3 year update

Hello again--where to begin.  Life has changed tremendously in 3 years!  Most notably, we have moved and are now Southerners!  Adjustment to life in the South was slow, but now we love it.  Kids have all grown as expected and doing well.  We have added a little one to our gang...Declan.  He joined us through the foster care system at birth and was officially adopted October 2016.  We continue to foster and have a 4y/o little guy with us right now (we will call him Little Man (LM) on the blog).  I am trying to get back to journaling our life.  It is great to look back on and remember the kids and their different stages!

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.

Summer Fun

Where to begin...

We have had a great summer!  The school year ended with Aidan having his cardiac ablation.  All went well and we have all reason to believe he will not have any additional episodes of SVT.  He was back to school a few days after the procedure and did great.

 Maeve had surgery on her left had in early May.  She was having a growth on her ring finger that caused the bone to grow towards her pinky finger.  It was a pretty detailed surgery, but she healed up nicely and her hand looks great.  She has some slight decreased movement of that finger, but the pain is gone.

Maeve also played t-ball.  We weren't really sure how it would go since she was in a cast most of the season (very early Summer), but it is a very laid-back league.  All went well and she had a great time.

We have had a great time doing fun things around time and enjoying all Summer has to offer.  The boys and I have gone to a Royals game--they finally won while we were there!  We also got season passes to the Zoo and have been enjoying it.

The boys all did swim team and Maeve has just had fun swimming!  Aidan and Cian recently had All-City championships and they both did great!  Aidan got 3rd place in freestyle, 4th in backstroke and 9th in breaststroke.  His relay team also got 2nd place!  Cian got 11th place in freestyle, 9th place in backstroke and his relay team got 3rd place!  Fintan did pre-competative and seemed to improve.  Not sure if Maeve will be ready for pre-competitive next summer, but I hope so.  Some additional lessons at the YMCA might be necessary.

Cian really enjoyed his first year of lacrosse.  We didn't know anything about this sport, but quickly became fans.  He also attended a weekly summer "camp" for lacrosse, but didn't enjoy it as much as the regular season.

We had a family wedding in Columbia, MO.  The kids have all become MU fans, so we had a great time visiting the Mizzou campus.  There was a swim meet going on while we were there, so Aidan loved watching it.

 Fintan played baseball this year at 3&2.  He had a great experience and really loved it.  (no pictures!)

In addition to all that, we have been spending lots of time at the lake.  The weather this summer has been amazing...not too hot and lots of early rain.  The lake level is high!  After a rough couple of summers, this has been a welcomed change!

We have lots still planned for the summer, so we will be squeezing out every last drop until school begins (5 short weeks left!).  Ugh, it goes too fast.

Spring Break