The best friend ever

I LOVE my friend Heather! For some reason we never got close until recently and I am so grateful that God put her in my life. Especially now.  I couldn't ask for a more caring and considerate friend. 

I am going to share our texts from last night. 

(If I knew how to take a screen shot I would do that... but I don't)

Heather:      You feel any better
Me:             I still feel deflated.  I just want my baby boy
Heather:      You will get that boy, even if we have to raise a ton of money and get you to Africa, it will happen.
Me:             :)  I love you
Heather:     It's true. Doors keep closing because you are on a set path leading you straight to him. Going through the wrong door would take you the wrong way.
Me:            You are right. But I feel like I keep going through the wrong doors over and over again.
Heather:     I think it's because you want it so badly.  You are desperately searching for him and it inspires me.

(That last line killed me.  I am. She knew exactly what I was feeling.  I am trying to find my lost son. I am doing everything I can to bring him home to me.)

Me:           Aww. Now I'm crying
Heather:   That's the love of a mother.  Don't cry
Me:           I mean. Like crying crying. Heather, you have no idea how much you mean to me.  That may be the most amazing thing anyone has ever said to me.
Heather:   It's the truth.  All I know is that you usually have to get A LOT of no's before you get your yes.  But the only way to get your yes is to ignore the no's.  This is how I got Pete to propose. haha
(hahahah true.  They dated for a very long time before he proposed.)

It was wonderful to hear my feelings validated.  It makes me feel like less of a nut job.  I love you Heather. Thank you, sincerely, for being such an amazing friend. 

overwhelmed

today ( by today, I mean yesterday.) Petunia's GAL came over for a visit. She told me her parents are going to try to do what they can to get her back.  Without telling you her story, trust me when I say this is insane and there needs to be foster care reform NOW! She told me visits will be starting soon.  I got really emotional.  She went on to say she is 95% certain we will be able to adopt her.  If you recall, I was told by the county there was a 100% chance we would be able to adopt Sweet Potato. We LOVE Petunia and are so happy to have her in our home. But we were told this is an adoption case and there would be no visits when we were matched with her.  I hate to say it, but we wouldn't have said yes if it were any other way. 

So, I called our adoption agency and told them to put us back in the stack.  I doubt anyone will pick us since we have two girls of our own and 1 baby in the house.  I also am a huge advocate of not rehoming foster kids. So of course saying Petunia has to go is NOT an option. 

This is the pits.

On a lighter note, our old foster social worker came over to update our homestudy and before I had a chance to see, guessed she was engaged. Half of her visit involved  looking at local wedding venues and the best wedding website...EVER. I really wish she was still our worker.  Petunia's new worker hasn't really opened up to me.  Since I wear my heart on my sleeve I do best with other people that do the same.

Dancing in the Rain

Pumpkin loves puddles.  She is crazy picky when it comes to water.  

Sometimes she loves to get wet. Other times she freaks out if she gets a drop on her.

On this day, she wanted to splash around. They know they are not allowed in the street without holding someones hand. But this was a special occasion. 

I got this raincoat on clearance from T*rget.  She LOVES dinosaurs and monsters. 

This has a dinosaur lining. 

A few weeks later Honey got her turn.  It was raining after she got out of school. 

This girl loves dirt. LOVES water. loves anything that stimulates her senses. 

 Notice their different personalities. Pumpkin wouldn't go out in the rain, but plays in puddles when completely dressed. 

Honey, would dance in the rain naked if I would let her. 

Goodness isn't she beautiful! 

I also love that Holly will go outside while it's raining. 

My doggie soulmate, my first dog that I owned as an adult, would hold her bowels for DAYS until it stopped raining. TMI?! hahah

Darling Petunia

This little lady is a joy! Everyone tells me over and over how beautiful she is.  I'm sure it's mainly because my friends are just now all starting to get baby fever. It's about time. But she really is amazing and beautiful.  It's really hard because I've never had this little contact with the county workers with any of my previous babies.  We always talked, like every other day, with updates on the cases, if the b parents were late or no shows for visits.  With all of the past county worker's and GAL's they all wanted the babies to stay with us.  I just hope that the worker will call me immediately if there is a change (ie a family member pops up).  I am crazy in love with this little girl, but a part of me is still terrified that I'm going to get a call that a family friend is now interested in her.  Obviously, we've had that happen in the past and know it's a possibility.   The hardest part with all of this is the waiting.

When it is official that Petunia will become a member of our family we won't be done having kids. So the waiting and hoping will continue.  

It's easy to say, don't worry, don't stress about it. 

What is meant to be will be.

But how do I know I'm making the right choices to bringing our child home.

Obviously I go down every path and hope something happens. 

We started with Ethiopia, ended up with foster care. Foster care to surrogacy. Surrogacy to private adoption. Private adoption back to fostering. 

I know that if we didn't have our failed adoptions I wouldn't have said yes to Petunia.  Hindsight I can see how the choices we've made lead us to where we are, but man it's tough. 

I would love to be in a spot of my life to foster without the intention of adopting. 

I want Petunia to be officially ours so we can start calling her the name we will give her. 

I want my son! 

