The return of Thankful Thursday!

December the 10th is now such a special day for our family! One year ago today, "Tinkerbell" pranced her way into our lives, and we are so incredibly thankful! I know that many of my Thankful Thursday posts have focused on her, but on this day, in God's infinite wisdom... guess what we just got in the mail? Our adoption petition! We hope to go get this signed today, and that should be it!! We have to await finalization, but that is petty much guaranteed.

I am so thankful that God had a plan for our family, and it was very different than mine.

Gobble, Gobble!!

Despite sickness, we've had a great week here at the Paul household. I cooked my first Thanksgiving feast (with some help from Bailey, Mom, and Tink, of course), and it went beautifully. We did some Black Friday shopping, and we've been resting and enjoying each other.

I am so thankful for my Jesus! I am thankful for a home to live in, and 5 beautiful little souls that fill it. I'm thankful for a husband who is steady and strong who loves God in a real way. We have been blessed beyond imagining this year.

Sometimes I feel like we are stuck in the "in-between", just waiting for the rest of our lives to start, but I realized today that we are exactly where God wants us for right now. I praise you my Father, for right now.

Tonight is the night!!!

I am having a girls' night out tonight... and not just any girls' night out. Tonight is the premiere of New Moon! I've been a huge twilight fan for a couple of years now, and so this is a big event. Tink, Bailey, and I, along with my BFF Amber who runs EyesOfAmber (only the bestest twilight blog in the whole wide world!) and several others, are having a very Twilight-y evening, complete with a party, a showing of Twilight, and finally.... New Moon!

I hate to do it... I so hate to do it... but.... SQUEEEEEE!!!!!

Memorial Box Monday

Woohoo! It's that time again... Memorial Box Monday (okay, so now it's Tuesday since I started the post yesterday and didn't get a chance to finish)! Today's episode took place just a couple of months ago.

JP and I had taken a much needed weekend to celebrate my birthday and our 10th anniversary. If you read this blog often, you'll know what a struggle it has been to parent Sassy. I was totally burned out, and absolutely confused, and we were talking about my state of mind while driving to our favorite restaurant in Knoxville. We were on an Interstate that had about 10 lanes total, which is a little intimidating to a smallish town girl like me. Trusty JP was at the wheel, so I wasn't overly concerned.

Every day with Indie was a struggle. If she wasn't engaging in some very troubling behaviors herself, she was inciting the other children in some way. Her particular target was Jonathan. Now, Jonathan has Asperger's syndrome, and is very easily upset to the point of meltdown. She loved to tell him that he couldn't do something (like, eat or play wii, for example), so she could watch the meltdown and just smile. So, you can imagine that it was mass chaos here. Despite the fact that we were having these issues with Indie, my love for her continued to grow and take root, and I just wanted to know what was going to happen with them. Would they stay or would they go? Would Indie get better... could she get better after everything she suffered? Why did they have to suffer in the first place? Am I qualified to handle this? Have I really been called to handle this? All of those questions and more were swirling in my mind, and I was voicing some of them.... and then I said to JP, "I'm starting to wonder if He really cares at all!"

It seems like mere seconds passed before the car in the lane beside us started to move into our lane... and there was someone in the lane beside us. JP laid on the horn, moved over a little, sped up alot, and managed to avoid disaster by literal centimeters. CENTIMETERS! Folks, JP is a pretty decent driver, but he's no NASCAR guy, and there is absolutely no way that he could have pulled off those maneuvers on his own.

God was there... listening, and took that opportunity to show me that He was there, will be there, and had been there all along... and that He cared so much. Nothing in our lives are accidents; He didn't start working on another project and leave us to fend for ourselves. And I got a peace that the state of my home was still in his divine will for us, and that He was listening.

I'll put a little NASCAR car in my memorial box to commemorate JP's great driving escape, orchestrated by my heavenly father.

A New Name...

Some of you may have noted that I have *finally* changed the name of my blog. I'd been meaning to do it for forever... you know, like a year or more... and just hadn't come up with anything unique. I felt like I needed something to display that we weren't really the average, ordinary family... and I'm certainly not the stereotypical mom. June Cleaver I am not!! I'm more comfortable at a christian rock concert than at a PTA meeting (I do go, but I don't have to like it, ok?). I'm quirky at best, and downright strange at worst. So, I needed a quirky, strange-ish, yet meaningful name for my little corner of cyberspace.

