Foster Care

This year we have begun a new journey in our family.  We have decided to become licensed Foster parents.  This is a huge step for us and a decision that has not been made lightly.

I have thought about being a foster parent since before I got married.  While working in several different daycares throughout my teen years I ran into a few situations where DCFS was/needed to get involved.  I felt so sad about each situation.  I love kids and always want to be able to help others around me.  McKay and I talked about it early on in our marriage and even made a few calls about it in Idaho, but we never took anything farther then that.  At that time Addie was just a baby and we were SO new at the whole parenting situation.  We are definitely not expert parents now, but we have had a few toddlers and are starting to understand that ANYTHING can happen in parenthood and you are never fully prepared for any situation... so I think we are starting to "get it".  haha!

Last summer I started having some thoughts and feelings... things that are kind of hard to explain on paper or type out.  Basically they were thoughts like "life is short..."  "don't make your goals wait forever..."  I felt a little tired of living in my little bubble and I wanted to branch out and try something new.  As I pondered on those thoughts it really made me think about WHAT my goals truly were.  What did I want to do during this lifetime?  As I looked back on my life and looked at where I was headed I was grateful to see that for the most part I was headed in a direction that I wanted to be heading in.  Being a wife and mother are the best and I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to live this life.  But how could I reach out to others more?  How could I help someone else when I really need to be home most of the time.  I started by looking into being a preschool/daycare teacher in my home.  I thought that would be a good goal to work on while I am home with my little ones.  But after some research and talking to McKay we just felt like it wasn't the right thing for our family at this time.  Then one weekend in the fall of 2018 foster care started coming back into my thoughts.  It had been years since I had really thought about it, but slowly I started thinking more and more about it.  But that is crazy right?!  We already have 5 kids!  I thought it was so crazy I couldn't even talk to McKay about it.

Of course I started researching online to see if I could find anyone else that was as "crazy" as me.  haha!  I thought if I could find at least one other person out there that was as "crazy" as me that maybe I could be brave like them and do it too.  (Yep I was SO scared, and still am).  I don't know if I ever found THE person, but I did finally get up the courage to talk to McKay about it.  Guys, McKay is SO supportive of my goals and dreams.  He really listens to my ideas and tries his best to help make them happen.  We decided to pray about it.  That week we had our answer.  Everywhere we turned it was like heaven was saying YES YES YES!  Go for it!  Be brave and try foster care.  So... we decided to be brave and say yes to foster care.  We have faith that foster care is in God's plan for our family and that he will help us through the MANY bumps and trials ahead of us.

And I will just stop right here and say that no I have not seen Instant Family yet, and I don't know if I really want to.  lol (that is usually peoples first question for us when they find out that we are doing Foster care). :)

To get started we googled Utah Foster Care and typed our names into their contact form.  2 days later we got a call and set up an appointment for a representative to come talk to us about foster care.  A week later at the very end of November, she came.  I was so nervous for that first appointment.  I thought for sure she was going to say we had too many kids already and that we couldn't do it.  Some states do have a limit on how many kids you can have in your home at a time (in Texas it is 6 and I think it is 5 in Florida).  But Utah's is fairly open to the number of kids as long as you have room in your car and house.  We do have a 12 seater van...

Another question we get a lot is if we are planning to adopt.  We did not go into Foster care with adoption as our main goal.  We want to keep reunification with their bio families as our main goal, but we are of course we are open to adoption.  So yes, it might happen, but each situation is SO different we will just have to wait and see. 

During the first meeting she gave us a checklist of ALL the things we needed to do before we could be licensed caregivers and we have been working on that list ever since.  As I type this we have now turned in all the paperwork and done all 30 something hours of training and had all the appointments.  Basically we have done all the easy parts.  We are now waiting on our background check which will be followed by our home visit.  Then... we might have a couple new members to welcome into our family.  Last I heard there were quite a few children at the Christmas Box house in Ogden waiting for a home to go to so I am imagining we will have a child fairly quickly.  

I am still terrified, and excited all at the same time.  We talk to our kids about it often and while they have no idea what to expect they are willing to try it out.  Currently we are planning on taking children 5 years old and under while our own kids are little.  That age limit felt good to both McKay and I.   Honestly we have no idea what to expect with foster care.  We have no idea if we can handle it with all of our other kids as well, but we are going to try our very best and give these kids all the love we can.

We might post some very general info on here just to keep a little documentation on the blog.  But overall we aren't aloud to share anything online so no photos of their faces and no names/personal info. and no details about their case.

