Finding Our Starfish

I can't explain it other than this:

My heart loves someone I can not see.  

Faith is trusting what you can not guarantee.  

We are taking steps toward finding our starfish.  

We are going to find our Starfish.  We are going to become foster parents.  

We are just at the beginning of this journey, and it has already taught me things and helped me understand things in a new light.

The first thing I've learned: 

We were excited.

We pondered and prayed about this decision for a long time.  There are so many unknowns on this path.  So much of this "map" is blank.  We can try our best to "prepare," but really we have no idea what to expect.  Fear of the "unknown" has been a stumbling block for us.  

At first, that fear kept us from commitment.  For a long time it was "something we are thinking about," then "something we are looking into."  But eventually, we decided, this is something we are going to do.  This IS a path we are going to take.  

Some time after we made that decision, I had a moment where I felt . . . . excited about what lied ahead for us.  Which started this train of thought for me:

"What?  Excited?  Why am I excited?  This is going to be hard.  So much work.  So hard.  Challenges, heartache and pain that we can only imagine.  I would be crazy to be excited for that."  

Then I had the thought:

"That's what it was like in heaven. - We were excited.  We knew life on earth would be hard.  We knew that coming to earth meant challenges, heartache and pain.  Yet we were so excited to come. . ."  

It was just a realization I had never thought about before.
However it leads me to the question, "WHY?"  Why the excitement despite the challenges?  I'll admit, I'm not sure I really know.  The only answer I can come up with is maybe because of the potential for joy.  

Another thing I've learned was:

God prepared, and gave, despite impending heartache.

Foster parents must be licenced.  Becoming licenced means things like taking classes, background checks, home inspections, medical checkups, references, interviews.  Our "To-Do-List" has felt HUGE.  So much preparation.  So much effort, work, and love.  As I got ready to spend the day working so hard, to prepare our home, I had another train of thought run through my mind:

"All this work.  For children who could break our hearts. -

That's kind of like what God did. - He created and prepared our earthly home.  Knowing full well, that the children for whom this home was created, would have their agency.  And with that agency, some would not choose Him."

And so we too, continue to move forward despite the uncertainties.  We are excited and nervous for this new stepping stone in our life.  We are very thankful for our families that have been supportive of this decision.  

Winter Break Fun

Happy New Year!

Christmas

Ward Christmas Party

Caroling with the Girl Scouts

Giving a talk in primary

Christmas Shopping

Grandma and Grandpa came!

Christmas Morning

DECEMBER

Girl Scout Movie Night

Christmas Light Run

Dinner with Dad

 It SNOWED!!!!!
It started to snow one evening just before the time most kids go to bed.  According to the weatherman, it was going to rain at about 4:00 in the morning and it would all be melted by the time any little people got out of bed.  Snow is defiantly rare around here.  Most years, you get it ONCE.  So all responsibility and reason went out the window and these spoiled little stinkers got to get out of bed and go play in the snow at 10:00 at night.  :)

And for the record - the weather man lied.  The rain didn't hit at 4am.  It didn't start to rain until just before lunch.  So they got to go out for round two first thing in the morning.  :)

 

Seattle Wardrobe Field Trip

I SO enjoyed this day.  It was just such a pleasant memory.

We've always schooled at home, but we switched programs this year.  I've really enjoyed the switch for several reasons.  One of the things we have enjoyed with this new program is the field trips.  On this particular day, our field trip was to see "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" performed by Seattle Children's theatre.  Which means a ferry ride and commute over to Seattle.  Which raises my stress level about 3 notches.  So in an effort to alleviate some of my stress and worries, I made sure we left extra early.  I did such a good job of making sure we were on time for the ferry we needed, that we were in time for the ferry BEFORE the one we were planning on catching!  We were already going to arrive an hour early.  Once we caught the early ferry, we now all of a sudden were going to have 2+ hours to twiddle our thumbs waiting for the play to start.  But it ended ups being so great!

I showed the girls around Seattle Center a bit.

Then we went inside the Armory to see if we could find a warm place to eat our lunch.
It was more than just warm.  It was full of interesting stuff to see and do with all our unexpected free time.  There was a gigantic train set display.  A band playing Christmas music.  An extra large checker board.

It was all so fun.  And I didn't plan any of it!
Then of course we finally got to see the play.  We read the book last year, so we really enjoyed the chance to see it acted out live.  It was pretty good.  I thought it was well done.

