids live out what Jesus taught in the gospels. i've said it before, and will say it again. i think these guys are better at foster care than we are.

we get a lot of questions about the entire journey...so i thought i'd make a big ole' post and tell the whole story. grab a snack.

kevin and i have talked about doing foster care since we were first married 8 years ago. we had a few friends in our church doing it at the time and really admired them and ADORED their kids. when we looked into it, there was a rule that stated you had to be married 2 years first. (btw that rule no longer exists) so it was put on the back burner.

meanwhile we had a handful of kids...and though we still talked about it occasionally, it wasn't as serious of a conversation. more of a "when or kids are older let's do that" day dreamy type conversation. God used those years i believe to strengthen our marriage.

last fall, our pastor did a message about how to care for the orphan. the bible TELLS US to do this. not a suggestion. there were several ideas he gave on how to do this. child sponsorships, mentoring, adopting, fostering, etc. leaving church that day we were both feeling very burdened about it, knowing we needed to do SOMETHING, and that using our young children was an excuse. we had felt called to foster care early on and had simply gotten distracted with life. after talking about all the ideas our pastor mentioned, fostering really made the most sense for us. so we began looking into it and start the process with the CALL. the process can look overwhelming at first, but it's really not. we made a few adjustments to our home(adding smoke detectors, fire place screens, etc) and filled out the paper work. we put our boys in one room and made the nursery a bedroom for two. (btw kids sharing rooms, even 3 in a room is NOT a big deal). we trained over 2 weekends in january.

when we first decided to go for it, we agreed we'd only take in kids younger than our own. and definitely no kids that had been abused. i mean we can't have foster kids affecting OUR kids too much, ya know. and certainly didn't want to hurt OUR kids. but the deeper we got in to training the more God was showing us the need for families to take in teenagers. many people are 'afraid' of them. and these are some of the kids that need to be reached the most!! the statistics on what happens to kids when they "age out" of the system are staggering. a very large percentage end up homeless, in jail or in prostitution. we began to feel like taking in a 15 year old or older would be a great age to help teach them how to be an adult. we were still nervous about the effects of older kids on our kids, and i was scared to take in a teenage boy. what if he's bigger than me? what if he gets mad and beats me up? so we agreed to start with a teenage/preteen girl.

meanwhile, one day i was looking at the heart gallery. there was a preteen girl on there at the time that stuck out to me. i prayed and prayed to try to understand if she stuck out for a reason. kevin and i talked about her...and finally i decided to call and ask about her. we couldn't get much information before we were officially an "open" home, but i was able to gather she'd been pretty severely sexually abused. she didn't want a dad...and i ached to have kevin show her what a GOOD daddy is. a dad that doesn't hurt her, and who protects her. we were so drawn to this girl. we prayed and prayed for her every day. as we got closer to opening we prayed about whether or not to take her...if we were even able to. i was finally able to talk to the adoption specialist about her more specifically. turns out her abuse had been so severe, that now SHE had abused other children. whoa wait a sec. MY KIDS. what about them?! God, why did you draw me to her if she might hurt MY kids? and ya wanna know what God told us?

He told us the boys are NOT YOUR KIDS. they are mine. and so are these precious babies in the "system". you cannot put your children over them.

but what if they hurt them?? am i not supposed to protect my own children?!

and we wrestled with that. a LOT. and slowly God began to reveal to us our selfishness and wrong motivations. of course we shouldn't put our kids in harm's way for no reason. but God was calling us to something bigger than us, for His sake. and if God forbid one of our children were hurt because of our obedience...we were going to have to trust that He would carry us and be glorified. and we sincerely felt like we needed to offer up our children. NOT to be hurt. but relinquishing our protectiveness over them to God. and i realize that caring for your children is not selfish, but refusing to care for OTHER children BECAUSE of your children is. (and i realize how harsh this is. it was harsh to learn it!!)

so we decided that if the state would let us, we would take this girl. we would love her and show her we wouldn't quit on her. no matter how horrible it got.

i continued to pursue her. we were eventually told we would not legally be able to take in this girl because she had abused so many other children that they were not allowed to place her in a home with young kids because of the risk. and i was so sad and broken for her. why in the world had i spent the last 2 months praying for her and seeking her out??

one night soon after, during a worship service at our church, kevin got a 'vision' or picture of Abraham and Isaac from the bible. and how Abraham obeyed to the point of being willing to sacrifice his own son because God told him to. but at the very last second God provided another sacrifice to spare Isaac's life. and he felt very strongly that God was showing him that He was happy with our willingness to obey even when it almost surely meant our kids being in danger. but that He wasn't going to require that of us right now. and we felt peace about that. i continue to pray for that girl. maybe i was the only one praying for her during that time and that's why God laid her on my heart. and also to teach us this lesson--that our children cannot be the determining factor in what we do. that hearing from God is the determining factor. He was working on our hearts during our wait.

fast forward another month and we opened and got our sweet teen. she has been a joy and fit in from the get go. she even LOOKS like she belongs in our family. it did not take us long at all to fall in love with her. we dealt with some typical minor teen drama stuff, but found that she thrived with clear boundaries. she has been shockingly easy to parent. rex and leo adapted perfectly to having her around. gus was a little whiny and clingy and confused. he'd often ask her, "do you have a home?" and she'd look at me with this face that said, "how do i respond to that??" and i would just say, "this is her home." and he'd say ok. then ask her again 10 minutes later. repeat many times a day. it wore us all out. but he slowly stopped, and got used to her being around and went back to his normal routine.

