Foster2Forever

by

Saturday Shout-Outs

Today, I’d like to share posts from other foster care blogs.

Kristin of Adventures of a Betty Crocker WannaBe is taking a leave of absence from blogging because…Cooper’s sister is moving in with the intention of adoption! Congratulations on your growing family!

La Mama Loca has been feeling overwhelmed with everything and is asking for prayer. Go on and give her a big virtual hug! 

Katrina of Making Many Memories began a series called Finding Forever Families Fridays featuring children with Down’s Syndrome. Would you consider adopting a Down’s Syndrome child destined for a life in an institution?

Adoptive Momma of Two had this informative post on ADHD.

Adoptive Momma of Two

Brit of Living with Three Boys of Our Own inspired me about batch cooking.  Could I really do this? Have you?

The Rockin' Mama ChallengeAnd I have to mention Lisa of A Bushel and a Peck aka One Thankful Mom. This Houston mom has eleven, yes, 11 children and has hosted a Rockin’ Mama Challenge to spend 15 minutes every day rocking our little ones to promote attachment. I have to say that, after this challenge, our Stinkpot is now asking to be held now.

by

ADOPTION CELEBRATION!!! {Giveaways and Blog Hop}

NOVEMBER IS NATIONAL ADOPTION MONTH!!!
Here at Foster2Forever, we are celebrating theadoptionof our Stinkpot and future adoption of our Lil Bit through our state’s foster care system.  You can join in the celebration in a number of ways.

ADOPTION BLOG HOP
For the entire month of November, you can join our Adoption Blog Hop with your adoption story. Whether it’s through foster care, a private agency or internationally – and join us even if your adoption journey isn’t complete.
Go to our ADOPTION BLOG HOP page to join in the fun!

Foster2Forever will also have our regular 2FUNNYFRIDAY meme for you to link up your cute stories, photos, or other things that make us smile.

This month we will also have a WORDLESS WEDNESDAY linky, too! For this Wordless Wednesday, November 3rd, we will have a Halloween Costume Contest with prizes! So be sure and add your Halloween photos to our linky on Wednesday!

SPECIAL GUEST WRITERS
Foster2Forever is excited to have other adoptive families share in our celebration this month by sharing their stories. Join us on Tuesdays and Thursdays during November to hear their views on a number of adoption topics.

BASIC BITS FOR BEGINNING BLOGGERS
A few weeks ago, I attended Bloggy Boot Camp in Austin, Texas.  I was completely overwhelmed by the plethora of information to absorb and implement.  The most emphasized topic was to move to WordPress and have self-hosted dot com.  In other words, to be really successful and efficient, I need to implement a www.foster2forever.com using WordPress! No more dot blogspot.com or dot wordpress.com!

I have a full-time career, manage a home, and have 3-year-old and 1-year-old boys – I can’t do all this at once! SO, next month, I will begin this project SLOWLY week-by-week with a goal to move Foster2Forever.blogspot.com to WordPress and become Foster2Forever.com in January.
Please join me through this journey on Tuesdays beginning December 7th???

GIVEAWAYS
For National Adoption Month, Foster2Forever will have great giveaways throughout the month.

Our first giveaway is a hard cover 8×8 photobook from Shutterfly! A $29.99 value!

In order to enter, complete any of the following below and leave a separate comment below for each entry. Current subscribers and friends, don’t forget to enter!!!

  • Blog about National Adoption Month and this giveaway (3 entries) – leave the perma-link to your post!
  • Subscribe to the Foster2Forever newsletter (2 entries)
  • Like Foster2Forever on Facebook (2 entries)
  • Add the Foster2Forever button to your website (2 entries) – leave your web address
  • Add Foster2Forever to your blogroll (2 entries) – leave your web address
  • Join in our Blog Hops and Memes – Adoption, Wordless Wednesday, 2FunnyFriday (1 entry per hop)
  • Follow Foster2Forever through Google Friend Connect (1 entry)
  • Follow @Foster2Forever on Twitter (1 entry) – leave your Twitter handle
  • Tweet this:  Celebrate Adoption by entering to win a FREE photobook from @Shutterfly and @Foster2Forever #giveaway http://ow.ly/326sz (1 entry per tweet – once daily)
  • Follow @Shutterfly on Twitter (1 entry) – leave your Twitter handle 

Enter by midnight on Saturday, November 13th. Winner will be announced on Monday, November 15th!
Wishing y’all good luck!

by

GUEST BLOGGERS NEEDED! {TOP 10 TOPICS}

Top Ten {Tuesday}In celebration of National Adoption Month in November, Foster2Forever is searching for guest bloggers on a variety of topics regarding adoption through foster care.  Today we are linked up with Oh, Amanda‘s Top 10 and listing our Top 10 adoption topics for National Adoption Month.