Anyways just wanted to update this trusty ol' blog about the exciting things happening in our lives.  Goodness, I love this life that I get to live.

My final thought is... God is SO good.  He loves us and wants to help us every step of the way.  I know he answers prayers and he knows the desires of our hearts.  A quote that McKay found a few weeks ago by Neal A. Maxwell has become our theme through out this experience.

"God does not begin by asking us about our ability, but only 

about our availability, and if we then prove our dependability, 

he will increase our capability." 

I am learning to trust god he will increase my capability to be able to help and serve his children on this earth whom he loves dearly.   

   

Sledding with Cousins

We patiently waited all winter for it to snow enough to go sledding at the cousins house.  My sister, Corinne has a big hill in their backyard that is perfect for sledding in the winter time.  Finally in February the snow day came and we packed up all.the.gear. and set up camp in Corinne's living room.   

It was seriously the perfect set up since there house was right there so the babies could stay warm and there weren't a million kids there so nobody got hit by a sled they weren't paying attention to. 

After the sledding we went inside and had homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese.  Perfect! 

Valentines Day 2019

Valentines day is one of my favorite days of the year, especially with kids so we like to celebrate all day long.
 

This year McKay took Valentines day off work so we could spend the day with the kids.  I started out in the morning helping in Addie's class with their Valentines party.  After her party I took the kids that don't go to school on a fun activity to the Treehouse Museum.  Corinne and Solomon came too which always makes things more fun for everyone.  After the Museum I went and helped in Jensen's kindergarten class party. 

After school we had a fancy dinner with dress-ups and steaks.  I couldn't resist and I got the kids some new sticker books for Valentines day.

 Happy Valentines day kiddos!  I hope you felt our love that day and every other day of the year! 

Later that weekend McKay and I went out on a date to celebrate Valentines day and my birthday.  He is my favorite Valentine!   February I love you!   

7 Months Old- Rockwell

Rockwell turned 7 months old on February 8, 2019.

He got his first hair cut last month and his hair is turning more brown/blonde then red.  He looks so handsome with his new haircut.  I love a fresh haircut on my boys!  He LOVES baby food and is really not interested in anything other then the gross pureed stuff.  With Jensen, Declin and Magnolia we did baby led weaning, but Rockwell just wants us to spoon feed him.  It is a lot less messy so it works for me.  He loves being able to sit up and now tries to sit up in his bouncer.

I don't really remember much about his sleeping habits... some days he sleeps through the night and others he wakes up once.  Honestly we are so used to waking up with kids in the middle of the night at this point that we barely pay attention to it.  Naps though.. I do notice those.  He is taking 2 naps a day.  Thankful for his nap time!

Happy 7 Months Rockwell!

You Are Special

With 5 kids around our house there always seems to be someone who needs some extra attention.  When we moved to Utah we started being more intentional with "dating" our kids to give them that special one on one time with mom and dad.  They LOVE it and beg constantly about when it is their turn to have a date night.  With February being the month of love we tried extra hard to show the kids how much they mean to us. 

During the month each of the older kids got to have a special game night with mom and dad.  I took the 3 younger kids on an ice cream date while the others were at school one day, and we had a fun family dinner with mac and cheese and toothpicks one night. 

On top of all of that Grandma and Grandpa Cannon surprised us with homemade sugar cookies in the mail and sweet Valentines packages.  The kids were in heaven!

And of course we snuggled Rockwell lots because he is such a sweet one to cuddle!
 

 

January, the Month of Routine

After endless amounts of fun in Nov/Dec January is always a nice month of routine (and usually involves lots of sickness as well).  We spent the month recovering from lots of colds and the flu and did lots of normal routine stuff.  Surprisingly the kids had several days off of school which happened to be synced with the days that they were sick so those were some nice low key recovery days.

In years past McKay and I have done several date nights in January since there isn't a lot of family things going on.  We didn't do that this year because of a project that we have going on that I will share in a future post.  This project took more of our time and we just didn't feel like throwing more things into the schedule. 

A few highlights from January were Rockwell turned 6 months old. I had an awesome girls weekend with my Utah sister-in-laws (we stayed up way too late talking and had lots of food that we didn't have to cook).  I finally figured out grocery pick up at Walmart (SO helpful), and we got to spend ALL day with cousins and my sisters for a fun play date. 

January's weather was not super awesome this year, but we did sneak out on a freezing walk once.  At least the roads were clear and we were able to stay safe :)