Official Foster Parents

So, most of you know that about a year ago, Matt and I started the process of becoming foster parents.  Well, after a few home visits, many classes and a ton of paperwork, our home was approved January 21^st and opened to receive kids a couple weeks later.  In preparation for having a foster kid in our home, we moved our girls in the same room.  We prepared them weeks…no probably months in advance and they couldn’t wait.  I was the one holding up progress…I knew I would get even less sleep and down time once the move was final.  Anyway, they are now sharing a room and the move was as close to seamless as I could have expected.  Now back to the foster kids.  What many don’t understand with being a foster parent is that these placements are temporary.  (sometimes 72 hour temporary)  When we told people we were becoming foster parents, they assumed we were doing this to adopt or that the kids we got would be ours after a while.  Well, that’s not really how it goes with our case.  We are merely foster parents.  Would we adopt if we felt God wanted us to: Absolutely, but at this point we will be these kids temporary parents while their “real” parents get their stuff together.  Matt and I have grown pretty excited about being foster parents.  I know it will be no small task!  I’m sure that caring for the kids in our home will be a lot of work but I’m really thinking having to give them back will be the hardest.  We have been anxiously waiting for about 2 months to get a call saying we have a child for you.  The room is ready!  Our girls are excited and talk about our foster kid often.

Well, about a week ago I got a call to take in an 8 year old little girl.  I immediately wanted to say yes, but our age range is 0-5 years old and I was a little nervous about her age.  We prayed about it and had been praying for whoever God brought us for a while, so we felt like this was it, this is who God chose for us to have in our home.  She showed up at my door a couple of hours later.  She happened to be 10 not 8 but we went with it.   She was such a happy kid, even though she was taken out of school and not able to go home for 4 nights.  She was an absolute doll to my kids.  She played school, Rapunzel, chutes & ladders and read them a million and one books.  They loved having a big sister for those 5 days.  She was a trooper.  She made it through 2 birthday parties, a funeral and being called “the foster kid” by Kyla the whole weekend.  I will say that I knew nothing about having a 4^th grader.   Can she ride in the front seat?, can she wear sparkle jeans?, can she drink Dr. Pepper?  I don’t, should I google it?  Lucky for her, I didn’t know and didn’t bother googling “how to raise a 4th grader”…so she rode in the front seat, got her some skinny jeans and drank Dr. Pepper!  I did draw the line at getting her high heels.  Between the funeral and the birthday parties, she met both sides of our entire family.  She fit in well with everyone and never met a stranger.  This girl was so smart and beautiful, inside and out.  She woke up each morning saying how well she slept and excitedly telling us how many pages she read in the Jesus Storybook Bible.  Our first foster kid was amazing and it made my whole weekend when she thanked me for taking her in.  God is so good!

Here’s a picture of our storage bench with our kids’ hand prints as well as our very first foster kid.  We are hoping to get each kid that we care for to put their hand print on here.

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