This christmas

We had a great time over the whole week of Christmas. It's such a blessing to have Ian home for two whole weeks! Here is a picture from the big Christmas party with my mom's side of the family. Now more than ever Mary has become a second mommy to her brothers, hence the need to hold Thomas' face in place:)

Here's a little run down of our actual Christmas day. Cinnamon rolls for breakfast!

Our Christmas gift to the kids was a table fort! It needs a few alterations, but they loved it all the same.

 One of our favorite traditions is our stockings. My mom filled 10 stockings this year and I filled hers and Tom's, so here they all are!

 Yeah, it's pretty futile to try to get a picture of 6 kids this young:

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Foster Classes

Well we finished our lightening round session of classes! Everyone who wants to foster in Ohio must take 36 hours of classes (12 three hour classes) and they are offered in various forms. You can take one class a week for twelve weeks. You can take two classes a week for 6 weeks. You can do the LIGHTENING ROUND woop woop! The lightening round is all 12 classes in two weekends. We wanted to go that route just to knock them all out quickly. I have to say it was a loooooong two weekends, but I'm glad we did it like that. For us, we are very well read parents who know what we're getting into with fostering. We know that 99% of the kids who come into foster care don't come from awesome families who took great care of them. All that to say...we didn't learn much from the classes. However, we did meet some great people and we loved our instructor. While a lot of the material seemed really "duh" to us, we realize that it has to be said. They don't know where people are so they need to make sure they are clear.

I included this picture because this was the hardest class for me by far. I was really hoping going into it that we would learn some techniques to cope with kids who have been sexually abused. But sadly it wasn't quite so practical. That is one thing we wished: that the classes could have been more practical on how to actually deal with different situations. However, we did hear some things that have happened to kids that make me want to curl up in a ball, cover my ears, hum to myself, and drown out this evil. It affirmed in me that we are needed. Life with three kids can be crazy and life with more seems hard to imagine, but I'm not called to live a life of happiness and ease. Jesus didn't say, "Hey come to me and I will make your life easy peasy!" But he did say that we will suffer, that we are to weep with those who weep, care for the sick and poor and orphaned, and in the midst of this he calls, "come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28) This rest is for our souls and not necessarily for our lives.

 I'm reminded of  John...who survived when they tried to BOIL him to death. When Jesus appeared to him you'd think he would have said, "Hey bud, sorry about that boiling thing. Here's some neosporin." But he didn't, he said, "I have a message for you and you need to make sure people hear it." He gave him MORE work because his work wasn't done. I may feel that life is full and sometimes I can't handle it, but Jesus says, "lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed." (Heb. 12:12-13) We need the spiritual strength it takes to foster and luckily, God is in the business of meeting needs.

The white death

We were able to log some time in the snow after the blizzard last weekend and the kids LOVED it. Thomas didn't last super long but he enjoyed holding the shovel for a while...

 These two just wanted to go up and down the hill over and over for an hour. I guess that's one benefit of living on a tiny mountain. Never mind the fact that I had to gun it up the driveway in our car just to avoid stalling on the ice and sliding back down. Not a problem when the same hill provides sledding right?

boys...

From the time they are able, they will build things that they can jump off. Even though he is 18 months old, he thinks he is "big" like his siblings. I'm so glad I had my camera sitting on the counter so I could take this. He proceeded to dive head first off of the stool onto the couch. No fear. 

The choice to foster

Ian and I spent a lot of time praying over what God wanted us to do with our family. About a year ago we decided we were to add to our family, but in a unique way...fostering (or foster to adopt to be more specific). We are good parents and have worked hard to build a strong family. There are lots of kids out there who need good parents and a strong family but have neither of those things. It is heart breaking to consider.

Right now in southwest ohio there is a need for foster families. Maybe more so than any other time. I'm told they are seeing incredible levels of drug abuse and addiction and families are torn apart by it every day. The bible says, "...In you the orphan finds mercy," (Hosea 14:3) and again, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction..." (James 1:27). What are we waiting for???

