First placement

We accepted our first foster placement this week.  A 5mo baby girl.  It has already been a crazy roller coaster ride.  It is funny how quickly we have forgotten how much work it is to care for a baby!  We got the call late in the evening and she showed up around 8:30 at night.  The kids are absolutely in love with her and it is fun to watch them learn about caring for a baby.  The boys are extremely gentle and want to help.  Maeve views her more as a friend and I think is a little bored with her!  We don't know much about her case and would find it odd if she remains in care for too long.  We will get more information this week when we attend court.  From what we understand, this hearing is to decide if she is going to stay in state custody or go back with her family.  Since this is our first placement, we are new to all of this and curious to see how the wheels of the system turn.  Fun times!

Omaha

We did a quick trip to Omaha for Spring Break this year.  We are bummed at first to not have a big trip planned, but ended up having a great time in Omaha.  The zoo is awesome and the kids love staying at any hotel...so it doesn't really matter where we are staying.  The weather could have been a little better, but we made the most of it.

Still alive

We are still alive and kicking around here.  It has been a winter for the record books and we are all ready (READY) for spring.  Lots of illness covered most of the winter.  Susie and I had our first kid-free trip in 12 years (awesome cruise to Caribbean)!  I had the pleasure of having my appendix removed after acute onset of pain a few weeks back.  We also took a leap of faith and completed training and licensing to become foster parents.  We received our first placement call this evening, but had to turn it down (the case was more overwhelming than we agreed to take....prayers for all the children hurting in this system).  This is an exciting journey and we will see where it takes us.  All the kids are doing great and just finished up a fun basketball season.  We are now onto baseball and track for the boys...Maeve is going to just relax this season!  We also just celebrated Maeve's 5th Gotcha Day.  It is so amazing to look back and see how much she has grown and thrived since coming home!

There are many more things that occurred over the past year, but too late to catch up now.  I will try to be better about documenting our lives for our own memory!  Until next time here are some pictures from the holidays.