Quotable: fireside chats

Ian: guys this is the time of year we celebrate that Jesus came and was born. Why did Jesus come?

Noah: so he could die for us.

Ian: but did he stay dead?

Mary: NOPE!

Megan: why did he have to die?

Mary: because we were sinful.

Megan: are we still sinful?

Mary: Yes. But we don't have to die for it.

Amen. May more people know and believe these words this season.

Quotable

Me: Mary there is no way he's going to fit in your baby doll carrier.

Mary: just give it a try!!!!

One last zoo trip

We squeezed in one last zoo trip while it was warm!

Brought my own zoo baby:)

Aftermath

It's been almost three months since J left us. Overall I would say that it's been a good transition for him and for us. He is doing well there and we are definitely less stressed and enjoying some much needed family time. But there are definitely hard times where I get sad or miss him. Like when I was going through old photos on the iPad and came across this:

I don't know who took this picture from our monitor: sometimes the kids like to press the picture button or maybe Ian couldn't find me so searched for me on the monitor, either way I'm so grateful for this. It could have been any night. Sometimes he just struggled falling asleep or sometimes the day was so filled with tantrums that I wasn't really sure when bedtime hit or when I put him in there because he was flipping out. Anyway there would usually come a point where he would still be screaming at me but he would just be saying mommy over and over so I would go in and hold him. I remember this night because I was already in my pjs and robe and I was so tired of dealing with him that I was close to tears, but when he started saying mommy I just needed to hold him for a bit and maybe he just needed to fall asleep on me.

Or today when I opened up Mary's bag that she had packed for a car ride:

And there he is staring back at me. And I remember that the kids are probably still dealing with the transition too. We've been able to see him a couple times and I think that has been really good for the kids. I occasionally ask the kids how they are doing, if they miss him, if they want to foster again. They all say YES! And ask if we can get a baby tomorrow. So maybe it's just Ian and I that need a break:)

A friend of ours said her daughter was asking why josh had to go away and she told her daughter that it's because we loved him so much that he needed to go be with a different family that we knew would be better for him. I held it together while she was telling me this story but it was so meaningful. Everyone in our church has been so supportive of our whole journey with J including the transition away. We are so blessed. I'm not sure what we would do without the support around us!

Answered prayer

Lately Ian has been listening to A LOT of Dave Ramsey stuff. I'd heard of him before and knew some basic principles, but money has never been a struggle for us so I never thought to look into him. Well after a while Ian decided that we are doing well but we could be doing better! So we got in touch with a financial planner who, as it turns out, we really liked! We set up a few things with him and also looked into the future and made a goal of paying off our house in 5 years. Along with that came keeping much better track of our budgets so each month we sit down at the beginning of the month and look at events we might have and how much the will cost. Well we looked at October and remembered that we've always gone to Niederman Farm because that place is awesome and the kids still remember it from previous years so we want to have that tradition. But knowing our fun budget and putting that together with it costing at least $50 for us to go there we weren't sure what we wanted to do...

Lately I've been telling God that I want to honor this goal of paying off the house and if this is his plan it would be awesome if he could show up in it. Well the next day after chatting about our month I got an email from our agency saying that Warm Welcomes was holding an event at Niederman Farm and any foster home was invited to bring the whole family, have dinner and dessert, and get a free pumpkin! Yes please! This organization did a great job organizing the event and we had a lot of fun and God provided even more than we asked!

There was an entire farm full of activities and my kids pick the barn full of corn and trucks:

Pretty accurately depicts their personalities:

If you need a fun family tradition make it this! These pictures do not do justice to all the great things there are to do here!

6 months

Still the best. baby. ever.

He is such a happy little guy all the time. It makes getting up in the night a lot easier when he doesn't even cry and greets me with a smile when I pick him up! I pray that he is ALWAYS this happy and easy going:) And that his sister always likes him as much as she does right now...

Quotable

"I'm going to do school with Andrew on my lap because math is much more fun when you're holding a baby! But it might be a little wrong since he's pulling on it"