New California foster care regulations

This morning Jonah told me about new foster care regulations in the state of California limiting the number of children to 6 in any home(including bio and adopted kids). You can read the article here. While this may seem like a fabulous idea to some, I think it is just setting the already crumbling and failing foster system for more failure.

The first thing that concerns me is that there is already a HUGE lack for foster homes. They never have enough homes and many children, who would be best served in a private home, end up in a group home just because there is an available bed. So, if they limit the total number of children in a household, where will all the children go? It seems to be setting us up for opening orphanages again in the U.S., what is the other alternative?

Another thing about the article that disturbs me is that they are pointing out this woman as if she commited murder. There was a fire in her home and, unfortunately, the child who died was a foster child. What does it matter how many children she had in the home? Most of them were teenagers! Already most foster parents are viewed with suspicion and the media loves to play up situations like this. The article mentions that the little girl suffered 11 other injuries in the home. Anyone who has multiple children understands this is in no way indicative of the foster's mom's care, it just happens! Anyone that knows Malakai knows that he ALWAYS has a bump, bruise or scrape on him somewhere. I am not saying that there isn't abuse in some foster homes but I think they are punishing the children based on a few cases instead of looking at the whole.

Overall, there are so many more things the state can do to protect these children. Number ONE is to actually make their monthly appointments they are mandated to make! In the 2 1/2 years we had the girls our county social worker came to our home ONE time right before adoption(he was supposed to come once a month). If they are actually doing their job, have a relationship with the foster parents and children and make their appointments a priority it would go far to weed out those foster parents who are less than honest and in it for the money(which is not good to start with). Now I do understand that the social workers are overworked to the max but cutting the number of children in a home is not going to make that better.

All that to say, it looks like Jonah and I may never be able to foster again like we wanted. Our whole reason for building our huge future house was to have enough rooms to welcome foster children(and any other children) in to love and care for them. It makes me sad that God's calling on our life is being prohibited in a way now. And I am very sad for all the children this is going to affect.

Spring clothes change

Spring clothes change has taken on a new meaning for me this year while we are moving in to our new house. Normally, I would haul out the kids' clothes bins and go through all the spring/summer clothes while taking down the winter clothes and changing them from one hanger to another. It usually takes me at least 6 or 7 hours to do this. This year, all the clothes bins were already at the new house. All I had to do is open them up, put the summer clothes on a hanger and send kids upstairs to hang them up. For all SEVEN kids it took me about an hour and a half. Nice. Once we move in, we will REALLY be ready!

The Adoption Process

While many of my readers understand the domestic adoption process, I know there are many of you out there that have no clue what goes on during the adoption process. I thought maybe some of you may want to follow us as we go through the steps and see what it's all about. First off, this adoption is taking the path to being really easy so far. We chose an amazing Christian agency to complete our homestudy and have really enjoyed working with them thus far. For one thing, when I called to get information, the social worker I talked to didn't get quiet when I told her I had 6 kids, homeschooled and we had been chosen for another baby(like the others did). Her response was acutally, "Wow, that is awesome! You are so blessed!" That's the type of social worker I want to work with.

So, first things first. In order to adopt you have to have a homestudy done on your family. For 4 of our other kids we had to get this done after they were placed in our home through the state and it was quite a ride, let me tell you. With this baby, we had PLENTY of time to get a private homestudy done and we are so thankful for that. A homestudy is basically a report on you, your husband and children and any and all information they feel is relevant to the situation. It contains many pieces of documentation that need to be submitted in order to have the homestudy completed.

Alright, following me so far? Here is the list of things we have had to do so far for this adoption homestudy along with the price if applicable so you have an idea of what the homestudy process costs:

1) Livescan fingerprinting (192)
2) Adoption physicals and medical report (30)
3) Blood work (30)
4) DMV printout (10)
5) certified birth certificates (45)
6) certified marriage certificate (27)
7) Application fee to agency (500)
8) Homestudy fee (2500)
9) Spiritual questionarre(this is unique to the agency we are using)
10) Self Study (an 8 page, 39 question study about you and your life to this point). This took me almost 3 hours to complete.
11) Open Adoption Questionnaire ( 11 detailed questions on your feelings and understanding of open adoption.
12) Letter from insurance company stating that they will cover an adopted child from day of placement.
13) Copy of drivers licenses
14) Family of Orgin sheet (giving information on each extended family)
15) First Aid and CPR certification
16) Will affidavit- telling who will be taking care of your children if you die
17) Discipline Policy
18) Form signed by Jonah's cheif giving information about his employment and performance.
19) Copy of 1040
20) Copy of most recent pay stub
21) financial form giving any and all information on assets, insurances, real estate, mortagages and other loans, etc.

This is, so far, what we have had to do. In order for us to complete the homestudy process we will have 3 meetings with our social worker. The first one will be 3 hours long, the second will be 6 hours long and the last one is when the social worker comes to your home to meet your children and inspect your home. After doing all this it is just the beginning! There will be fees and paperwork for the facilitator, advisor, lawyer and court.

It is all so worth it though, when I get to hold my son in my arms all the paperwork and fees won't matter anymore.

