Friday, May 31, 2013

Because.

This is a shot from about two years ago.  "Lizzy" and my oldest son on his first day of 3rd grade, back when it was just the two of them.

Who would have thought in such a short time I would go from 2 to 7!!!

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Vote, please.

I tried to make a poll that you could just click on, but it wouldn't work...so, will you read thru these Titles and leave a comment letting me know which one you like???


A.  "It Started with a Phone Call"

B.  "In the Thick of Things:  True Stories of Foster Care"

C.  "Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between"

D.  "Waiting in the Middle:  Tales from Foster Care"

E.  "Welcome to the Roller Coaster:  True Stories of the Ups and Downs of Foster Care"

F.  "Hoping, Waiting, Helping:  True Stories from the Depth of Foster Care"

G.  "Confessions of a Foster Mom"



PLEASE let me know what one would catch your attention :)

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

A month of birthdays.

This month we have a lot of birthdays to celebrate.

I have never given my "new" kids blog names, so forgive me over explaining who everyone is.

My two new daughters both have birthdays in May.  We will call the 3 yr old Linnie and the 5 year old Kady.

Kady's birthday is the same day as my first foster daughter's, but she was born a year later.  I already posted about my first foster daughter's birthday party.  The party was a week after their actual birthday, and that actually worked out better for us.  We celebrated Kady's birthday at home with our family and grandma and grandpa.  She picked out her cake and we put up Minnie Mouse decorations.  I bought her gifts that she very specifically asked for.

She is very into details and doesn't miss anything.  She is very articulate and very smart.  She has taken over the roll of oldest sibling to her brother and sisters even tho she was the second born, not the first.  She couldn't wait to open her presents so we did it very early in the morning.  Her favorite was a jewelry box.  She has wanted one ever since she saw mine.

Her birthday was very low key, but we talked about it a lot and she seemed happy with everything.  She is so picky that I was worried that she wouldn't be very impressed with her small party, but it didnt seem to bother her at all.

I enjoyed celebrating her first birthday with us together, without the distractions of lots of guests.  She is such a great kid.  She is a huge helper and always wants to be with me.  She likes women in general, but is warming up to men as well.  She loves to be tickled and misses her foster sister she lived with for two years before moving in with us.  In certain ways she was the easiest to move into our home and in other ways she has been the hardest.  She is extremely pretty and can manipulate with the best of them.

She really is a gift.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Secret.

I have been staying up pretty late the past few nights working on our "secret" book.  I have finished my chapter.  It has morphed a bit and is going thru editing, but if you would like to see it and the family photos that I have put together to share all you have to do is donate to the "Dude and Dolly" fund and I will email it all over to you!!

(If you don't know what I am talking about, take a minute to read this post: http://mamafoster.blogspot.com/2013/05/houston-we-have-problem.html )

To donate use this link:  http://mamafoster.blogspot.com/2013/05/houston-we-have-problem.html


And, thank you to everyone who already has!  It means more than you know!!!







Monday, May 20, 2013

Birthdays.

This weekend we celebrated my first foster child's birthday with her and her family at Chuck E Cheese. Ironically, Sabrina's birthday is the same exact day as my newly adopted daughter's birthday. Anyway, leading up to Sabrina's birthday her mom texted me to say "hi". She mentioned Sabrina's b-day and I asked if she needed any help planning it. Now, when I offer to help, I am basically offering to pay for most if not all of it because Sabrina's mom never has any money. She immediately took me up on my offer and also stated "I'm not getting any help from anyone down here".

 Now, I could go on and on about mom's entitled attitude, but lets just say, last year an aunt of mom's planned Sabrina's WHOLE party and took care of everything and it was very nice. I am sure mom didn't have to do anything besides show up. That is her idea of help.   According to mom, Sabrina wanted a party at a park and likes Winnie the pooh, Scooby Doo, and butterflies.

 Ok, I can work with that.

