Isaac's Homecoming

Day 13: I LOVE Adoption

I know that goes without saying...obviously. But you see, 6 years ago today Billy and I were at home and childless. We did not know who God would bring to us but we knew it would be through the foster care system. That afternoon, I got a phone call about a little brown skinned toddler who desperately needed adoptive parents.
It was our dream come true. We waited 3 days to meet him.
He came home on February 6th.
He was scared.
We were scared.
He had so many physical and emotional needs.
He had the worst diaper rash I have ever in my life seen. He was emaciated.

He needed a mother so very badly.
And he didn't know that I needed so very badly to be someone's mother.
I still can feel what that ache in my soul felt like.
But God knew. He knew us both.
He knit our hearts together that day when my son came home.

Once upon a time, my child had two names.
The one given to him at birth and the one we gave him when he came home.
But today, he is simply...Isaac.
The name he will be for the rest of his life.
This weekend we will celebrate him.
We will celebrate the day we became Mommy and Daddy.
We will celebrate the journey our Lord has brought us on...6 years and 4 kids later.

I end with a poem I once posted...I am not sure what the title is, but it has a lot of meaning to me:

A baby is placed in a well-woven basket

It moves with the current
carrying its little fruit
from one woman to another
who plucks the bundle from the stream,
whose arms are ready to tend,
whose body has remained empty
of what she is in need of carrying.
I stand at the river that brought my son,
and think of the woman upstream.
How she could-in the middle of hardship
and loss-trust a basket, water,
that a person would find her child,
lift him up, raise him for many years
the descendant of two mothers,
each who labored,
each who was faithful
to the river.
-Margaret Hasse

I Heart Printables

Day 12:

I am a BIG BIG fan of printables found online for gifts, parties, and home decor.
Every one of my kids birthday parties feature printable packs I purchase on Etsy.
But we all know that the BEST printables are free, of course.

So here is a listing of some I have found.
First up is this adorable subway art that I printed, framed, and put on my piano:

This is a party pack complete with my new favorite thing: food pennant/flags!
You can put them on cupcake pop sticks, toothpicks, straws....oh the possibilities!

I found a few gift ideas that come with printables:
First is the idea to get Crush soda bottles and put a tag on them, found here:

Then, if you are like me and do not like to spend a ton of money on Valentine's Day, here is an awesome free coupon book printable. I love how cute this is.
None of our husbands read these blogs, so if we ALL do this... that is OK!! :)

Finally, here is this really yummy recipe for Valentine confetti and a printable tag for your bags:

And to aide in your school party planning:
Here is a printable pack to host a Preschool Valentine's Day party with activity sheets!

And finally, this website has a ridiculous amount of Valentine free printables linked.
Including this adorable matching set:

And these guitar Valentine's which I LOVE!!!

I haven't decided what I will do yet for the kid's teachers.
But I imagine it will come from one of these ideas.

So head off to Staples for ink cartridges and get printing!

The Bus

Day 11: I LOVE the School Bus!!

Jayden goes to public school for children with disabilities (PPCD). He attends from 11:45-2:45 every day. He qualified at the age of 3 under speech impairment. He has now been in the program a full year and will go into the same class in the Fall under Public Pre-K as a child who was once in the foster care system.
We love his teachers so much and are thankful he will have spent so much time with them before moving on to kindergarten.Every day last semester, we would watch a school bus pull up in front of our house at 11:40 to pick up his classmate from across the street. We do not receive bus service in our neighborhood because we live right next to the school, so I didn't think about why this child received it, I just knew we didn't. It was frustrating because I would often have to wake Jasmine up from her morning nap or delay her going down for an afternoon nap because of Jayden's drop off time. I finally wised up and asked how we could get on the bus and they said your child just has to be in the "special needs" program at school and have an ARD/IEP. Well we do with Jayden!! So after much hassle contacting the bus barn, I was able to get him on everyday.
It has been awesome for us!

He loves watching for it out our window and then climbing aboard.
The driver and attendant are super nice and he seems to really enjoy it.
They buckle him into a car seat because of his weight, so I know he is arriving safely with 5 other classmates.

The bus goes to the end of our street and takes a left at the stop sign.
Then another left and a right into the school parking lot where his teachers open the door to the classroom to receive them.
It is that fast and easy.
The girls and I walk to pick the boys up on good weather days.
It has been such a huge blessing for us and we plan on putting him on the bus again in the fall.

Cake Pops

Day 10: I LOVE my cake pop maker!

A box of cake mix (I recommend the small boxed 12 count cupcakes) and something to dip it in, and if you already have sticks and sprinkles on hand...you can have 3 dozen cakepops done and decorated in under 30 minutes!

We did some trial Valentine ones. I will be making cake pops for a SuperBowl party we are attending this weekend and various Valentine events in the coming weeks.

Here they are on display with our other Valentine treats.

Potato Head and Barbie

Day 9: I LOVE watching my kids play well together.

Dear family friends dropped off this Disney edition Potato head and accessories.

Both at Disneyland and Disney World, there are shops that sell all these adorable parts that coordinate with the Disney theme.

They have fit in well with our other pieces,
and the kids have enjoyed playing with them over the past week.

They also dropped off this Vintage Barbie game and doll.

It only had two missing pieces which is impressive!!

It is a four player game, so with only 2 kids playing the missing pieces did not effect their game. They loved it!

Day 8: I love play dates with friends

When my friend Kim and I are out together and people see us holding our youngest ones, we get quite a few stares. I imagine they are wondering why she is wearing my white baby in the Bjorn while I am allowing her black baby to snot all over my shirt. HA!! :)

So far no one has asked for clarification.