Help with Safe Families

I know I passed on the info about our the great ministry we are working with called Safe Families. Go here safefamilies.org and find out about what we do.

After being in the foster system for many years we have seen so much, sometimes too much. Anyway, enough to know there are many problems with the "system".

Please if you live in Illinois or know someone who does, this ministry is making a difference and Christian families are stepping up to help families in crisis, usually single moms in crisis.

Our number of placements have almost doubled since last year.

A great way to serve as my friend Tammy says,"set another place at the table". Opening your home and family to those in need!

New Year!

I am starting the new year with a well known confession!

I am not a good blogger!

I want to be a better blogger!

In the spirit of fresh starts! Here is what I am thinking about this year.

First of all, for about the past 5 years January has played a significant "role" in the life of my family.

Each year we would anticipate what the Lord was going to do in the coming year. Through our foster to adopt journey it has been amazing and fun to see how the Lord has changed our family. Not just by bringing more children to us, but by watching the Lord change us and our hearts and the hearts of all our children in the process.

I could not have imagined my Safe Family placement would become my daughter a few months later.

So here we are a family of 8 in 2012. We have told the Lord we are open to what you would do in and through our family!

I cannot wait to sit here this time next year and see what He has done.

I was talking with a good friend the other day about the Lord and how good He is and we decided it would be a boring life to limit what God wants to do in your family by setting up your own parameters about what you will allow.

I love being on this journey!

Forest Preserves

There are many Forest Preserves close to where we live. Matt and the kids and the dog go and hike these on the weekends. He is an amazing father who realizes the value of quality time with our kids. They want that time with him and he makes a huge effort! I feel so blessed that our children get to have him for a father.

I think it can be a "trap" that we get ourselves into, as parents, we think because we are running our kids to all their activities that we are getting personal, quality time with them. 10 minutes in the car, is not enough!

Plus it is so great for our kids enjoy and appreciate God's amazing creation!

Here are some pictures of some of the places we have been. These Forest Preserves are beautiful!

Our summer in pictures!

We LOVE the weather here in the summer! We are always comparing the weather on our phone app to the weather in Texas.
We moved this summer , which is getting a little bit old for the kids since we have done this 2 summers in a row.

Anyway, because we are inside so much in the winter, it is always our goal to be outside as much as we can.

We had a membership at a pool that many of our friends go to, we loved it!!

We also have beaches 15 min from our house and we love going there as a family, when we can.

These are some of our fun memories from summer 2011!

New house!

It was a very interesting process to house hunt in Illinois.Houses here are very different from houses in Texas!!!
Here is why:
They love their siding-blah
Almost no one has a fence-kinda weird
So many houses look exactly alike
Their taste in finishes is opposite of mine- light wood vs dark, etc.

Anyway- the upside is they almost all have BASEMENTS!
How did I survive all these years with all these kids without a basement! We love our basement!!!!

Our one tip would be- make sure it is finished. Our unfinished basement in the rent house was scary and dark ! I think we were all afraid to go down their.


So we looked for about a month and found one house, really cute, great character, not quite as big as we had hoped. We put an offer in , they would not come off the price. Hello! you need to be ready to come off your price if you are selling your house! It is the reality today!!

We were done with negotiations. Needless to say, God is Awesome! Later that week in another area we found the perfect house!

We were looking for a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house. We found a 6 bedroom house with 4 bathrooms. The basement is totally finished . The basement includes a huge bedroom for the big boys a beautiful bathroom. I have a workout area and a scrapbook room as well as a HUGE crawl space and a fun Entertainment room. We have also made the 5th bedroom a school room! We are so excited to have this house! We know the Lord provided this for us and we are so thankful.

WOW, I STILL HAVE A BLOG!

It has been sooo long and sooo much has happened in our family in the last few months! For starters our baby girl's adoption was finalized this summer. We had a small gathering of family and friends to celebrate all that the Lord has done ! It is always such an emotional day to hear the adoption is finalized! In her case it was bitter sweet for her parents who we care about , knowing the huge loss they will be facing. She is such a precious joy! I am speechless at the thought of getting to have her as my daughter.

Visit with birthparents!

This is not your typical first meeting with the birthparents! We originally were with an agency where the birthmom picks you from a scrapbook. So our first meeting with her would be totally different. Because I have been talking and praying for this couple for several months it makes it all very unique! So here we are on the way to meet them, a director from our ministry (safe families) drove Susie and I to meet them, she facilitated the meeting. We met at a McDonalds close to where they are staying. It was a great meeting! They are very sweet and funny, they love Susie!
We had a great visit. I shared with them that Matt's mom passed away when Grace was a baby and we decided then that if we ever had another girl we would use the name Kay in her name.Well, four boys later we got another girl. Her name Susan was given to her to honor her birthdads mother who had passed away and so we will name her Susan Kay Steele and call her Susie Kay!

We talked about things they wanted and did not want for her. It was strange yet normal.We had a good hug at the end of our visit. We all knew the next time we would be in the same place it would be for court, for them to relinquish rights. Their is a weird mix of emotions, hard to not be sad for this mama and yet so exited for us and so happy for the baby and for her future to be secure.

Please pray for this sweet couple as this is and will be difficult for them for a long time!!!