I think one of the highlights of the day for the girls was after the play however.  When we arrived at Seattle Center, we passed by a little cart that sold Chocolate covered strawberries.  It was closed when we got there that morning.  But by the time the play let out it was open.  So these spoiled little stinkers got a Seattle treat.

But I still don't think that was their favorite part.  We were all sharing the strawberries we bought.  After we each had one, there were 2 left over.  We could have tried to split them between the 4 of us, but it sounded like a really messy endeavor.  So instead, we decided to offer our last 2 strawberries to a homeless gentlemen taking a very cold  nap nearby.  The girls were so happy that THEY got do something nice for the man.

All in all, the day was a warm and fuzzy pleasant memory.  

My Lollipops!

3 years ago I bought a "Holiday Light Show" at Goodwill.  It's a green box, with six plug outlets, and a speaker.  Whatever you plug into that box, blinks synchronized to music.  I've tried plugging some of my bushes into it in the past.  But nothing looked very good.  I had an idea of what I wanted, and my super supportive husband helped me make it happen!

Step 1: I have 6 outlets.  I wanted six different colors.  Hard to find.  So we bought rainbow strands, and my awesome husband used his strong fingernails and helped me pull out 400 little light-bulbs, then reinsert them.  (That's true love.)

Step 2: Paint the lollypops.

Step 3: Insert the lights.  (There was so much styrofoam in my living room, it looked like it snowed.)

Step 4: PVC pipe
I didn't get a picture of this, but my love went with me to buy PVC pipe and did all the cutting for me.

Step 5: Put them up.  (These guys are so good to me.)

Step 6: Ta Da! (Thank you to my friend for taking this picture!)

Step 7: Re-enforce after the windstorm.
(To be fair, this year they stayed up WAY better than ANY other year.  They never fell completely down and once we re-tightened the PVC pipe, they stayed up the rest of the season.  )

Step 8: Store 'em.  I'm almost just as proud of our ability to store them so well!

Remember that . . .

During this season of gratitude, my heart is overwhelmingly grateful for something in particular.
The other night, as we sat down to dinner, my daughter looked at what I had dished out on her plate.  Then she said this:

"If I'm still hungry can I have more?"

In my hurry to get dinner on the table, that miraculous moment passed me by.  A little while later, I had a quiet moment to myself while doing the dishes, and my thoughts drifted back to what she had said.

Have we REALLY come that far???

Meal time's influential force used to be fear, NOT hunger.
She was so afraid to eat.
No matter how much I dished out, she ALWAYS left something on her plate.
We reasoned with her.
We begged her.
We bought nutritional shakes in a futile attempt to make up the difference.
I had to sew the waistline on all her pants to make them smaller.
Our hearts ached with worry.
We sent our pleas to God as we traveled this path.

Fast forward 2 years.

"If I'm still hungry can I have more?"

What?  What happened?  How did we get here?  How did we get through that?
I don't even know how to answer those questions.  There have been so many guided steps.  So many important and necessary pieces to the puzzle.  So many prayers that felt unanswered, yet here we are.

My small soldier is still climbing her mountains.  She still has physical symptoms that we have not yet found relief for.  Still questions we don't have answers to.  She must still put effort into every day to "be okay."
I get so focused on trying to have faith while navigating the path in front of us,
I forget to look back and see how God guided us through the path behind us.

This summer was HARD.  The past two years took it's toll on me and my emotional strength began to buckle.  I felt unable to be the rock that my daughter needed me to be.
But as summer drew to a close, the things we were doing to heal her body, started to also heal her mind and spirit.  She was finally in a position to take the reigns and work towards overcoming some of life's challenges.  I asked her to write about her experience with a challenge she worked to overcome.

GUEST BLOGGER: My daughter
(Written October 1st, 2016, age 11)

Two years ago I was scared all the time, nonstop.  I used to worry about:

winter is coming

germs are every where

where are my parents?

zombies

monsters

the dark

Right now I feel calm.  I worked very hard to get over all those worries.  We prayed.  We've gotten so far.  I believe we can climb mountains, if we work hard and want it bad enough.  
I earned a doll I had been working hard for.  I stayed calm and ignored my lump.  This summer I learned a lot.  We figured out that sugar gives me a lot of anxiety.  We've learned we can distract ourselves from fears and do something else.  I've learned we can trust Heavenly Father and have faith, and we can believe that he will help us because he loves us very much.  Remember that . . .

Thanksgiving '16

A few pictures of our Thanksgiving holiday.  (I didn't remember to stop and take pictures very often.)