I love adoption. I love my God, and I love my family. That's what this blog is mostly about. For some reason I started to think about the "I AM" statements in the book of John (I am the way, the truth, and the life, etc.), and while looking at my lovely background, the statement "I am the true vine" came to mind. I started thinking about how God takes us -- these brown, withered up, dying vines, and he grafts us in to the living vine of Christ... which is kind of a metaphor for adoption. We join his vine; we join his family. And so, I want to be a little model of this grafted vine. I want to take these little struggling plants, and graft them into our family, just as we have been grafted into His. And so, you are now at "The Grafted Vine"... the Paul family blog. It's quirky! It's probably even strange... but it means something, at least to us.

My Very First Memorial Box Monday!!!

I am so excited to finally start a Memorial Box! I haven't actually acquired the box yet, but I'm going to start gathering the items that will eventually go in the box.

So, today, on my very first Memorial Box Monday, I'm flooded with ideas for stories and items, and I'm really having trouble picking one! But, this month marks the first anniversary of our little "laundry room barbeque". The circumstances of that event have obviously been on my mind.

In Mid-November 2008, we *finally* got the call that we had been waiting for more than a year. We got a permanent placement! We were cautiously excited, and we knew that she would be coming in early December. The night before Thanksgiving, we had a couple of students at the house watching movies. I went into the laundry room, and I smelled that electrical burning smell that is s0 very distinctive. This had happened before, and last time it had been a problem with the water heater. We immediately called the owner of the house so that someone would fix the issue. I had JP scour the laundry room to make sure nothing else could be causing the smell, and we were satisfied when we went to bed that all was well.

It just so happened that we were leaving to go out of town the next day, and it just so happened that my mother had offered for us to stay in her home that night since we anticipated that we would run out of hot water. We declined her offer... thank you, Jesus! Now, my JP has sleep apnea, so he has to wear this very complicated and loud mask at night so he won't stop breathing in his sleep. For some reason, he forgot to put on his mask before he fell asleep.

Early the next morning, the smell of smoke woke him. I know, that's not supposed to happen - you aren't supposed to smell smoke in your sleep... but I absolutely believe that God made that possible. He jumped out of bed, and ran down stairs, yelling for me to wake the kids up on the way down. After just a few seconds, he yelled for me to get them out RIGHT NOW!!! For some reason, my little boy, Jonathan, had ended up in bed in his underwear... maybe he got too warm in bed? I don't know. But I yanked a shirt over his head and dragged them down the stairs and out the door and into the car (it was COLD!). Please note that neither of our smoke alarms had gone off yet, and by this time the laundry room was fully ablaze. I ran back inside (since there was very little smoke), and called 911. I went back to the porch and witnessed my studly honey running through the house (in a T-shirt and boxers, I might add), carrying a small bowl of water, which was sloshing out everywhere as he was running. Later on I would think this image was really hilarious, but at the time, I just yelled ," GET THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER!!". And it was totally a God-thing that we even had those fire extinguishers to begin with-- we were required to have them for foster care. Not only that, but we were required to carry renter's insurance by state law.

In the end, JP managed to put the fire out before the fire department even got there. We sustained minimal fire damage, but alot of smoke damage. The worst part is that we were displaced for several weeks while the damage was repaired. We were so scared that we wouldn't be able to accept our placement. But, our agency was amazing, and they arranged for respite while we were waiting to move back in. In the meantime, we were spending the rest of our meager resources on the necessities... clothes, school supplies, etc. We talked to Tinkerbell on the phone for a week or so before she came, and we found out that she was coming only with the clothes she had. We would need to provide all toiletries and school supplies when she arrived. We honestly had no idea how we were going to pay for this. Our bank account was absolutely exhausted.

Out of the blue one sunday, one of the church employees pulled my husband aside and gave him a gift card to Walmart that covered all of Tinkerbell's expenses. We were so thankful.

So, for my first Memorial Box entry, I'll put in an empty WalMart Gift Card to remind us that the Lord may give, and the Lord may take away, but he ALWAYS provides-- Jehovah Jireh.

30 Days and a Year

Thirty days ago we had a marathon court session in the county that all three of our girls are from. It was a total coincidence that the case for Sassy and Indie and the case for Tinkerbell were set on the same day.

