We're HOME

After spending three days and two nights at the hospital, I brought home our new foster son, D. He came along with some home nursing care. This is very nice, but it has been wierd to get used to another person in my home. Especially since their job is to take care of D, which is what *I* want to do, and I can do. I get to decide how much help I want, but everyone encouraged me to do a lot in the first couple of weeks. We'll see how that all pans out.

Things I have learned in the past week:
-how to feed through a g-tube
-how to operate a sleep apnea monitor
-how to deliver medication through a g-tube and an IV

Things I have remembered in the past week:
-having a baby in the house is fun
-having a baby in the house means you get less sleep and more laundry

Well, I'd better stop here! I'll try to update soon.

We're IN

Well, we've agreed to foster a baby boy. He has some medical needs. (Ha-ha!) He has a lot of medical needs. T & I will be at the hospital this weekend learning about them. He may be coming home early next week, if all goes well. I'll post more when I have time.

We're GO

Well, we met with our foster care worker and she took our information to put into their placement system. She did caution us that they have a lot of families open to kids in the 0-3 year old age range, so it may take some time. We'll keep you posted. :)

Update

I am SO proud of H! She had such a good day at school that her teacher sent home a certificate (and a mini bag of m&ms) saying that she had been calm, peaceful and focused all day! :) You can tell she was pretty proud, too!

Here's a picture of my blue afghan... However... My yarn went on sale, and I convinced T that I wanted yarn more than flowers. So for the cost of an arrangement of a dozen roses, I think I have enough yarn to finish the afghan. :) I'll let you know. Now I just have to remember what size hook I used!!!!

Finally, the biggest news. After much thought and prayer, we've decided to do more foster care. Or at least we'll discuss it with our foster care worker on Monday. Any kids we'll take would be 3 and under, but beyond that I don't know much. I know they have a high need for homes to take older kids, and lots of homes willing to take small ones. So, it may be that we will wait a long, long time for them to call. But we're not in a hurry. So we'll see what happens. It's been an exciting weekend, with T and I talking through what we need to get in order, and putting plans into place to get things fast when we need them. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and one more thing... I'm taking G to kindergarten round up tomorrow! :) That should be a FUN time.

Finished Projects Photos

I saw a picture of an afghan that was rainbow colors, but where the yarn blended from one color to another. I had the idea of doing this with different types of yarn. When Hobby Lobby had a great yarn sale I picked up many different kinds of yarn for 99c/skein! This afghan is the result. Overall it's very soft and fun. To do it again, I would use all the same type of yarn, just in different colors. Some of my yarn was heavier (like hte yellow and blue) and totally overwhelmed the colors beside them. Also, you can't tell from this picture, but the edges are very uneven because of the different weights of yarn. It only makes sense that 60 stitches of a thinner yarn are not the same as 60 stitches of a heavier yarn... live and learn. However, I am lucky to have a 5 year old who loves rainbows and won't even notice the uneven edges. :) I think I'll tuck it into the closet and bring it out at a later date as a surprise.

Check out this poncho! I'm going to brag and tell you that I didn't even use a pattern! I just looked at a store-bought poncho in H's closet for size. It's hard to see from this picture, but it even has a hood! I'm very proud of this one. G seems to like it, too, though she told me this morning that it wasn't good for sleeping in with no shirt under it! :)

This is NOT the finished product. I thought I'd taken a final picture of it, but I guess not. This is the blue afghan back on Jan 26. Now that my photos are downloading I'll take a picture of the finished product and post it soon.

Now... next... hmm....

Week In Prayer

T & I have decided spend a week praying about it before we decide if we should foster again or not. From more than one source we heard about the importance of listening to God. It may have just been that time in the lectionary, but it makes sense to us. :)

Book Recommendation

I want to recommend a book I read this week. It is called One Small Boat, by Kathy Harrison. The author and her husband are foster parents in Massachusettes. This is the second book she's written about their experience doing foster care, and I really enjoyed it! I feel like this book, more than anything else I've encountered, really explains why T & I do foster care, what it's like for us, and why we keep wanting to do it. So, if you're interested, check your library and read away! It is a pretty quick read, and once I started I didn't want to put it down!
That recommendation given, T and I are considering starting to foster again. I can't say exactly why. It's just like the other times we've taken a break, and then just felt like it was time to jump in again. There will never be a perfect time for it. And I don't know if it will work out right now or not. I guess I'll be talking to our foster care worker in the next couple of weeks and discussing our family situation with her to see if we can make it work right now, or if we need to wait longer until J moves out. Who knows. In the mean time, I'll be praying for guidance!
I love to crochet, and I've enjoyed having so much time to crochet, read, surf the internet, and do *so* many things! I just want to do something that really *matters* even if that means I have to put the books and crochet away for a while! I think I can't ignore that ever louder voice in my heart! :) I'll let you know what happens!
PS - I am about half way through the rainbow afghan!!! :)

Quick Update

First of all - my camera is somehow NOT downloading pictures to my computer, so I can't show you the progress I've made on my blue afghan. Unfortunately, it's almost done. I say unfortunately, because I'm running out of the varigated yarn, and it's much too expensive (try $7/skein - don't worry, I got mine much cheaper on EBay!) to buy more. :( So, I'm going to have it be a lap afghan, and it *does* look cool. I have just a couple more rounds to go and I'll be done.

In the mean time, I've started up on my very first crochet project - an afghan made of sunflower squares - that I started... hmmm, maybe 10 years ago? Probably more than that. Mom, can you check the 10 year cross stitch project you have hanging up? I remember I started the afghan after I finished the cross stitch, so the date on the cross stitch will show when I started.... anyway, I've decided to finish it, and I'm a much faster crocheter now, and it's already half done. And I still REALLY like the pattern. So I'll post a picture of my work in progress when I get the camera issue figured out!

While you're waiting for my pictures, you can check this link out: http://whatnottocrochet.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/tampon-cozies/
I can't believe someone crochets something like this, but at the same time... hmmm, I wonder if I could do it??? Ha-ha! Back to my afghans!