Well, we are waiting for our classes to be done and then the long process of a home study. So far butler county has been ON IT with everything from emails we have sent to getting registered for classes, etc. In our county you have two options for fostering: going through the county or a private agency. If you know our conservative ways you may wonder, 'why didn't they go private?' (if you care to wonder at all) Three reasons...1. with private agencies you can get a placement from any county in southwest ohio. Children will, rightfully so, have visits with their birth parents each week and for us it was not worth the potential of having to drive an hour or more each week to take the kid(s) to see their birth parents. 2. with most private agencies it is much more difficult to find people to babysit your foster kids. With the county all they need is a background check. Lots of our friends would be up for that. Right folks? And 3. each county that gets custody of a child will look within its own pool of foster homes first before turning to a private agency to find a home. So we kind of get first dibs on a little babe who needs a crib:)

Our first classes were last weekend (we had three). We are doing what they call the 'lightening round' of classes where you do all 12 classes in two weekends. Because of the weather one of our days got cancelled and we are making it up later. It was a lot of info at one time, but nothing we couldn't handle. We aren't naive about what it means to foster. Kids don't just get taken out of good homes to go be with another nice family. They get taken from homes where they are left buckled in their car seats for days on end so their parents can go get high. They are taken from homes that have an inch of dirt and grime on the floor which potentially has a mix of their blood from the last time they were beaten. We know this. And that's why we're doing it. These first classes were depressing, but they weren't giving us appalling new information. They were confirming what we know and what our mission is in this: to be family where there is none.

We will have the incredible opportunity to impact the lives of parents who just can't handle that title right now. We will be able to love, nourish and care for sweet babies that just need someone to show and tell them how valuable they are in the eyes of the One who made them. I know it wont be pretty. It's not the stuff of romance novels, but it is real and it's where we are.

Family pics

You know how some times you show up to harbin park and they already have the gate half closed so that you aren't supposed to come in while they corral the other cars out? We've done that a couple times. And I'm sure we aren't the first ones to drive right around that gate. We wanted to squeeze in a mini family photo session one day so we showed up at 5 and the gate was already half closed! Not cool. So in about 10 min a friend of mine took some pictures for us...

 And the kids cooperated quite nicely...

 Despite the fact that it was COLD!

 Throw leaves on mommy and daddy!

 Thomas: can't throw leaves, that would require taking my hand off mommy for more than .5 seconds...haven't done that since I was born and they took me to weigh in!

 ROAR! That is the boys thing lately. Growling at you. I'm so glad to get some family pictures each year. I love documenting life right now!

This. Morning.

Someone got a faux hawk

Someone got a tattoo

And SOMEONE pooped in the bath tub...

Again. Seriously kid STOP POOPING! 

Quotable

Here is how Noah sings itsy Betsy spider:

The mitsy mitsy spider climbs up the Thomas meatball

Down came the rain and washed the firetruck

Out came the sun and dried up all the firetruck

And glakdhowngnvfisnworj hahahahaha

Thanksgiving

This November has been so fun! We really enjoyed Ian's 5 day thanksgving break. The first two are pictures of Thomas at the Feast our church has every year. That dinner is always so much fun and filled with great food and friends.

The boys are waiting anxiously for cinnamon rolls to get done on thanksgiving morning. Yes...I got up to make cinnamon rolls!

A little parade watching

After our traditional themed thanksgiving (spanish this year) at my dads we went to Ian's sister's to have some REAL thanksgiving food. It was nice to have that this year. And there are 6 week old babies at Aunt Erin's so Mary is happy!

                                      

Recent happenings

This is how Thomas feels about learning to sit in a chair when mommy tells him to stay! Usually he does much better:) And I'm usually not snapping pictures of his sadness...but I thought his reaction was noteworthy since it's so disproportionate to the activity I'm asking him to do!

Anyway, last week was Halloween! On Tuesday we went to story time at Ikea. I love this place even more now. On tuesdays kids eat free. And not one kid per adult kind of free, but FREE! So I got three kids meals and one adult meal and only paid the $4 for an adult meal! Incredible. And then they do a story time which includes a craft and a snack and that is all free too! So we won that week, but they definitely get us some times when I also buy stuff that is awesome, but not needed.

 The skunk costume is alive and well! Still my favorite costume ever...