My princess

Do you like the bigger pictures, or should I go back to them being smaller? 

Honey got this "Belle" dress as a birthday present.  Pumpkin stole it and I literally had to hide it from her, otherwise she would never take it off (I'm pretty sure you can't wash these dresses) 

We went to the park and we made a flower necklace. 

She helped me pick all of the flowers. 

I hope she never loses those lashes. 

Honey's Birthday take 3

Finally, her last party

 We went over to Gram's house and Honey loved all the sweets.

 I don't know when this happened. But she totally forgot how to blow. 

I let her try for a LONG time, but she didn't figure it out. 

 Then, I had to remind her.

It's Nonna's thing to give a lottery ticket...

So here's her first scratch off

 And then The Hubs got his birthday cake.

This is not a joke. 

Well, it became a joke. But my mom forgot about him (I don't think he cared) so he got to blow off a candle from my cousin's leftover bridal shower cake.

 Poor husband

 This little lady has my sweet tooth for sure. 

Annoyed

Things people have said lately that are pissing me off.

#1 I was at T*rget by myself and there was a mom and maybe her 2 year old daughter. Mom was talking smack about her babies dad to her baby.  Like crazy mean.  Then she called someone and said. "Baby just sh*t her diaper. If you don't want her to sit around in a poopy diaper til 8 you better buy her diapers".  Mind you, we were at targ*t. I understand if she couldn't afford diapers, but why was she at targ*t? Naturally I thought she was on the phone with the babies dad. But later heard her say she was talking to her mom. I mean, really.

#2 My next door neighbor came over to me and said... "Is this a new baby? Why'd you get rid of your other baby?" Are you kidding me????? I didn't "get rid" of Peanut.  She knows we are foster parents.  I gave my famous "are you fucking kidding me face" and said in a smart ass tone. "We didn't "get rid" of her.  She apologized.

#3 I am so annoyed with myself.  I don't know what my deal is.  I have never shared anything about any of our foster babies to anyone. For some reason I have shared more about Petunia than any other baby.  Of course, I know the least about her... but still. I need to shut my mouth

#4 I was getting coffee and the guys who own the shop are middle eastern (my guess).  They have beautiful olive skin, like Italian, or Greek, or Arab. Anyway, a man came in and said to the coffee guy, "Do you play soccer?" I was so happy at his response, " No, why do you think so?" Obviously because of his complexion.  It's not different than asking a black man if he plays basketball.

#5 When people ask me if my girls get along. Would they ask bio sisters if they get along? My response is always.  "Yes, they are sisters. They love each other and hate each other."  But I think the next person that asks me this is going to get my more bitchy answer.

I obviously have been in a bad mood as of late.  My arm/ fingers are killing me with this weather. Not knowing what's going on with our house. Not having a permanent new member to our family.


I'm just in a bitchy mood.  Sorry!

For our boy

Even though we have Petunia, (this was before her anyway) I bought some stuff for our boys room

I need more art like I need a hole in the head.  It's a problem. I admit it. 

There was our local indie craft fair.

Anyway... I bought this wooden feather a friend made. 

She hand drew every line and I love it. 

Then I saw this... I was holding two pieces of art 

One was a whale in the ocean.

The other was a brown bear in a forest with a miniature forest on his back. 

Bears are kind of my thing so I wanted that one, and the depth was amazing

And I wanted the whale because it would match our whale curtains (even though our boy room has no theme whatsoever) 

I mean, I was blocking traffic. Holding these two for a long while.  Then the artist grabbed this number.

She didn't have room to put it out and it is PERFECT! Bears, whales, and mountains. Yes, yes, yes

Can you see all of that depth?! Oh I love it. 

And these two look so well together, I think I am going to add more blue art to this wall. 

But this is by far still my favorite piece in the room.

And would you look at that, my amazing husband leveled out my crappy framing job.

Handmade stuffies. 

And if you're wondering, if we are blessed to add Petunia to our family we will 100% add an AA or biracial baby boy to our family. 

An update

I just wanted to give an update on our little Petunia.  We LOVE her. She is an amazing baby. She sleeps well, eats really well, and is all around our miracle.  The girls are so happy to have a baby back in the house.  So far, visits haven't started.  We don't know if they will or not, but it still looks like a 99% chance of adoption. I will be going to ALL of her court dates.  I know the county doesn't like when the foster parent comes, but that was my biggest regret with Sweet Potato. 

Our house is STILL on the market... :(  There is very little interest.  We just lowered our asking price and are hoping for things to move along.   My dream house is still pending (with someone else's offer) but we do have another house we are very interested in.  It would be an amazing opportunity to add a ton of value to it. Anyway... we will see.  Prayers are requested. 

Honey's Birthday 2.5

We headed outside 

Pumpkin knew how to use the scooter right away

I know this is out of focus, but I love this picture. 

 I love our old man Harold. 

 Then we brought out their skateboard. 

 Pumpkin had to push Honey along... she was going too slow. 

 She does this in therapy. 

When it was time for bed, someone did NOT want to get out of the garage. 

I'm sure it had more to do with not wanting to go to bed.

But she kept crying, " I don't want to get out of the gargage"