It was quite a day people! For one, Tinkerbell's biological mom was allowed to visit her for a few days around the court date, and we actually transported her to court and generally entertained her for a couple of days. I have been so surprised to find that I like Tinkerbell's mom. Despite whatever her failings have been as a mother to Tink, I feel like she has her best interest at heart. The day of the court hearing, we also had the... um.... opportunity to meet her biological father. Unfortunately, my feeling for him is much less pleasant, and I feel that he's interests are primarily self serving. So, put all of these people in the courtroom and put them last on the docket.

THEN, add the fact that the little girls' case was in the first session, and the first thing that we heard that morning was that the case was not going to go as planned. They would probably go home that day!! Whoa. That's really all I can say. Rather that having the emotional reaction that I wanted to have, I focused on the practical problems that we faced. I mean, I needed to get the girls' laundry washed for the week, and we hadn't packed anything, and their toys were all mixed in with Jonathan and Juli's toys. My fantastic brother-and sister-in-law were watching the kids while we were over an hour a way from home, and there is no way that they could get all of that together. And there was a slight possibility that they would be gone before we ever got back to our hometown, since Tink's case was so late in the day. Would we even get to say goodbye? Of course, then I thought about Tink-- on the most stressful day in the world for her, I was going to have to make it worse by breaking this news to her before the judge heard the case so she would be prepared for the outcome.

It was such a mess, people. Tink's parents were arguing with each other, which had her crying anyway, then I had to talk to her about the little girls, and only made it much worse. We tried calling home so that Bailey could try to start making some preparations, and we couldn't get them on the phone. All this while court was in session. We were sitting on the back row, and my JP got my hands and pulled me to his side, and we prayed together on the back bench, praying only that this day would be resolved according to his Master plan.

Oh, and did I mention that the girl's mom was there, and we got to see and hear from her for the first time?

So, case number 1 was called. I expected to have to give some long disposition about the struggles the girls were having, and about the progress they have made. I only choked out one sentence in support of something that the girls' grandmother said. And it was over within a couple of minutes -- we'd review it again in six months.

I felt such massive relief! I praised my God in my head. They probably will go back home in April, but... we were given the gift of TIME. More time for the girls to heal, more time for the girls to bond with me so that they can transfer that bond to their aunt, time for them to get to know their family, and time for us to say goodbye. An amazingly precious, although somewhat bittersweet, gift from my Daddy in Heaven.

And we ran into the aunt and grandmother downstairs at the vending machine and had a really fantastic, long, talk about the girls and about God's will for their little lives. I feel very much that God wants them there, and that has given me a large measure of peace for them, and for the future of our family.

So, after lunch and recess, paperwork, squabbling and so forth, case 2 was called. We were all called into the judges' chambers to hear Tinkerbell's TPR case. Her parents had already agreed, whether for totally unselfish or selfish reasons, to voluntarily terminate their rights. It was the strangest court case I could have imagined, since my daughter was charming the judge with her mis-matched socks, and she had the whole room of suits laughing. JP turned to me and said, "She just lights up a room, doesn't she?" Yes, she really does. Soon I"ll get to show you.

There was a 30 day hold on the paperwork before we could actually file the adoption petition, and today marks the 30th day. We were assigned a lawyer, and finalization should be in late January or Early February. We have yet to actually file that petition, but it should be soon. We are so, incredibly excited by the prospect of finally adopting this "unadoptable" child. A work that only God can accomplish. This month marks one year since we were first called about her placement. It feels like she's been with us forever.

OK, so I had a little party

Ok, ok... sorry folks. I had a pity party. I was feeling sorry for myself because I will loose these kids soon. The truth of the matter is that I've met the relatives that the girls will be going home to, and they are perfectly lovely people. Their aunt truly, truly loves these girls. And I know that if God would have asked me back in May , "Hey Sabrina. I'm going to send you these two little babies that are living in absolute misery right now. Ummm... there's a couple of problems. For one, the oldest one will drive you to the mental breaking point. The other, is that they will end up breaking your heart. You'll have them for a long while... six months or more. But you are just supposed to help them until their family is ready to have them back. Will you do this for me?"

I would do it for them alone, but I'd do it a thousand times over for Him!