  1. Becoming a Licensed Foster Home
  2. Cost of Foster Care Adoption
  3. When We Knew This Was Our Child
  4. Becoming One Family
  5. Overcoming the Past
  6. Coping with Infertility Through Adoption
  7. Adopting Siblings
  8. Trans-Racial Adoption
  9. Adopting Older Children
  10. Adopting as a Single Parent

If you would like to write a post about one of the above topics (or another topic on adoption) this month, you may contact us at:
foster2forever (at) gmail (dot) com

This site is focused on adopting through foster care, so preference will be given to adoptive foster parents.

We will also be hosting an adoption story blog hop during the month of November. Any adoption story can link up (foster, private, international) beginning November 1st.

Son adopted through foster care and foster girl

Thanks for visiting and take a look around!  
(Be sure to check out the Bloggy Boot Camp linky)

5 MINUTES FOR MOM
Simply Being Mommy 125x125
Have a blessed day!

by

BLOGGY AND MOMMY BOOT CAMPS!

BLOGGY BOOT CAMP
Yes, I was fortunate enough to attend the SITS Girls Bloggy Boot Camp this weekend.  What incredible speakers!

Laurie Turk aka the Tip Junkie overwhelmed us all with all the incredible tools she uses to make the most of her time blogging.  Yesterday, I began writing a list of all the to-do’s and stopped at 20 – realizing that I had to compile a PLAN OF ACTION for this blog.  I will share the beginning of that list later this week!

Jessica Gottlieb who goes by her real name spoke on privacy — very scary!!!

Angela England the “Renaissance Woman” gave us a rundown of SEO – Search Engine Optimization – that had our heads spinning. How can someone find your blog on the ever-expanding internet?

The discussion after lunch led by SITS Girl, Tiffany, and the hilarious Jessica Bern – was a real eye-opener for me about branding. I really didn’t think this applied to this website, but, yes, it can…more on that on a later post.

Kerri Jackson Case of Damn You, Little Rock did an amusing presentation on writing and telling the truth.  Truth has consequences!

The oh-so-cute Amy Locurto, yes, of I Heart Faces fame, spoke openly about taking great pictures.  We LOVED the background and dialog of those beautiful photos we admire.

The most inspiring presentation was given by LaQuishe Wright on “How SEO Helped Channing Tatum Find Me!”  (Channing Tatum is that really hot actor from “Dear John“) Her blog is his official website – yikes!

I HEART BLOGGERS WITH FACES
I met so many bloggers on one day that I’m trying to remember everyone.  I didn’t take many pictures, but here’s a photo I took of Christina of Ramblings of a Closet Writer to remind us to perform our monthly breast exams and have a mammogram completed as recommended. (I actually had mine yesterday!)

MOMMY BOOT CAMP
I have taken off work a few days to put our 3-year-old, Stinkpot, through Mommy Boot Camp.  He has been totally out of control at the day care.

In Mommy Boot Camp, if he didn’t say “Yes, Ma’am” when asked to do something (or pottied in his pants), he was put in the corner. Of course, he tried to move just 2 inches out of the corner, but I would move him back 2 inches each time.  Each time out was 2 minutes on the timer. He would get to “hold me” after the timer went off. After a few times, he finally got it and went to the corner himself.

So I took him back to day care yesterday during my mammogram.  He did really well until about 11a.m. (he had 3 good hours) when he had a major meltdown.  I went into the day care and put him in the corner for 3 minutes, having to move him back 2 inches a few times.  He ate lunch, and we came home and took a 3 hour nap.


The day care was utter chaos with 24 3-year-olds and only 2 teachers. We MUST find a day care or nanny with a smaller teacher-student ratio! The worst problem is that Stinkpot is not potty-trained. I ordered Potty Power DVD from Amazon, and I’m anxiously awaiting it’s arrival!

GIVEAWAY WINNER
With Bloggy and Mommy Boot Camps going on, I messed up and didn’t post a link-up for 2FunnyFriday for the Beauty Case giveaway. However, we did receive 10 comments and #5 was our winner! Congratulations to Annette from Kingwood!!!
You can visit her blog Up in the Air to send your best wishes.

Miscellany Monday @ lowercase letters

by

Our Love Story – Having technical difficulties

Sometimes you just have to just have to blame it on operator error. For some reason, I have been unable to save the post of our love story due to “formatting errors”?

But for your viewing pleasure, here’s a picture of me in junior high – taken not long before I met my husband.

me – in junior high

Have a great week!

by

Allergies, Sore Throats and Viruses

I’ve been suffering through yet ANOTHER bout of allergies this week. I’ve lost count this year on how many times I’ve been going through this. Is it grass I’m allergic to now? Then I’m in big trouble! The coughing & sore throat are so annoying!

But the worst part is that my portable hard drive & now laptop have a virus. It’s so annoying & worrisome.

3 lessons I’ve learned from this:

  1. Always disconnect portable drives using the safely remove hardware button
  2. Don’t have them connected to your computer as it’s booting up or restarting
  3. Don’t procrastinate backing up your data!!!

Of course, #3 is the most important. Hopefully, I won’t lose all my digital pictures from this entire decade because of my procrastination…

I’m Clever

Sway