Foster Care Updates

As many of you know we've been foster parents for a few years now. We had a sibling group of three children in our home for two and half years. On Good Friday they moved to, hopefully, their forever home. That forever home is the home of some dear church friends of ours. Please keep them all in your prayers while they learn what it's like to have such young children in their home again. The transition has been a little rough, but we're hopeful that everyone can pull through all the challenges that have come up. Since our home was empty again we took a little vacation and when we returned this little cutie arrived. She has transitioned quite well in our home and all of our children are just loving her. We've been having so much fun with this little girl and she has learned so much in just a few short months. We don't know how long we'll have her, but we'll definitely keep her as long as we can. :)

Cookie Decorating

Lately we've had our foster children's siblings over to hang out after church on Sundays. I thought it would be fun to decorate cookies with them since it's something they've never done before.

A few weeks before Christmas they all went to town on a ton of cookies that I baked for them.

They had a great time decorating and eating.

Check out these masterpieces.

Some of the cookies lost their limbs and the children decorated them quite appropriately, don't you think? After that day things just started going downhill for us. Stay tuned. . .

Foster Care Christmas Party

If you follow the news you have probably heard the hundreds of horror stories about children in foster care or stories about parents who have caused their children to be part of the system. What you hardly ever hear about are the awesome things that the counties actually do for these hurting and scared children. This was our second year attending a Christmas party for all of the children in the foster care system, and their foster families, in our county.

They go all out to make sure that the children are well fed with kid friendly food like corndogs and chicken strips. They don't skimp on the cake either.

Clowns come and paint faces and they create some pretty cool designs at the children's requests.

There are even more clowns that take requests for awesome balloon shapes, animals, or just about anything that the kids can think of. Not only are these children spoiled rotten with a visit from Santa, a hot meal, face painting, balloons, and crafts, they also get Christmas gifts according to their age.

The county caseworkers do an amazing job shopping, wrapping, and personalizing gifts for children of all ages from babies to teenagers.

We parents had a great time seeing the smiles on all the children's faces. This year's party was even better than last year's because we were able to get all of our foster children's siblings to join us. Currently, they live in four different homes that are quite far from each other, so arranging times to get together can be challenging. It was so fun to have them join their siblings.

Fire Safety

Being foster parents we are required to attend several training classes throughout the year. This particular class was about fire safety and the whole family was invited to attend because how jealous would our children be, knowing that we were climbing around in fire trucks and playing with water hoses without them?

We met Eli and he dressed up in his fireproof garb to show the children what he looks like in the event that a fire actually occurred and he had to enter a home searching for children.

Everyone got a chance to put out a fake fire with the water hoses.

I was waiting for one of the children to start spraying other children, but that never happened. I suppose they know better than I do. ;)

Real fires were lit, so we could practice using a massive fire extinguisher.

Of course exploring fire trucks and ambulances is always on the list of things the children want to do, don't you?

We also got to measure body temperatures with this neat tool.

In the event of a fire in the home and fireman can take this tool to search for people inside by detecting body temperatures in the home.

Fire safety is important in keeping your family and home safe. Be sure to practice fire drills and change the batteries in your smoke detectors!

How Do We All Fit?

When you have 9 children people can't fathom how we can all fit into one house. First, there's a confused look on their face. Then it turns into a look of amazement. They become mesmerized when we say that the children share rooms and 9 children can share 3 different rooms. It's not an even split, but the arrangement we have works well for the time being. We have 4 boys and they all share a room.

My Lutheran Stud is quite talented. If I see something on Pinterest, more often than not, he can make it happen. We decided that making lofted beds for the children would give them a little more space. Our littlest girls share the smallest room. Thankfully, they all still fit on a toddler sized mattress. Our foster children have never had their own beds before. We found their beds on Craigslist and they were elated to when we told them they get to have their own beds.

Our oldest 2 girls share the last room. They're in the tween stage and enjoy hanging out in their room while the other children are usually playing together in other areas of our home. Most of the children's toys can be found in our basement, so a lot of their time is spent in the basement.

Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Back in May I purchased a little point-and-shoot camera and it's been my go to camera ever since. It's so much easier to carry around, but the pictures definitely aren't as nice as my big camera as shown above in this blurry action photo. ;) With 11 children in the house we decided to get out and play, so we headed to the museum. 

There's a fun exhibit called Discovery Health where the kids learn everything about their heart rate to how their bodies regulate temperature and how their bones and muscles work together. It's pretty fun. We could spend hours just in that exhibit.

Another area had them digging for fossils. Sand and digging can keep a child occupied for hours too. Just sayin'. 

Puzzles for all ages and things for sensory play were also availbale.

Older children can also put guts back into a body. ;)

There's a drawing table and your drawing can also become a masterpiece on their wall.

We rode the elevator down to get a photo with this dinosaur! It's nice to have a family pass to the museum because there just isn't enough hours in the day to see and do everything there is to do.