Right now I'm watching my three little foster babies all cuddled together, watching Barney, happy as little clams. My job is to love them like crazy until they go home, and to show them some Jesus along the way. I know they are in His hands, and their situation is in His control, and THAT is the best possible place for them to be! He loves them infinitely more than I do or ever could. And how I thank God for the one who is nearly mine! His plan is so perfect that he knew she was coming even though I never would have seen it this way.

We have more kids out there somewhere too. I pray that God will lead us to find them, all in His time.

Same Question , Different Day

I'm really learning to loathe this mess we call a foster care system.

We are failing these babies. I'm beginning to wonder if it's irreparably broken. Our priorities are completely wrong for these children. When do we stop worrying about the parents' rights, and start worrying about a child's right to a real family? How much time should we give a parent to straighten out before we do the right thing? They say that 80% of all foster children return home. Home can be to a relative or the actual parent. A huge percentage of them end up right back in the system... even more broken than they were.

I have three precious little ones from the system right now (so one is 16, I don't care, she's still my baby). Tinkerbell has found her forever family in us, and we are so excited. I have to give some credit to her biological parents in this situation though. They voluntarily terminated their rights because they knew it was the right thing to do. I wonder if we would have even been able to adopt her otherwise?

The two little ones are almost certainly going home to a relative sometime in the next several months. I'm so afraid that this will just shatter them completely. They've both come so far. I fully expect them to be back in custody in no time. How broken will Indie be then? And so it is so difficult and frustrating to look into her little eyes... now filled with actual *trust*... and I know I'll have to break it. I know there will be a day in the not-so-distant future, when I'll have to try to explain to her that I'm not "mommy" anymore. She is so happy right now, and instead of rejoicing in her progress, I am heartbroken for the coming loss. I've spent some time wondering.... "God where ARE you?".

He's here. I know He is.

The Unexpected

Hey there bloggy land! We just returned from the hospital where Tinkerbell just had emergency gall bladder surgery. I have a ton of things to do today, but I wanted to let you know what's been going on here. She is resting comfortably, finally, and I ask that you all will pray for her healing.

In other news, the adoption is going well!

I'll keep you updated...

Thankful Thursday

I know I haven't finished the JP story yet, but today I feel compelled to thank my amazing Father God. As many blessings that He has poured over us this last couple of months, it's also been bery trying. Dealing with Indie has been a gigantic challenge. For one, she's two. Two year old's are difficult under the best circumstances, and hers is hardly that. I pray for patience and strength all the time. He is so faithful though, and she is improving nearly every single day.

After they'd been here a couple of weeks, I was still trying to maintain a piece of that "they're leaving in a couple of weeks" distance. JP and I had just gone to bed, and we were chatting a bit, as we are known to do. I told him, " I just don't think they are ours, honey." And all of the sudden, I was off and running. Indie was crying. I'd get her settled and she'd cry again. And then Sassy would start. This whole scenario ran for about an hour and half. During this whole deal of soothing and settling, mostly for Indie, I felt that tug. I can't explain it, but I knew that He was trying to tell me something. Finally, I settled Indie down in bed with me, because she just couldn't sleep. I finally managed to give up that piece I'd been holding back. I think He was telling me that I was wrong. They are ours.

So, today, I am thankful for my God who is fulfilling his promises, even as we speak.

Blessings Abound

Hey there bloggy land!! I've missed you all. I have just been soooo busy for my two newest babies... you know, the ones that we were only supposed to have for 6-8 weeks? Well, we just passed the two month mark, and it looks like a miracle of God sized proportions has occurred!!

We may just get to keep them!!

The girls were supposed to go to a relative placement, but that's probably not going to happen. We aren't sure what will happen from here, but His works are amazing, and I can't wait to sit back and watch.

Just several weeks ago, I was talking to a friend about how funny it was that we started this whole foster care thing for a chance to adopt, and we end up with three unadoptable kids. Ha. Ha ha. My God loves long odds. Within a couple of weeks, we go from three unadoptable kids to one kid in the process of being adopted!!! Our beautiful, wonderful Tinkerbell. I am so excited to share her with you guys. The very same worker that I was complaining about a couple of months ago is trying his hardest to get this adoption to go through. So far, it is going very well. I desperately hope I have concrete news to share soon.

So, the two new little ones have court on August 4th. This should be a non-issue. After that, it looks like they are going to try for TPR. Oh could it be that all three of my unadoptable babies will be all mine?

