Life

I should have warned you that I would fall of the face of the earth between August and January. Between football season and the holidays life becomes a blur for 4 months every year! Even though we are crazy busy it is definitely my favorite time of year. I can't believe Christmas is already behind us and we are looking forward to a new year. I am both anxious and excited to see what 2013 will look like for our family. Here is an update in bullet points as to what has been going on in our house:

• Turtle is still here! As Mr. Caseworker was preparing the file to transfer to adoptions he ran across the name of another relative that he needed to contact. (seriously?!) Nothing must have come of it because we met with the new case manager last week that will be with Turtle until he is adopted.
• I tried to find out how long the process will take to find and adoptive family but was basically told it will move as fast as she wants it to, well ok then.
•  As much as I have struggled with the decision to adopt or not, ultimately I feel good about our decision not to adopt Turtle. I love him deeply but going into this I knew we just wanted to be a foster family, judge me if you must but as my husband has said we have to share the wealth. We have been blessed with 7 beautiful kids and I know there is a family out there just waiting for that phone call that will change their life forever. I hope we will be able to stay in contact with Turtle and his family.
• I am in total denial (almost!) of how bad it's going to hurt when Turtle leaves. Most days I can talk about it just fine but it is becoming more of a reality and I can only imagine what I am going to go through. I am praying that I will be able to hold it together at least in front of him.
• Totally non-foster related but my 13 year old sons football team won the state championship and my husband and I travelled with him and his team to Orlando for an entire week to watch them play in the National Championships where they took 3rd place! A whole week without kids, fabulous!
• Turtle is receiving speech and occupational therapy. His new therapists re-evaluated him last week and determined that he has significant delays, enough that he will qualify for disability services. I honestly don't think his delays will be life long but he definitely has some catching up to do.
• Foster care is nothing and everything like I thought it would be. I have grown and stretched and loved in ways I didn't think possible. We are starting the process to renew our license and since my daughter turns 12 the end of Feb. we will be able to take in 2 children at a time. Nervous and excited for the future!

From my family to yours we hope the new year brings you much joy and happiness!