God, help me to be more thankful!

Today went really well. The kids had their visit, which was nice cause I had some time to go get some more toys and movies. I found a really cool spiderman toy and some kids Christmas movies. I never realized how awesome a television was until we got these three boys. I'm pretty sure they would watch cartoons all day long if we let them. :) Well I brought the bags of toys in and showed them all to Tony. He instantly started crying when I told them they were for him and his brothers. It just about broke my heart. You know, doing foster care makes you realize all the small things that you take for granted. God, please help me to be more thankful for silly Christmas movies and all the hundreds of "toys" that I have.

Tony sure was testing me today. He was in timeout about 4 different times. Timeout basically consists of him sitting in a chair in his bedroom for one minute. Today while he was in timeout, he was yelling and I told him that he was not allowed to talk while in timeout. Well he continued.. so I told him I was going to add another minute every time he yelled. Well I ended up adding 4 more minutes! Finally he stopped and I went in to get him and he was crying. I knelt down and he told me he loved me and that he was sorry. For the rest of the evening he was really good. I think he may finally be realizing that I am not going to give in!


I picked Matt up from school today and his teachers were so nice. He was so excited to see us and his brothers. They are all so cute together! They get along really well! :)

Oh yeah, a little side note.. we sold our truck tonight! :) YAY!! Thank you God for answering that prayer! :)

Well all the kids are asleep, so I suppose I should try to get some sleep too!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! :)

The Big Day

Tonight I picked up the three boys. Their names and ages are as follows (their real names are not allowed to be shared, to protect their privacy).

Matt 10yrs. Autistic
Tony 4yrs.
Zoe 2yrs.

So the pickup went great. I took them home and showed them their bedrooms. Tony was really excited that his pillow was Finding Nemo. Matt was even more excited that his pillow and sheets were Star Wars. :) After I showed them around the house we waited for Eric to get home. In the meantime, I gave the boys some fruit snacks and unfortunately the only ones I had were princess characters. Matt (who remember is autistic) was really confused by this. He asked me, "Mrs. Shelly, does this mean that I am going to be a girl if I eat these."

Once Eric got home we went to McDonalds and grabbed some food. We also stopped by the store and got some toys. On the way home from McDonalds the kids LOVED looking at Christmas lights.

Once we got home we had bath time (which was fun) and than it was off to bed. The kids slept really well. I was shocked!!

Overall, I would say that our first night as parents went fairly well... especially with going from 0 to 3 kids!!

Quitting so soon..

Well today I got a call from our foster care agency and they wanted to know if Eric and I were interested in doing a respite for 3 boys (one being autistic) for 3 nights and 4 days. We said yes!!! So it looks like my last day is going to be November 29, 2006. Foster parenting here we come..

Discernment and God's rewards...

This past year has been one of the most confusing times in my life. I feel like there have been more decisions that have needed to be made than I have answers for. Just one of the decisions that Eric and I were deciding on was whether or not to be foster parents. This decision was HUGE! This entailed me quitting my job, leaving my co-workers, and mostly leaving familiarity. After much prayer we decided that this was something that God was calling us to do. The day that I went in to tell my bosses that I was quitting, they offered me a raise! I was so confused... I thought to myself, God I've been working there for almost a year and of all days TODAY is the day they are giving me a raise... uhh.. Well for about 20 seconds I thought of all the things that Eric and I could use the extra money on.. paying off school bills and our truck and buying a new house, etc... Well after talking to Eric he reminded me that being a foster parent is what God wants us to do. So I told my bosses that my last day was going to be November 30, 2006.