I humbly ask that you pray for all three of these girls, particularly "Indie". These babies have been through Hell, and are still trying to work their way out. Both are making tremendous strides. Sassy is a happy, joyful, normal baby these days. She's gained several pounds and is learning to talk. Indie is doing so much better, but there's still a long road ahead.

Thanks again, and I love you all!

-Beenie!

Check out this Thankful Thursday!

Guess what, guess what, bloggy land!!

Never mind, you can't guess, I'll just tell you!!!

We very well may get to adopt our Tinkerbell!!! I'm so excited, and I'll update you guys as soon as we can.

Thankful Thursday

Well, I haven't posted as much as I hope, but here I am, at last! We are doing relatively well here. The new girls are coming along. Sassy is doing really fantastic. Temper tantrums are down to a minimum. Indie... well, we're working together to get her on track.

Tinkerbell is doing fantastic!! She accepted Jesus this past Sunday, and she got baptized. God is so faithful in answering our prayers!! We have prayed over this child for 7 months, thinking it might be years before this prayer was answered. Thank you, Jesus, for sending us a beautiful surprise. I wish more than anything that I could post pics of my girl getting the holy dunk, but I can't. Maybe on her 18th birthday I'll have a special Tinkerbell post where we'll post all the pics you've missed!

But, on to the mission at hand... Thankful Thursday!

Today, I'm thankful for none other than my partner in crime, John "JP" Paul, lover of Christ, handyman extraordinaire, incredible father, faithful friend, and amazing husband. But, let me tell ya, it did not start out that way. So, for today's thankful Thursday, I present the story of me and JP.

My sophomore year in college was a rough year. I almost died of appendicitis (no joke... really. I had gangrene and everything), and I had finally broken up with the guy I thought I would marry. It was Christmas break, and I was visiting a college friend because I was very lonely at home. I had asked if I could use her AOL to check on a friend (Eyes of Amber!!) who I was supposed to be visiting over the break. I went online to see if she was there, but she wasn't, so I decided to camp out and wait for a bit. Back in the day, AOL had a little button that just plunked you down into a random chat button, and I hit it. Totally God... HAD to be!!

Because immediately, I started chatting with "Beowulf129". This was way before the movie, so the name was really unusual, and as an English major, I was intrigued. We talked... and talked.... and talked. I still didn't really think anything of it... I mean, online chat room? Who really meets someone this way? Besides, he lived several hundred miles away. I can't really say what happened, but the conversation took a turn.... and it turned into a long-distance relationship. We had a ton in common, and we were looking for the same things in someone. We knew very quickly that we wanted to get married. We were "it" for each other. Of course, we thought that it would be years down the line. Ha.

.... to be continued....

One Big Thankful Thursday!!

There's just so much to be thankful for!! I'm now, officially, a stay-at-home mom. Hooray! I'm still not used to the idea. It's amazing how weird it feels, after that's all I've wanted for forever. So, first of all, I'm thankful for early retirement :)

Most of all... I'm so incredibly thankful and blessed to have my Tinkerbell. She is my friend, my fellow housekeeper/babysitter, incredible big sister, and amazing daughter. How blessed are we to have her? My cup overflows. She's watching all four kids right now (and did I mention she's incredibly brave?).

For Jonathan and Juli... for having open hearts for new brothers and sisters.

And, finally, for our two new little ones. They've been with us a week today, and it's been pretty wild. Suffice it to say that they've had it rough for quite a while, but we are making progress. The oldest is 2 1/2. She is completely Miss Independent, so for here we'll call her Indie. She has really bonded with all the ladies of the family. Still working on JP and poor little outnumbered Jonathan. The little one is a very complex little creature. Sassy she is, so Sassy we'll call her. She can be vulnerable, sweet and funny, or just downright mad. I fear her fiery orange hair may indicate an infamous Irish temper. Yikes!

And so, God has fulfilled his promise, and ultimate thanks be to him!

Summer guests

Hello Bloggy Land!!

Well, it looks like we will temporarily be a family of 7, at least for the summer. Last week, we were called about a placement of two little girls, ages 1 and 2. We knew absolutely nothing about these little ones, except that they might need a home. So, today we found out that we will be providing that home, but only for 6 to 8 weeks. We will enjoy this while it lasts!