 And here is my crew plus one of their good friends who came with us. They had a great time even though it rained, and our neighborhood had a decent number of kids. Such a dramatic change from our last neighborhood. The kids made it around almost the entire neighborhood before the rain really started to get to them and they told me, "we have enough candy, let's go home!" We did, but I got Noah to go back out with me later!

Working hard

Both Noah and Ian have been working hard! Noah is making holes in a useless piece of wood...

Ian is building my corner cabinet!! Almost finished...

The lazy parents' guide to Halloween costumes

At the beginning of this year I had grand plans to go as a family as the cast of Dora. Mary would be Dora, Noah would be Diego, Thomas as boots, Ian as swiper, and me as the lazy mom who eats all the kids candy while they run to the next house. I think that last character is in one of the books. Definitely read that somewhere. Anyway, doesn't that sound so cute? 

But here is reality:

And here is the lazy parents' guide to Halloween costumes: open up the dress up bin and let it explode on your kids! It's especially nice if, like us, your dress up bin is really just a card board box where you've thrown past Halloween costumes (when you actually went to once upon a child and bought your kid someone else's old costume) and clothes people have given you that you didn't really think were outfits, but didn't know what else to do with.

I am pretty excited for the return of the skunk though! I actually bought that costume new (from gap clearance center with a gift card...but still) when Mary was a baby. Good luck with your costuming!

Quotable: soccer edition

Ian coached Mary's soccer team this fall, along with two of our other friends, and it has been a hilarious time. Our first quote comes when Mary was in the goal and Ian had three boys set to play against her...

Ian: ok boys, your job is to try and score on my daughter, but you've got to get through me first!

Other coach: uh, you may want to rethink how you worded that

Ian: oh! You guys will NOT score on my daughter and you WILL to go through me first!

Another time our team was up by a lot (even though there is no official score) so this was Ian's solution...

Ian: ok guys we can't score anymore, so when we get to their side of the field you need to just pass it to Mary.

Boy on our team: (passes ball to Mary- it bounces off her legs and she stares at it- he looks up at Ian in horror with an 'are you kidding me' look on his face)

Ian: Buddy, girls are going to be frustrating you for the rest of your life! Get used to it!

Ian (to boy on team): hey bud run on back to coach Matt and he will show you what to do.

Matt: (staring up at the sky where another kid on the team was pointing)

Ian: Matt! You're supposed to be teaching them where to stand!

Matt: what? He saw a plane! 

There were so many funny moments. Hopefully more will come back to me!

Noah's learning time

We have started some actual structured learning time with Noah a couple days a week. I thought I would share a couple resources that we use for our little man.

 

 

• There's always the amazing starfall and they now have starfall apps! So we put both the letters and the learning to read ones on the ipad and both him and Mary love them.
• The tried and true preschools packs and all the other great resources on that site
• I recently found the pattern block printables pictured above and we already had the Melissa and Doug blocks and boards.
• And my kids LOVE the dot-a-dot markers so I found these great printables to use with them.
• And I follow the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading with him just like I did with Mary. Seriously works like a charm:) Except we don't really follow their order...just do whatever letter corresponds with the topic we have that week.



16 months

This picture says so much about Thomas. He is DEFINITELY a Sammons:) He is a happy little man with a sweet smile and he is absolutely loveable.

Mary is 5 (and has been for a month)



We had a sweet little party with family to celebrate her 5th birthday! I was just looking back through the pictures on my camera and saw these:

 

 She had a great time and got a new little pet fish, who she named Swimmy, and lots of other fun presents. She had pink cupcakes with pink icing at her request. I know I say this with every age update post but I can't believe it's been 5 years!

Quotable

The other day we were reading through Love You Forever. We got to the part where the boy grows up and gets a house of his own...

Mary: someday I will get a house of MY own!

Mary's friend: me too!

Noah: I will just stay with my mommy forever.

Yes! Can I get that in writing???

Lately he thinks it's really funny to wipe off my kisses or run from me when I try to kiss him. But he also wants cuddle time every night before bed. And it has to be in my bed with the covers snuggled up over us, otherwise it doesn't count. I think he may be trying to prolong bedtime at this point. But he's so cute and sincere about it I can't say no:)