I can’t believe the ‘new children’ have been here six days already. If we can just get past the first ten days, that seems to be when things start feeling normal. Baby Bear slept 13 hours straight last night!! If only we can get Brother Bear (1yr old) to do the same! Ugh.

Sister is very helpful with her brothers. She’s warming up to us, slowly but surely.

Josh has been the most uncomfortable this time. It’s definitely different with two babies, but I’m still banking on the fact that the extra work with babies far out-weighs the extra drama with older children! I’m enjoying these children. Tomorrow will start our new routine when I register Sister for school and get back to schooling Joshua. It’s been a nice long, snowy weekend! Here are a few pics from our snowy extravaganza!

Believe it or not, these pics were taken at 9:00pm at night! The snow was so bright white (obviously! :), it looked as if it were still a little light outside. It was crazy…for those of us who haven’t seen snow in almost ten years!!

See boys, God does make it snow in Georgia!! LOL!

~audrey

Well, here we are again, a family of eight. We got a call from our agency last night while we were still at church. There was an emergency placement that needed a place to sleep at the very least. Three children, ages 6yrs(girl), 17mo.(boy), and 6mo(boy). I picked them up at 9:00pm last night and they were all asleep by 10:00pm.
Between the three of them, I think I only slept an hour or two at a time all night. Surprisingly, I’ve been fine today; probably still a steady flow of adrenaline! I’m sure I’ll crash tonight.
Once again, they came with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, so I’m taking little girl shopping tonight. It should be fun. We ate lunch at Chick-fil-A today and she had never even heard of Chick-fil-A….she asked for a hamburger. 🙂
Once again, God is already pouring out His grace and goodness. We’ve had friends give us baby clothes for the boys and unused cans of formula for the youngest. Good grief, I haven’t used formula in seven years–that stuff is EXPENSIVE! Holy Cow!
I’m looking forward to whatever amount of time we have with these children. The boys are already doing very well. Owen has been so sweet with the babies and Joshua and Jesse are playing well with the six year old.

More to come later…like when I told sister to stop rocking the baby because he had just eaten and might puke on her. Her response was, “Why do you always use hard words?? What in the world is ‘puke’?” lol. 🙂

~audrey

One of the very best things about homeschooling, is the joy and satisfaction I receive from being able to teach my children. Joshua took the scenic route to finishing his reading curriculum. I felt like we’d NEVER get through it. He loves math, but getting him to do his reading lesson with no complaints was like pulling teeth. We finally finished, and in celebration of that accomplishment, we went to the Christian bookstore to get some sort of devotional or Bible study that Joshua could read. I was actually looking for a book that Ashley had gotten Sam called, I Can Read God’s Word, but they were sold out. However, what I found instead was absolutely perfect!!

It’s called His Mighty Warrior, A Treasure Map From Your King.

The first page is titled, “A Plan and A Purpose”. It starts out like this:
My Mighty Warrior,
I have a powerful plan for you, my son. I know you are just a young boy, but so was King David when I chose him to become the future king….

…Love, Your King, who has a plan for you.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11.

Each entry is only about two paragraphs, but it’s just enough for my young, beginning reader. And this is what Joshua said after reading the first line: “Ok, so who is the son and who is the King in the story?” I said, “YOU are the son and GOD is the King!” His response brought tears to my eyes:

“GOD is talking to ME!?!”

Joshua is loving his new book. He’s already on page 10 and has read to both his brothers and to Josh last night. I highly recommend this book. It almost reminds me of a young Wild At Heart.

~audrey

That’s what went through my head as I tried to get a picture of all three of my boys, still, and maybe even smiling! …maybe when they’re 20.

This is what I got instead:

However, I also got these, and I think these are pretty great…

I love my boys.

~audrey

We did finally receive a phone call, however, it was not the phone call we were praying for. Without going into too much detail, a family member is in the process of being checked out to possibly take the girls. Apparently that situation isn’t looking good, but we don’t know when the home study will take place. It could be a week, it could be a month. We’ve been given the option to leave our home open until we hear more news, or allow the agency to give us another placement if one becomes available.

I don’t know what to do.

I suppose the only thing to do is continue to pray.

I just knew this situation was from the Lord.

Too many things were right about the whole thing. It’s the perfect case.

But God’s timing is perfect and His plan isn’t always our plan. I asked the agency to only call us with a placement if they were very young, like this case. I can only pray that if we are indeed meant to have these girls, God will keep our house open until we receive the final answer from DFCS. If we get a phone call in the meantime with another seemingly perfect placement for us, we will accept and continue to trust that the Lord knows what He’s doing.

I am momentarily very disappointed, but relieved to finally have some answers, even if they weren’t the answers we were looking for. My God is sovereign and one thing I now know for sure, I am so very ready for another baby, whether it be through my womb, fostering, or adoption. Please make it soon Lord.

~audrey

I can’t believe it! The boys spent the night at grandparents’ houses two weekends in a row! Of course it would have been even better if we didn’t have work and church stuff packing our schedule, but it was still wonderful.

Last night Josh’s company. Powerserve International, attended the annual ADDY Awards. It is an awards dinner put on by the American Advertising Federation. It was a lot of fun, food, and music…Oh, and Powerserve won NINE ADDYs; three of which were Josh’s projects. I’m so proud of Josh and all of Powerserve for kicking butt in a year where other companies closed their doors. God has been good to Powerserve and the Powerserve families. We are very grateful.

Are you still praying for my girls?? Please don’t quit yet! I’m praying for some news tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted!