Thank you for your prayers, and I'll update soon!

God, you are hilarious!

So, if you've been reading my blog, you know how hard I've struggled with the idea of taking another foster care placement. I've spent several weeks trying to find direction. This morning, I decided to read through my blog entries. I thought it would be enlightening to experience this journey we've been on all over again. And it was! I remembered that we've been called to do this, and that this is a ministry for us. I began to get excited at the prospect again...

... just in time for me to get an Email. We were offered another placement!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited!!! More to come soon!

Thankful Thursday!!

I lot of my "bloggy friends" do Thankful Thursday, so count me in! Hey, at least there is a good chance that I'll blog once a week. See? I'm thankful for Thankful Thursday because that means I remember to blog once a week. WOOOOHOOO!!

I'm thankful for a kind, loving, constant Father who cares about my smallest problem. I am so thankful that he loves me and sent his son to die for me. I am so incredibly glad that He has watched over me all the years that I didn't even care about Him. And speaking of which, I'm incredibly glad for his grace and mercy.

And, today, I am thankful for my two beautiful biological children that God has given me, and the beautiful foster daughter that He sent me.

Foster Care, International Adoption, Lurkers... and most importantly GOD!!

This year has been such a roller coaster for us. It's been about a year since we got the call to foster 3 children. It was totally out of the blue; we hadn't even finished our paperwork! We went from expecting small children to wanting a teenager. We finally, finally got a permanent placement, only to have our little "laundry room barbeque" and be displaced for several weeks. Luckily, we still got our girl. And now, here I am, almost a year later, and I'm sure of one thing. God's been in it all.

Here's the thing, though... I think God's been at it a while. I remember knowing a girl who was adopted from Korea growing up, and I thought that it was the *coolest* thing ever! She was so beautiful, and I saw how wonderful it was for her. Of course, it never occurred to me that I could adopt a child from another country. I watched my aunt as she went through a few foster children. I thought, "Now THIS ... I can do." My parents had two foster placements. One left after 24 hours, and the other was removed from our home because he had become too violent. So, I thought... "eeeh.... I don't know about this after all." And then I filed it all away.

Fast forward a few years. I went to a conservative Christian college with a very high international population. We were required to attend 25 chapel services per semester. I was running behind (ha... imagine that) for the semester, so I attended the International Fair for chapel credit. I think that God put me there for a reason, guys. This guy handed me a flyer as I was walking by the booth. It was about the plight of little girls in China, and about an adoption program that paired waiting families with waiting little girls. I was heartbroken, and I felt in my heart that I would adopt one day. I always assumed that it would be from China, but I couldn't have known what God would have in store for me.

The next year, I had a final break with the man I thought I was going to marry. One of our biggest disagreements was that he didn't want children at all. He thought we could "work something out"... maybe have one or even stretch it to two. BUT... I had a secret. I never told anyone. I wanted a big family. I mean, a *big* family. My dad was one of nine, and I secretly wanted to be a part of a family like that. I was an only child, so I wasn't going to have 8 siblings... but I could be the mom of many... right? But, my family put so much pressure on me to succeed in life-- get a good job and do them proud, you know? I just couldn't tell them them the wish that lurked somewhere deep in there, because they would never understand. There even came a point where I refused to hold new babies, and stopped interacting with children at all. I was so desperately afraid that I would never have a baby of my own to hold.

Then God led me to JP. That's another story all in itself, but I convinced him that we wanted kids really early on. I just knew we weren't going to be able to have any children. God surprised me with Jonathan. It took us a year to conceive him, and I see the hand of God in the timing, since I graduated college just a couple of weeks before giving birth. Less than a year later, I got pregnant with Juli. We expected it to take a year or more, but this time I think I got pregnant right away. This one, however, was not a smooth pregancy. Three months in, I had to have an ovary and a tube removed. We were just so glad that she survived it all! The doctor's assured me that I would not have trouble having another baby whenever I wished to. Ha.

It took a couple of years before the longing for another child started to grow within me. It was more difficult, though, because JP and I were having some pretty consistent marital problems. My "feeling" I had as a young adult that I would be infertile came to pass. Not a feeling at all, I think, but a warning. God blessed us so much with these two biological children, but I wanted more! I had so many people tell me that I should feel lucky to have these two, particularly because they were the "perfect set"-- boy and girl. I just couldn't help wanting another.

