It's been a while...

 Yes I know it has been a while.  Three months to be exact.  WHEW has stuff happened.  Good stuff, great stuff, hard stuff. 

I finished our foster care training, application, and home study.  We passed with FLYING colors and were happy to finally have it done.  

Mid-November, Rod - the RCF came to see us.  He is the family advocate and he is really nice and very sweet.  He let us know what to expect and how things would proceed at that point.  This was November 12 at 10am.  He left at 11am and we left at 11:15am to drive to Disneyland with the Blevins. 

And BOY OH BOY did we Disneyland the heck out of our lives.  It was a wonderful calm before we knew we could be a foster family.

We came home, we were exhausted, but happy... 

We thought that maybe we would be getting kids for Thanksgiving, but the placement team had not met, so we were able to happily head up to Lisa and Scott Ray's cabin for Thanksgiving weekend.  It was so fun to go four-wheeling and shooting with everyone.

So, the placement team met on Tuesday November 30th at 4pm.  Our goal was to have a child or two, ages newborn to 5.  Boy or girl, any physical disabilities welcome.    So, November 30th at 5:15pm, we got a call from Rod. He wondered if we could take a placement the next day.

He told me he thought it was a long shot if we would take this case.  It is four sisters - ages 18months to 10 years old.  After talking to him for a while to get all the information we could, Aiden and I were in the parking lot of his piano lessons praying about if this was a good fit for us.  Four sisters!!  Right before Christmas?!  They had been at another foster care home, then placed in The Christmas Box House for a month.  There was such a peace that came from the prayer and Aiden felt the same.  He said, "I really feel like we need to take these kids."  So, I called Rod back and told him that we would take them.  I asked "When do you need us to have them in our home?"  Tomorrow?!!  Uh... Okay.  No problem.

So, Wednesday at 4pm, we headed to The Christmas Box House to see three of the sisters (the little one was still with another foster family).  Zoey (Charlie), Harlee, and Freya.  What beautiful girls.  Very hard to watch as their little belongings were packed up - tattered, too small, dirty - and put into our car.  

Going to get the girls!

FREAKING OUT!  Are we really going to do this?  Yup.  It appears that we are.

Later that night, Jenaiah joined us when her foster family dropped her off.  It was a decent night, but the kids weren't quite sure about us - we were not quite sure about them. 

Left to right: Freya, Jenaiah, and Harlee.

Charlie and Mom (and Aiden doing bunny ears)

After we got the kiddos, we decided to go see the Layton City lights.  They had never seen Christmas lights like that before, so we went around 3 times.  

Welp!  The kids were officially ours for as long as we could have them.  Now, six weeks later, we have them and they are just like my kids.  I will post more on another blog, but it is funny how it is NOTHING like we expected, but is so perfect.