 So, I found a park right by their house, they are an hour away from me, and told mom about it. I always try to let her feel like she is in charge so I told her and left it. Basically over the next few weeks everything changed every day and in the end the aunt told mom that she either needed to have it at a bounce house or Chuck E Cheese. Ok, whatever, so mom called Chuck E Cheese and then called me. Mom doesn't have the money for Chuck E Cheese, obviously. Chuck E Cheese books parties per kid so I asked mom how many kids. She said Sabrina plus two more and then my kids (6). I told her that I would be happy to pay for my kids plus the three she mentioned and if she ended up inviting more she could just pay for those.

 So, I booked the party and mom was happy with that. The week before the party Sabrina's mom's aunt called her. She told her that having a party where there is no food for the adults is rude (I agree) and that I should not be paying for the party. This aunt controls all of Sabrina's grandma's money. Sabrina and mom live with grandma, thus, she controls a lot of what goes on in their home. She took my phone number from mom and called me. She was lovely to me on the phone and thanked me for planning the party and told me that "I control grandma's money because it is just better that way and she has money set aside we can use for this so we will give you a check to reimburse you for the party." I told her it was unnecessary, but that was fine if that's is what they wanted to do.

 The night before the part Sabrina's mom texts me and asks if Chuck E Cheese provides plates for the cake. Her ONE job was to buy a cake which she said she could get with her food stamps. I told her yes, they provide the plates. She asked if they provided goody bags for the kids. At this point I figured out that the aunt had called her and told her a list of things SHE needed to take care of. I told her, no, they did not. She said ok. The morning of the party we all left early to get there so I could talk to the staff and make sure everything was all set. Upon arriving immediately they handed me a sticker with my name on it listed as the parent of the birthday child.

 Awkward. :).

 I asked them to make a new one with mom's name on it and threw the one with my name on it away. We got there a half hour early. We bought tokens for our kids and let them play while I talked to the hostess. Mom had said they would come early, but they came right around the time the party was to start which was fine. My kids were off playing so I quickly explained everything to mom, after hugging Sabrina, and then confirmed the pizza order with the hostess (for the kids, no adult food). Mom, grandma, Sabrina and mom's brother all came in together. I gave Sabrina her cup of coins and she went off to play. It wasn't until she and the uncle came to tell mom that they were out of tokens that I realized the uncle was using all of Sabrina's tokens. *sigh*. I dug tokens out of two of my kids' cups and handed them to Sabrina. I think at some point grandma ponied up $10 to buy more token...after the uncle used up the 25 extra tokens we got for booking online. Grandma and uncle went around playing games and they did given there tickets to Sabrina.

 The cake mom picked up was...disappointing, but oh well. It was pre made from the store, which is fine, but it was probably the ugliest cheapest cake she could have bought. One really weird thing that happened was after the hostess cut the cake and served it to everyone grandma came up to me and told me the hostess had "butchered" the cake. I looked at the cake and it looked exactly like it would have if I cut it us. Weird. Some people just make up stuff to complain about I guess.

 One of the kids that was supposed to come didn't, so besides my kids only one child came. That was kinda sad. Luckily I have so many it looked like a good size party. The mom of the child that did come was a little different. I saw her talking to the hostess so I pulled the hostess aside to ask what was going on. She said that the mom had said her child didn't get any pizza which made no sense. My husband and I had ordered a pizza so I told her we would just given them some of ours. It took me a minute to realize what happened. Mom and uncle had eaten the kids' pizza before making sure all the kids had pizza. *sigh*

 Besides that everything went well. She got some very nice presents from all of the guests. She looked like she had a lot of fun when everyone sang and the hostess made sure to make her feel special. It was nice to see her have a nice birthday party. The party consisted of my family, Sabrina, grandma, mom, uncle, one friend and their parent and two adult relatives. They were the aunt and uncle who did come and wrote me a check to pay me back for the party. They both thanked me again for everything I did and told me if I wouldn't have helped there wouldn't have been a birthday party. There was a part in the party when mom was talking to me about the aunt who called me. She did not come to the party, it was another aunt who came and wrote me a check, and she told me the one who called me had called her earlier that week and chewed her out for what was going on and her lack of throwing her own child a party. She started to tear up as she said "no one helps me" which was sad, but I have to say, EVERYONE helps them. Seriously, last year they did everything for the party. EVEN having Sabrina writing thank u notes,was something the aunt did. And this year I did everything. It is sad, her version of help is people doing everything for her. I think she would like to do more, but not enough to get a job or something.

