Back and ready to blog again!

So it's been a while.... Sorry about that...I guess we've just been busy doing life! We still have our sweet boy! He turned 11 months old today! We don't know what our future with Baby J holds because there are no gurantees in foster care and to be completely transparent with you all this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. A lot of people would say "you were warned this would be hard" or "reunification is the goal with fostering" you want to know what I say to that ? " blah, blah, blah...shut it" Being told how hard something is is not the same as living it and as far as reunification goes...I get that but sometimes that's not the best option and unfortunately I can't share why I feel that way. The not knowing the future is hard but loving our boy is not! It's as easy as breathing! He has brought so much joy to our lives and each day with him is a new adventure! I continue to praise my God for putting him in our lives and I continue to work at trusting His plan! I plan to start blogging more often and update you on how life with J is!

Great Things

We received the call last Thursday!! We now have the most precious baby boy in the world with us!! Unfortunately I can't give any details out, but I now can wholeheartedly say that God's plan is so much better than mine!! We give him all the glory and will continue to praise him for this new amazing season in our lives!! We are over the moon happy! Please continue to pray for us!

Its a new year...2015

2015 GOALS :

1. Lose 50lbs......I have always gained weight easily mostly because I am an emotional eater. All kinds of emotions...happy, sad, stressed...I enjoy food and don't enjoy exercise. The most exercise I've been getting lately is my pointer finger swiping the pages on my kindle ;)

2. Essie nail polish......I'm not going to state that I will not buy any because that's just setting myself up for failure. I'm going to try to limit my purchases. Last count I own 15 bottles. Hello, my name is Ashley and I am addicted to Essie nail polish.

3. Drink more water.....on average I MAY drink 16 ounces of fluid a day. I don't intend for this to happen it's just not something I think about.

4. Extending Grace....I will probably always need to work on this and I feel that for the most part it's not hard for me to be forgiving and extending of grace to others.(most part, not all parts)  It's myself that I am so hard on. This past Wednesday it hit me just how hard. I was in the car line at Starbucks and I had allowed my mind to think about how hurt I was about something and the tears just came, uncontrollable tears. Immediately I started to pray. I prayed that God would take these feelings always and that He would forgive me for allowing myself to be this upset in the first place. Then it hit me ....why did I just pray that? The tone of my prayer was like I had just committed some horrible act. When reality all that I did was allow myself to feel my emotions rather than bury them. Which by the way is not very healthy but one step at a time... my point in all this rambling is that God loves us and I don't believe that He would want me to think that my feeling hurt was wrong in some way. So I will continue to go to Him in prayer but I am going to try to give myself a little grace along the way.

What are some of your goals for 2015?




*We are still patiently (Ha!) waiting on the phone call! Keep us in your prayers!

We are official!

We are officially licensed Foster Parents!! Whohoo!! We can be called at anytime now! We are so excited and can't wait to see what God has planned!

Final Homestudy: 2 thumbs up

Last Thursday we had our final home study! Everything went great and we are good to go! The only thing we are waiting on at this point is my CAN (child and neglect) clearance to come back. Micah's is already in. Our SW told us she should be calling at anytime to tell us that we are approved and there is a chance that she could be telling us about a child in the same phone call! We are so ready y'all! :)

One Year Blogiversary

One Year ago today I started this blog. We have come a long way in just one year. When I first started this blog I only shared it with my mom and brother. It's a scary thing to put your dreams and your fears out there for people to read and have opinions about. But I am so glad that I overcame that fear and let anyone who wanted to be apart of our journey to parenthood an opportunity to do so! This past year has been tough. Its been a year full of anticipation, excitement, growth, and waiting. Lots and lots of waiting. In just one year we made the decision to become foster parents, waited and waited for GPS classes to begin, started the GPS classes and finished and are now days away from being approved and open for placements. I am so excited to see what this next year holds for us. I'm sure it will have its wonderful moments and hard moments. I'm sure that we will have times of joy and contentment, uncertainty and doubt. There really is no way to know, but the one thing that I am certain of is that God is faithful and His plan is so much better than anything I can imagine. My life verse this past year has been Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." The verse I'm claiming as mine as we start this next season is "Perhaps you were created for such a time as this." Esther 4:14

I hope you will continue to follow along in the 2nd year of our journey. 

So Close

We are thisclose to being licenced foster parents!! Woo Hoo!! We couldn't be more excited or scared if we're being honest! ;) Last week we had our last two GPS classes. Tuesday night was panel night, where we were able to invite our family to come. We ate and had a panel of different people there to answer questions. There was a foster parent, a child's social worker, and the director of DHR and the director of the child and neglect unit. We really enjoyed the night and it seemed like all of our parents got a lot out of it as well.

Then Thursday night we had our final class. We had our fingerprints done to complete our background checks and Micah had to do CPR. I'm already certified so I just watched and took pictures! :)

This Thursday is our final Home Study!! It's hard to believe we are at the end of this part or our journey. We are thrilled to begin the next part of the Journey.....to love and care for the children God has planned for us!

Us with our certificates for completing the GPS classes!