Foster2Forever

Archives for January 2010

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THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING A FOSTER PARENT

We have been so blessed as foster parents to have such beautiful, wonderful foster children! It has been “pure joy” to open our home to neglected children. But now comes the hard part – I received a call today that CPS has found a home with a distant relative for our 5-month-old precious baby boy that we’ve been fostering for the last month and a half.

The toughest part emotionally has to be that since CPS did not foresee any family members for this baby, we were asked, “Do you want to keep him?” Anticipating his membership into our family, we have been searching for a name to fit this beautiful dark-haired, blue-eyed baby and had decided on a combination of family names. (Another “J” name for another boy which means God rescues & a middle name to honor my husband’s late uncle that passed away before we started dating)

I don’t blame anyone. I can totally understand why someone would want this beautiful creation. He is so perfect! He only cries when he’s wet or hungry and now only wakes once during the night. Did I mention that he is BEAUTIFUL???

I’m extremely disappointed and have contacted our attorney to see if we have any say at all. Right now I’m feeling quite nervous and have butterflies the size of 737s in my stomach. I know, however, as the impending date of February 9th draws closer, losing this little angel will become more difficult to deal with.

Until then, I must focus on being the best parent I can be for this child and the others in our home.

Romans 8:28 “all things work together for good to those who love God…”

I will keep you posted as more details unfold…

Hugs to you!
-penelope

Read more about our adventures in fostering by clicking the fostering label.

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COMING HOME – IN HIS PLAN

Within the last 2 weeks, 2 of my dear friends lost close family members. It is by God’s grace & guiding hand that He has shown me that by coming home, I was able to share in their grief. Coming home was in His plan all along!

When I left for college in 1988, I really didn’t think I would ever return. After graduating from college, I moved to a big city of 4 million. I fell in love with all the excitement & activities that the big city had to offer. I became a bonefide “CITY GIRL” and loved my life there for over 15 years.

After a whirlwind long-distance courtship, I eloped & married a wonderful godly man that I had been close friends with during my youth. Soon afterward, I left a city of 4 million to move to a town of 1400 so that my new husband could remain an integral part of his 12-year-old son’s life.

In this small town, I missed the big city and my friends I left behind. Because I was a little over an hour from where I grew up, I was able to reconnect with old friends, albiet on a limited scale.

After a year of small town life, both my husband and I longed for the convenience of a city. We began to plan for our return “HOME”. I had been gone from Central Texas nearly 19 years and, although my husband did not grow up in the area, he had lived in Central Texas for nearly 20 years, so it had become “home” for him as well.

Since our move nearly 3 years ago, I have personally lost 4 family members and have watched as close friends have tragically lost family members as well. By coming home, I have been able to personally share condolences and hopefully give comfort to my friends and family. I wouldn’t have been able to do this living away in the big city.

Looking back, I can see God’s guiding hand in my life to bring me home. Proverbs 16:9 says “a man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps.” As a single girl in the big city, I never thought I would ever leave big city life; however, the husband God chose for me determined the steps to bring me back home to my roots.

Thank you, Lord, for having plans to give me hope and a future that I NEVER expected! (Jeremiah 29:11) I love the fabulous life you have given me!!!!

Hugs to you!
~penny
http://txpenelope.blogspot.com/

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My husband LOVED this…..

The other day after work, I dropped by a local camera store for a hands-on look at a camera I’ve been eyeing for a few weeks now. (though I really don’t NEED another camera)

The young salesman was doing a great job of demonstrating the different features of their line of Canon cameras (my favorite). As we were talking, I pulled out my camera to show him a few of my pictures & get some advice on how to improve them.

As I was showing him pictures of our new 4-month-old foster baby that we’re hoping to adopt, he smiled & said, “CUTE GRANDBABY!”

Given that statement, I will NOT be purchasing from him!

Bundle up & have a GREAT weekend with your loved ones!

Hugs to you all!