 As usual, it was great to see Sabrina and sad to see how the adults in her life act, but I will continue to try to be there for her. I want to be there for her when she is old enough to start making her own decisions so that if she needs help someone will be there.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Houston, we have a problem.

You all are like family to me, really, and there is just something about another foster mom...meeting another foster mom just makes me feel like you get me and I get you.  I have had so many of you rooting me on now for literally years and I have been rooting you all on for literally years.  When I watch one of you go through the hard parts of foster care my heart breaks because I have been there, and so many of you were there for me while my heart was being ripped in two.

I don't know how many of you read http://cherubmamma.blogspot.com/, but I do, faithfully.  In a way, I think she is best known for the investigation she lived through last summer.  After the investigation, quite frankly even though she was cleared of any wrong doing, the CPS worker she was dealing with had no intention of placing her foster children back in her home.

But God.

They did in fact end up back in her home and are currently still there.  It is a LONG story, but friends, it has become clear that "Cherub Mamma's" family will need to hire a lawyer and intervene in this case to try to keep these kids safe.  At this point a few of us, namely "Mimi" over at http://tamlynn75random.blogspot.com/, have been working on coming up with some ways for the family to raise money to pay for the lawyer.

The numbers $15,000 - $20,000 have been toss around concerning how much this could cost them.

Isn't it supposed to be FREE to adopt through foster care???  ;)

Anyway, I wanted to tell you all this so that I could give you an opportunity to "chip in" and help, because seriously, I would do the same for all of you.  We are a family.  We get it.  Sometimes something BIG has to be done and, in this case, 2 little kids hang in the balance.

So.

First off, I will be matching donations made through this blog up to $200.  You donate $5, it becomes $10.  Sounds like a good investment right?

Secondly, I am going to let a cat out of the bag.  "Mimi" and I, along with several other ladies, will be working on a book that will share our stories told by us about our experiences through foster care.  This is something we would have LOVED to throw together and have available ASAP, but that isn't exactly how a book works now is it?  So, everyone that donates at least $10 to our fundraiser, you will receive a sneak peak into our book in progress.  It will be my chapter of the book telling all the details of how our newest baby was placed with us and the drama that surrounded it.  And, for this fundraiser and my readers ONLY I will add some of our personal family photos so you can see all these beautiful children for yourself!!!

All you do is click on the "Donate" button, donate, and then come back and leave a comment telling me where you would like me to send the sneak peak to (email address or mailing address, email is preferable).  Or, you can email me at mamatofoster@gmail.com with your email address or mailing address).


Ok, here is the button:








Easy enough right?  Give me until Monday, May 20th to email you the sneak peak please!  I am working hard to get it finished!!!


And, just because I can because I am his LEGAL mom now, here is a shot of my new son.  I know, he's adorable.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Mother's Day

Dear Foster Mom, YOU are as REAL as a mom can get. Happy Mother's Day to some of the strongest, most courageous Mothers I know. Love, Mama Foster

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Finalized.

On Friday we finalized our adoption of the three kiddos.


It feels so good to have that done!



We still have to finish the adoption of the new baby.  I wish we could have done it at the same time, but it is a different case.  Bio sib to the three we just adopted, but a different case.


I am debating about the family picture because the baby not being adopted.


It might just happen though. :)

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Next week.

Next week we finalize our adoption of THREE of our kids.


I am so ready for this to be done!


Just gotta get this last little gorgeous baby adopted and then we can BREATHE!