~audrey

This is my best, non-living friend.  His name is Dymo.  He is a $20 label maker.

As I sat on my office floor Saturday morning with hundreds and hundreds of papers dated 2003-present, I felt confident, with Dymo in my hand, knowing that everything was going to end up with a proper home…and label.

I’ve been using Dymo for years now.  He has clearly labeled a home for hundreds of items in my house.  I rest assured, when I leave my house and my children in someone else’s hands, they will have no trouble at all, finding anything they need!

Dymo, thank you for your continued faithful service in my quest to organize the entire world.  Here is some of his work:

Rather than using new manila folders for my new files, I simply printed labels and stuck them over the old hand-written ones.

This is my favorite label for the game closet. This is where all of the boys’ card games go, but it is also where we put miscellaneous game pieces when they show up on the bathroom floor, or in a baby’s mouth. LOL!

This is one of my ‘most used’ labeled containers. The top drawer, in case you can’t read it clearly, is labeled “School Supplies”, the second drawer is “Office Supplies” and the third drawer is “Personal Toiletries.” When I run out of my favorite lotion, I check the third drawer to see if, just maybe, I stocked up the last time it went on sale…9 times out of 10, I find what I’m looking for. This is also where I keep extra toothbrushes, deodorant, toiletry items for a guest, etc. I love it!

I suppose that’s enough for now.

A Dymo label maker is kind of like a toaster; you may only use it every once in a while, but every household should have one!

~audrey

This has turned out to be an absolutely fabulous evening/night. We made homemade pizzas for dinner tonight, which are always delicious. Then Josh put a movie in for the boys and they all settled on the couch with popcorn while I cleaned up the kitchen. I moved quietly from the kitchen to the office where I sat at the computer, uninterrupted, for 45 minutes and watched yesterday’s Grey’s Anatomy. Then I caught up on a few of my favorite blogs and helped Josh put the boys in bed.

Suddenly I got a second wind as I unloaded the dishwasher, started a load of laundry, filled the sink with water and pinesol and really got moving. Before I knew it, I had wiped down all the cabinet doors and large appliances that looked like they were splatter-painted with all sorts of brownish colored things (YUCK!!), swept, mopped, re-loaded the dishwasher, and wiped down the counters. My organizational drive comes and goes and it seems like it’s back at the moment. Tomorrow I have big plans for reorganizing my filing cabinets. I MUST do better this year with saving receipts for self-employment and homeschooling. I know from experience, if I create a file for all necessary items, I am much more likely to actually PUT the papers in there!

Without any hesitation, I can tell you that I have total peace about not hearing anything from the girls’ case worker today (or yesterday). I’m looking forward to a chilly, rainy weekend with Josh and my boys, knowing it COULD be our last as a family of five.

God is so good to us. So often, I find myself overwhelmed that He would choose to bless us so abundantly…so often. God, you are SO good!

I am up to my eyebrows in books right now. I have about three or four new books that have been added to my bedside table ‘stack’. All three are homeschool related, but that’s the mood I’m in lately. I’m excited about participating in the co-op in the fall and I’m excited about Jesse re-joining us on our homeschool adventure. As a result, I’m already making my curriculum list and my ‘wish list’ of books and supplies.  It’s ridiculous really.

Anyways, I have to share this with you because it’s hilarious…at least I think it is…

Last Saturday night was Josh’s company’s annual party.  We tried a chocolate wine called Chocovine.  It was delicious!  Tasted like a mudslide, but not as heavy since mudslides are made with ice cream.  I asked the bartender where we could get a bottle and she said, “Oh, it’s special order.  You can’t buy it locally.”  Well that stinks, I thought.  SOooo, imagine my surprise when my darling hubby walks in the door this evening with a bottle of Chocovine that he had purchased at KROGER…for $12!!  Special order my hiney!

That said, I’m about to curl up in bed with a good book, or two or three, and a glass of locally purchased, inexpensive, Chocovine.  🙂

Good night!

~audrey

Hope is not lost.  I realize that the type of court hearing that occurred yesterday will require lots and lots and LOTS of paperwork before the girls could ever get from point A to point B.  I also realize that today is Friday and unfortunately, DFCS caseworkers are extremely over loaded and I’m sure have tons of stuff to push through and complete by 5pm on Fridays.  My supervisor did happen to call the caseworker several times only to find that her voice mailbox was FULL.  Lovely.

So, based on the relationship that my supervisor has already developed with the caseworker, I am confident that this is not over and we will indeed hear something soon…even if “soon” means Monday or even Tuesday.  These girls will be worth the wait, and in the meantime, I have cuties like this to make me thankful for what I’ve already been blessed with:

Owen is quite proud of his big boy undies. He still has about one accident a day. But he did poop on the potty again today and none of his accidents are ever while we’re out and about, they’re always at home when he’s distracted playing with his brothers. He’s finally starting to tell me when he has to go. That will definitely make things easier.

Have a great weekend.

Thank you to all my faithful prayer warriors out there. Don’t stop now!! The best is yet to come!!

~audrey

No news.

Yes, Robin, this does STIINNNKKKKK.  🙁

My supervisor from our agency has been in meetings all day, so she hasn’t been able to call and check on the case.  I’m only holding out hope for another hour or so.  Otherwise, we’ll have to wait the whole weekend…and keep praying.

We’ll rejoice with a ‘yes’ and have peace with a ‘no’.  But this ‘not knowing’ is killing me.

Please keep praying.

~audrey