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On Becoming a Foster Parent

This has been an exciting few weeks! On Tuesday, December 15th, I received a call from CPS asking if we would accept a 4-month-old baby boy to foster. Of course, I said, “YES!” I picked him up an hour later. He is so beautiful & such a good baby! I AM SO BLESSED!

Because the child’s mother has had numerous children removed before & has already had her parental rights terminated, he will be eligible for adoption after all the legal stuff has been completed.

I’ve had a number of people asking me about foster parenting & how difficult the process is. It actually isn’t that difficult to become a foster parent. Our licensing was more complex because we were in the middle of moving to a different county during the process, but overall, the process wasn’t too bad. We are licensed through our state agency as both a foster & adoptive home.

  • The first step is to attend an informational meeting. There are a number being held Tuesday, January 12th in the evening in Houston, Austin, Bryan & Waco. Check HERE for details. This is very informal, but for some reason, attending this meeting is required before moving forward in the process.
  • Next, you would attend a 35-hour parent education training, called PRIDE (short for Parent Resource Information Development Education). Our classes met twice a week for a few hours each evening. Before each class, we had to bring “homework”, which actually were documents required for our homestudy, such as identification, family profile/background form, home layout, desired children profile form, & scheduling FBI fingerprinting, etc. This helped keep the documentation process less cumbersome.
  • You will also need CPR/First Aid training, a home fire inspection (local fire dept) & a home health inspection. (We completed our CPR training at our jobs.)
  • Lastly, a home study will be conducted by a caseworker that will come to your home and interview everyone in the home. For us, scheduling the caseworker took the longest because we lived in a rural county 40 minutes from Bryan. When she finally came, we had already closed on our house & were in the process of moving. We had already boxed up a lot, given away our sofa & had to sit in the dining room for the interviews.

The cost of becoming licensed with the state agency has been minimal with the FBI fingerprinting costing around $50 per person. [Anyone over the age of 18 living in the home will have to be fingerprinted. My stepson will have to be fingerprinted SOON!] We also had to purchase a fire extinguisher for the home.

I hope this post gives you the information you need. If you are remotely interested, I encourage you to attend the informational meeting next week.

James 1:27 says that we are to reach out to orphans & widows in their distress.

Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to know!

God bless & hugs to you all!
~penelope

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New Year’s Resolutions/Goals for 2010

Resolutions seem to go away the first week, but here are some goals I’d like to accomplish in 2010. Wish me luck & lots of prayer!

Spiritual
*Read the Old Testament – all of it – in chronological order. I found this really great One Year Chronological Bible at Mardel’s for $15. It is organized chronologically, which is really helping me with putting all the great Bible stories together how they happened. It’s like reading a great novel!

Family
*Provide a safe, loving Christian home to all my sons. My stepson graduates in May. Stinkpot, my very strong-willed toddler is a disciplinary challenge. We hope to adopt our foster baby boy sometime in 2010. (If you’d like information on fostering or adopting children in Texas – attend an informational meeting in your area.)

Homelife
*Get organized (somehow!) with cleaning, cooking & raising preschoolers while working full-time. I’m going to have to try this FlyLady thing again. To help with meal planning, I purchased this computer program –Dinner is Ready: 30 Meals in One Day – that I like alot. It puts together your menus & shopping lists by clicking on the recipes you like – you can even add your own recipes. Now to find the time to do the grocery shopping & cooking…(p.s. so far I have only been able to get this program to work on our PC with Microsoft xp, but not with Vista)

Personal
*Run the 5k in the Komen Central Texas Race for the Cure on April 24th. I have already begun training on the treadmill at work, but yesterday, I threw out my back…ug! Have any of you participated before?

Community
*Fight cancer in Central Texas by raising $15,000 for the Community Cancer Association at our first Quarters for Cancer event on Saturday, March 27th at Richland Mall. Anyone want to help or volunteer?

What are your goals/resolutions for 2010? Am I being too ambitious?

Hugs to you all!

I’m Clever

Sway