It was around this time that I began to believe and trust in God in a *real* way. God healed my marraige. Looking back a couple of years, I don't even recognize the people that we were. My husband is one of my greatest gifts, and I'm so grateful for God's work in our life! Still, the desire for children remained. One day I happened to tune in to Adoption Stories on Discovery Health. I really began to love that show! And one day, I saw a story about a young couple who adopted a little boy from India. He looked just like Jonathan... and I saw all of those babies in their cramped little cribs in the tiny little room they called an orphanage... and my heart just broke. I remembered the flier that someone had given me so many years before, and God placed in my heart a deep love for orphans.

At first I thought we'd eventually adopt internationally -- like, WAY in the future. But then I found that I had to do something now. Our journey through the foster care system is detailed in various posts over the last year, and now I am the mother of three -- at least, temporarily.

I still have the desire for MORE!! I feel like God has placed this desire in my heart, I just don't know how he plans to meet this need of mine. I have been introduced lately to a promise:

Psalms 113:9
HE settles the barren woman in her home as the happy mother of children.


I know he will fulfill his promises. Now, we're just wondering.. How?

For the people who say, "Why don't you adopt from America?"

People don't want to adopt from kids in the foster system because it is WAY TOO HARD!! I've had some really frustrating days with the system in the last year, but this week it's been ... overload. Take for example, Tinkerbell's social worker put her through the wringer yesterday, only to end up exactly where we started. He is rude and mean to her, and he's extremely vague with us. He drives me nuts!!!

Then, we ran into some people that were in PATH class with us. They had a placement for 20 months. They were certain that these kids' parents were going to have their rights terminated. And at the last second, Dad gets custody and they had about 2 hours to have the kids ready to go. Infuriating.

The reason that any sane person doesn't want to adopt from the foster care system is because at any second you could loose a child to someone who you *know* will abuse them. You will never get any thanks from the workers. You will be made to enforce rules that you don't believe in. You will watch workers treat the kids like crap, and then you will be yelled at for the slightest technical infraction.

But, it's probably still worth it. After all, the kids shouldn't pay for the faults of the system, and yet that's what happens every single day. I know that we wouldn't trade Tinkerbell for anything.

So, do we pray for another placement? Do we *want* another placement?

Recent Pics

No Excuses

Okay, I'm not going to spend much time on why it's been so long. I'm just going to get you guys updated, and post a few pics.

Wow, where to start? Jonathan has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. This did not come as a huge surprise, really. We are working on a couple of different treatment options. More on that as it comes in. The main decision that we've made regarding him is that we are going to homeschool him next year!! I've always wanted the opportunity to do this, and Jonathan and I are both really excited. As far as Juli's concerned, she'll stay in school most likely for the next year. At that time we'll make a decision about 1st grade.

So, at the end of the school year, I'll finally get to do what I've wanted for so long -- be a stay-at-home mom! It is so incredibly exciting, and so I know I can fit in a blog post or two on occasion.

"Tinkerbell" is doing really well. We're very proud of her progress.

JP has been called into youth ministry. Also, not a big surprise.

Gotta go, but more to come!!

Oh Well...

I don't think anyone actually reads these anymore... probably my fault for never posting. Oh well. We've had a very busy and exciting couple of weeks. More specifics to come, but i thought I'd post a few pics from our recent adventures.

I know, I KNOW!!

It's been forever, I'm an awful blogger... I'm so sorry!! The problem has been, mostly, that I haven't been able to grab a computer. My husband is taking online classes, and I have a teenage daughter now. But, my husband purchased a laptop for be this weekend, and... lo and behold. I can blog again.

The whole fire thing has finally been resolved. We're settled back in, with very little left to replace. It's been such a pain. I had no idea how long it would take to get a simple insurance settlement, but I am so grateful to God that we had this.

Things with Tinkerbell are still fantastic. I can't believe how well she's assimilated into our family. We are so blessed to have her.

Of course, we aren't stopping here. We are still praying for another placement. We would appreciate any prayers that you might say for us, that our next placement will be one that will fit with our family. It is also possible that the next placement may be the one that allows me to be the stay-at-home mom that I've always wanted to be. I hope so.

Anyway, I'll post again soon.... I promise.