You've waited long enough

Looking up the stairs



At the top of the stairs and looking down the hallway.



At the end of the hallway looking back toward the stairway.



The family room


My kitchen:)


Yesterday we passed or final house inspection so I thought it would be a good time to update you on pictures. Today I spent the day hauling bins from our rental's garage to the new garage and organizing. There is still a lot left to do and we're not rushing but it is so fun to finally be moving things into the house. It almost seems surreal that the time has finally come.

The Home Stretch

The light at the end of the tunnel. Coming in to land. Call it what you will but it's happening. We are almost there and the reality is starting to hit that we may actually get to move into this amazing house my husband has built!

Give me your best

Names that is. I want to know boys names you love. It can't be too trendy or simple and it should have a good meaning too. We are a bit partial to Biblical boys names but it's not a must.

So, give me your best!

From 6 to 7

All my life, until about 3 years ago, my magic kid number was 6. I always dreamed of having 6 kids and when Jonah and I met and he told me he wanted 11, I thought, no way. I can see 11 kids in our future now that we have gotten to 6 and we are having so much fun with it. But, as we set up to pass the magic number mark, I find myself feeling funny about the number 7. It just seems so "big". Going from 6 to 7 seems like such a big jump that going from 3 to 5 or 5 to 6 never did. I'm not talking about the amount of kids but the way it 'sounds'. Does that make sense? I know plenty of families with 6 kids, it doesn't seem abnormal to me(I know some of you would argue this point) but not many with more than 6. I feel like we're getting close to the "crazy-big-family-what-are-you-thinking" zone and I LOVE it. Now, most of you(besides my other crazy-big-family friends) would say that we have already achieved that status and with the 2.7 kids that are the average today, you might be right.

I am looking forward to this baby in so many different ways than I was with Kai and with Justus. I don't have very many really little kids like I did when Justus was born(they were 8,4,4,3,1 and newborn). I will have lots of older kids(11,7,7,6,4,2) to help out and be able to enjoy this baby in a whole new way. The way they talk about this baby excites me too! They are SO excited to help out, hold him and love on him. There will be no lacking of arms for this baby to be held, that is for sure. Another thing that seems so surreal to me is the fact that this is one of THE biggest years of our lives with finishing building and moving into our home and God decided to just pop one more surprise and blessing on us in 2010. I honestly thought we would have to wait till our big house was completed(at least 3 more years away) to have another baby and that made me a little sad. Sometimes, when I think about it, I am waiting for the ball to drop. All I can do is pray that this adoption will keep moving forward and there won't be any problems.

So, going from 6 to 7 is something I am looking forward to immensely. I am so very happy to be bringing another sweet blessing home:) Be prepared to hear a lot of baby talk over the next 16 weeks: It's the longest I've had to prepare for a newborn yet and I have so many plans in my head!

See that over there?

See that little baby floating around over there on the right? Even though our baby isn't actually inside me and the one you see over there isn't the right color, I like the idea of keeping track of how long we have left. If anyone can give me a site where the baby is brown, let me know;)

A little story for you

Let me tell you a little story...

One day Jonah and I got to go on an amazing date. As we were eating dinner that night I decided to tell Jonah something that had been on my heart for the week before. I felt like Lois, our adoption facilitator, was going to be calling us. We laughed and giggled and said, "Oh my! What would we do?" and then went on with our date night, knowing we would have to say no. We were not ready for another adoption at ALL. I was curious to see if it was really the Holy Spirit speaking to me or just nothing at all.

Fast forward 3 days and the phone rings. When I look at the caller ID I see Lois' name and picked up the phone laughing. God can be so crazy some times! Even though I thought she would be calling for help with something, like she periodically does, she wanted to tell me she had shown our profile and she hoped that was OK. Our profile is SO old that it is missing 3 of our current children so I made sure she told the birthmom that we had 6 children now. She assured me she did. I asked how many other profiles she showed her and Lois told me 5. I was confident that we would not be chosen. Seriously, it wasn't the right time. We were happy with our family size and not ready for another baby. Those things are a concern but really I knew we wouldn't be chosen and I was TOTALLY OK with it. Who would choose a family with 6 small kids? This seems like a familiar theme but God keeps proving me wrong, thankfully.

Imagine my surprise when the next day Lois calls to tell me that "T" would like to meet us! I didn't even know what to say! I knew we didn't have the money for another adoption while we are building the house but I wanted to give God the glory and close the door for us or open it wide. We met with "T" a week later and the meeting was great! We still were thinking we would have to say no because of the money issue but when Jonah sat down to do our taxes we were surprised to learn we were getting a HUGE return instead of having to pay like we thought we would. God came through, the door was wide open. We still weren't sure but God reminded us that sometimes blessings don't always come when we want them to or expect them to but it doesn't deminish their blessing to us!

And so we are walking through that door. God has been faithful and made it clear for us with this situation. We have had checks given to us that have covered very specific things that we needed, like a 4th row seat for our car and the first homestudy payment. We met with "T" again yesterday and learned we are having a BOY! He is due June 27th which will give us time to get in and settled in the new house before he comes. We are SO excited and so are the kids. 3 months sure does seem like a long time away though!