recently, as most of you know i'm sure, we had kind of a traumatic loss of our baby at 17 weeks. our friends and family rallied around us. they brought us gifts. and money. and food for 2 full weeks. and flowers. and i could go on. and it blew my teen's mind. she kept asking things like, "do YOU take people meals when they lose a baby?" "is this NORMAL?" and it was really cool to have conversations about what real friendship is. what real love is. how the body of Christ responds to tragedy. if you brought us a meal God was showing through YOU to show my girl how to take care of people. she said she wished her family could see how GOOD people can be.

now i'd be lying if i said it's easy to grieve in front of people you don't know well. and to have an extra person in our house when i wanted to crawl in bed and not get out was kind of hard. i do not like for people to see me sad or crying. grief can be very personal. there was one night kevin was tucking the boys in bed, and teen came in the living room and at first didn't notice i was crying...then i kind of hid my face, she felt horrible and left. and i was even more upset that she'd SEEN me upset. but some wise friends told me she NEEDS to see this. she needs to see how people are supposed to respond to loss. how to respond in a healthy way. and it's ok to cry. it's ok to accept help. and that you can get through stressful times without lashing out on each other or reaching out to drugs or alcohol.

so decided not to worry so much about hiding my mood, even if it wasn't the best one. as long as i was kind and loving. and sometimes all the energy i had that first week was put into being kind and loving. and she would admit to you it was not her best week either. she was more sassy than usual. slightly more disrespectful. we were caught off guard because we were sad and focusing on us a bit, and it almost seemed like she was being hurtful on purpose.

and then it occurred to me that in some capacity almost everyone who should have stuck up for her in her life had quit at some point. usually when it got hard. and she saw how hard this was and what a stressful situation it could be for us...and maybe subconsciously was TRYING to see if we might quit on her if it got hard. and while we never plan to quit on her, i made it my point to prove to her that we wouldn't. when she was ugly to me, i was kind and patient. and we talked about it and she started to calm down. and a few days after that she even told me, "kelly sometimes i want SO bad to mad at you! but i can't, because you are so calm and patient with me!!" that right there was Jesus working through me when i didn't even think i had anything to work with. He is strong when we are weak. and she continued to soften back up after that and be the giggly happy teen girl we'd fallen in love with.

last friday morning, i was having a rough morning. i was really sad again out of nowhere about the baby, and just not sure what to do. should we have another maybe? maybe another foster kid? but i wanted THAT baby. i missed that baby. and i was just sad. but i decided i would suck it up for a bit, take the little boys to the park because it was a beautiful day and just enjoy them. so i did. on my way i called the teen's case worker to work out a visit with her mom for the afternoon. as soon as the caseworker answered she begged me to take in a 5 year old. i had asked the teen a few weeks earlier if she'd be ok if we took in another teen and she begged me not to. and kevin wasn't too stoked about it either...so i assumed it was a no go on ANY additional kids. so i told her i SO wish i could, but we can't.

well we moved on to the park, and wouldn't you know i met another foster mom there? and we talked about our kids and the need for more homes and how we both wanted to take in more. it just refueled my fire for foster care, when it had inadvertently been dampened by my grief over the baby. i realize there is a healthy time of grieving and it's ok and can take a while. but on this particular friday i felt like i'd been seeping a little too close to despair and i needed to snap out of it a bit. i texted my dear friend stephanie, and she told me she'd be praying for kevin and i have to complete unity on whatever we decided, so we could KNOW that it was God that gave us the idea, whatever it was. that neither of us would have to convince the other of anything.

at lunch i discussed with kevin the five year old, but we still assumed the teen would be opposed...and since this is her first stable home EVER, and this is still a pretty new placement we opted not to disrupt it and drop it for a while.

well, i checked teen out of school for her visit and we were just shooting the breeze about our days, and i mentioned having turned down the five year old. i was so surprised at her reaction, "WHY?! why did you turn her down? i'd be happy to share with a five year old! please call back, who knows where they'll put that poor kid!!" wow. my little teen is turning into quite the foster care advocate!! i asked her about turning down the other teen and she had only been concerned about inviting another TEEN into the house. granted, she knows better than i do how some of the teens can be in foster care. then said, "but this is a KID. she doesn't understand. please call back." so i told her i'd ask when we got to dhs and if she was still available i'd call kevin and HE would make the call, not us.

well sure enough we got there and they still needed a placement for her. the teen was freaking out and so excited...i called kevin(who at lunch remember said we should just chill for a while) and just told him she was still available and our girl was ok with it.(i didn't even ASK him) and with no hesitation he agreed(unity!). so we waited around after teen's visit and loaded up a sweet little thing that none of us can get enough of.

as we got her stuff together to head home the teen told me, "i'm really sorry by the way for how i acted after the baby died. i didn't expect the sadness to make me act that way, and i'm sorry. THANK you for taking in this little girl. you amaze me."

and we are all, including teen, completely smitten with our newest addition.

yesterday gus asked her if she had a home. and without thinking about it she said, "yes, i live here." and he said ok, and hasn't asked again. i feel like he understands better this time.

we are not super awesome or amazing people. we are simply doing what we feel like we should do. and we want God to get the glory for that, not us.

i get asked a lot "what if you lose them? how will you deal??". and that's a legit question. and we'll be crushed i'm sure. but we won't NOT do this because it MIGHT make us sad at some point. that's not obedience. that's trying to preserve our own feelings. this is not about us. it's about these kids.

we're still new. there are many more seasoned foster parents with better advice and wisdom than I. but God made it clear we need to do this, and He has a plan for these kids whether or not we are a permanent part of it. so we're just going to love on these girls and show them how a family should be. and hope that it sticks with them. and we're going to have fun.

our house and van and kitchen table are full. as are our hearts. and that's fun.

cheesy, but just true.