Hammond's Candy

Back in June we provided respite for our foster children's sisters, so they stayed with us for the week.  Our house was crammed full with 11 children, and had so much fun! 

Hammond's candies is a local candy company here in Denver. They have a free tour that attracts many people for a visit.

It's a pretty intriguing process to watch. The children loved it.

After the tour everyone got a piece of broken candy and time to expore the store.

With the tour being short and sweet we decided to head to the park on our way home. Can you believe these foster children have never been to the park?

Living in Colorado we're spoiled with several nice parks filled with not only a playground, but also rock climbing.

These kids got along so well that it was almost easier having 11 children than just 6 of my own. Scary isn't it?

There's something about monkey bars that everyone just loves. We could have stayed at the park all day, except that everyone was getting hungry.

Birthdays!

The end of April found us celebrating birthdays! My Lutheran Stud turned 36. The reality of him being closer to 40 than 30 has been a little harder for me to digest than for him. Yikes!

While I'd like to say that my husband's birthday was laid back, relaxing, and carefree it was probably one of our busier days of the month. The boys both had baseball games, and our foster children had a visit with their siblings all at the same time. From time to time my husband will send me an email that begins with, "Don't freak out. . ."  When that happens I instantly freak out because it usually means that we need to be in 2 or 3 different places at the same time. Everything usually works out just fine, but not before I hyperventilate and my husband ends up working out all the details. 

You can't complain when you get to end a day with birthday cake and homemade ice cream! Rebecca has mastered the art of making ice cream and everyone seems to have figured out which flavor is their favorite. My Lutheran Stud loves vanilla cookies and cream. It's definitely one of the more loved flavors around here.

A few days later our twin foster boys turned 5. Kellee was kind enough to make their favorite super heros in the form of cookies. They were a huge hit! 

The boys' caseworker shared a birthday with them so we invited her over too. I found out that she loves tiramisu, so I made her some tiramisu cupcakes. They were pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

We invited all of the boys' siblings over to celebrate along with their caseworker and GAL (guardian ad litem). It was full house with 14 children in attendance. Everyone got a long great and we had a blast watching all the kids together. 

Why Foster Care?

Because of the fall into sin we live in a broken world.  Children are born out of wedlock, divorce has become prevalent in our society, addictions to drugs or alcohol are out of control, and the 5th commandment gets broken daily through the abortion of innocent babies. Watching the news or reading about it on the internet is becoming unbearable. From hit and runs to the murder of innocent people the news, these days, is just heartbreaking.

I often watch the news wishing there was something I could do. I once told my husband that I wish we could go to all the pregnant women in the world, considering an abortion, and tell them that would adopt their baby if they would just carry that sweet life to term. Obviously that isn’t an option because over 1 million babies are killed each year through abortion. My husband and I believe that life begins at conception. Our Lord has already formed that life and that little tiny baby has a heartbeat often before you even know you’re pregnant. To kill that small baby growing inside of you is just devastating to us.

While we can’t save those aborted babies there is something else we are able to do. We can help children that weren’t aborted, but have parents that are struggling to care for them; we can be foster parents, and that is precisely what my husband and I have chosen to do. In my head I can judge parents all day about they way they parent or care for their children. I can sit around and wonder why some people have children when they don’t actually interact with them or feed and cloth them properly. Rather than judge these parents for their shortcomings we can thank them for not killing their children in utero and help the children in ways that their parents have fallen short.

We get a lot of comments and questions about foster care. A comment we hear quite often is, “Oh, I could never do foster care. It would be so hard to give the children back,” or “I’d just want to adopt all of them and we just can’t do that.” 

Of course it’s hard when they leave. And yes, I want to adopt all of them, but guess what? It’s not about me. It’s about them. I can’t fix or change their parents, but I can help the children. I can teach them their shapes and colors or how to ride a bike. These might seem like small things, but in the big picture we are able to care for these children like they are our own. Even if it’s just for a short time, hopefully they will remember the time they are with us, and maybe it will have a small impact in their lives when they leave.

My friend, Edie, recently wrote an article in the March issue of The Lutheran Witness on vocation. Like her I was a Christian in the evangelical church movement. I always felt like I needed to be an overseas missionary and save the world to serve God, but then again, is that enough good works? Being Lutheran I’ve learned that just serving others around you is how God works through me to bless and serve others. Edie nails it when she says, “God is at work through you, meeting the needs of those around!” I don’t have to be missionary overseas and save the world to please God! My vocation, while sometimes mundane, is in my home taking care of my family, and now 3 foster children, and those are the people who need me. “He doesn’t need your good works, your neighbor does.” 



Becoming foster parents is Lord’s way of using us to serve our neighbors. While our time with them may only be a year, more or less, we’ll cherish the time we have with them, watching them grow and learn new things alongside our own children, and thank the Lord for placing them in our home and continue to pray that the Lord blesses them and keeps them in His care.