Wii Fit

Ok, so about two months ago we were lucky enough to purchase a Wii Fit and it has been the hit of the household ever since (especially with Noah!). I was really thinking that it was going to be super-neat to have... the kids could get some exercise, Curt and I could do Yoga on a regular basis and we all could have some fun doing it.

Well, after seeing this parody video tonight, I feel like a huge GOOBER...



Ok, so we didn't pay $300 for it, only $90, but still... the parody really puts it into perspective, huh? Anyone wanna come over and lean from side to side or stick your leg out??

Home Study 1 of 3

So with our paperwork mostly complete, background checks cleared, training classes coming to an end and fingerprints approved, our last hurdle before our Foster Parent Certification is our three home studies. Monday was our first home study with Family and Children Services. It went really well! I love our worker D. and she was so helpful and patient.

The visit consisted of LOTS of questions including ones about our parenting styles and personalities, views of each other, how we were raised, how we feel about our parents and siblings and how we have prepared ourselves for our upcoming commitment to another child. Poor D.! She has A LOT of paperwork behind and ahead of her! She has to even construct a biography of the two of us!!! THAT should be interesting!!!

Another facet of the visit is the home tour. I think I was the most nervous about that part. I spent the whole day straightening all our closets and not allowing the kids to drag out their toys!! (DORK!) AND I made Curt scrub our shower just a little extra before the visit. Like my friend Kim said when I admitted to my dorkiness, "You think their not going to let you be a foster parent if your closets are messy or there is some soap-scum in your shower?" I know, I know... I figured THAT our after D. had to ask if we had working hot water. "Uh, yes."... I was amazed she asked, but she assured me that she has to... it can be an issue in some homes. Whoa...

In any case, my unrealistic fears were not realized as D. just took a casual roam around the house to make sure it was safe and adequate and only looked in some closets because her tour-guide Lauragale made her!!

So where do we go from here? Our next home study is this coming Monday and I am not near as nervous. D. assures us that it is not as involved, and Curt won't even have to be here... I guess I can manage on my own!! We will have one last home study after that one and our last training class is on the 12th. At the end of that class, we will receive our certificate!! Graduates!

Next? Our placement referral!!!! How exciting!!! Now, I have been told two different stories on this subject. Our trainer told us this week to expect that "the ink on your certificate will not be dry" before you get a call for your first placement referral. YIKES!! Now, our liaison with Circle of Care Child S.H.A.R.E. told me today that there could be more like a three week lag between our certification and the first placement referral. Hhmmm... I am going to have D. be my tie-breaker on Monday!! I will let you know what she says!

Now if you are wondering why I am calling the placement a placement referral, it is because we always are given a referral with the child we are matched with and have the opportunity to accept or deny that referral. If for some reason we deny the referral, there will be another referral made until we agree on a placement. DHS already has guidelines made by us on what child we are willing to foster. We have given DHS an age range (0-5 yrs.) and list of physical/mental/emotional/behavioral limitations that we are willing to accept. These will be taken in consideration (hopefully) when they make a placement referral.

Well, that is where we are as of now in our foster care journey. It is exciting, scary, joyful and stressful all at once! Whatever the feeling, we know we are following God's calling on our life and our motto throughout this journey so far has been "God does not call the equip, he equips the called!"

Now, we just pray everyday for the young child who God has chosen to soon join our family for an unknown (to us) number of days. I sit and think that the child that will soon join us in our home and hearts is probably enduring some sort of neglect or abuse at this very moment!! That is so depressing. We also pray for our children and their ability to cope with this upcoming change in lifestyle. (to say the least!)

Would you join us in these prayers? Knowing that this process is covered in prayer will give us even more peace and joy.

We love you all and I will continue to offer updates on our progress.


Praising God for his continued blessings!
Brent

Breaking and Entering

Well, the kids and I had a great day of swimming today! First swimming lessons in the morning then an oh-so-fun playdate with Katie and her kids at her in-law's pool.

Of course, Katie and I can never keep anything simple and easy, there always has to be an element of excitement and surprise to keep us on our toes. "How could a simple play-date at the pool go so wrong?", you ask... well, it can!

But in the midst of chaos, God has a sense of humor!

Timeline of Events:

10:35 am: Katie and kids arrive at said pool.

10:40 am: Katie unlocks back door and enters house to let kids go wee-wee.

10:45 am: Me and the kiddos arrive.

10:49 am: Katie receives cell phone call from mother-in-law but has bad connection and can't hear a darn thing.

11:20 am: While relaxing in the sun and chatting, Katie and I notice strange man walking through the yard and approaching us.

11:21 am: I realize that this is not a strange man... it is a police officer!

11:22 am: Realize this is not just ANY police officer, this is my brother-in-law!!

11:22 am: "Fancy meeting you here! I was called to this address because the security alarm had been tripped." my b-n-l tells us.

11:23 am: NICE!!!!! We set off the alarm and made the police come out to check on it.

11:24 am: NICE!!!!! The police office dispatched to the call was my BROTHER-IN-LAW!! YEAH!!!!!!!

OK, would that have been just lovely if K and I were just chattin' it up by the pool while our little munchkins were swimming and a police office came by to check on a security alarm breech and realized that neither one of us lived there, the real owners were out-of-town and we couldn't even verify the houses address??? Can you say "MUG SHOTS"?

What is even more ironic? My b-n-l didn't even work that area! He was given the call because they were short-handed today! Isn't that nice that our little careless shenanigans caused a hard-working police officer to get sidetracked with us while he could have been arresting drug-dealers or REAL burglars!!! (Thanks Chris!)

Isn't God cool? I guess He is when you try to see Him in the small stuff... Things could have been very difficult for us just because of a tiny mistake... but God not only protected us, He gave us a story to remember as well!!

P.S. I think our brush with the law was a little embarrassing to Noah...

Bass Pro Shop

Today we were watching my friends girls, and to keep everyone happy, we decided to take a trip to Bass Pro Shops. We lucked out too! It just happened to be Kid's Day... really, we don't plan these things, we just luck out!!

When we arrived, we were coerced into climbing a make-shift rock wall out in the parking lot. Noah was the first to offer himself up as a sacrifice and I shamed Curtis into as well. They strapped Noah all in (right after we signed a release saying it was not the National Guards fault if he falls to the ground), he gets about two steps up and decides he is done! His favorite part was letting go and softly falling to his feet from the handy pulley system.

Curtis went next and had to go barefoot just like Noah. (Croc's and cowboy boots are not the most appropriate footwear for rock climbing!) He made it to the top in no time!

After that we went inside to "ride" four-wheelers, "drive" party barges and try on random camouflage attire. Here is the group with their camo hats on...

We also had to stop for a "photo-op" with the skeet-shooting mannequin...


... and let's not forget the STYLIN' gun safe that Curt want's to get... It is a Limited Edition with a portrait of John Wayne spray-painted on it... Did I mention it cost's $7,000?? Yes, $7,000. (ok, I don't think he wants it that bad... just in case you were thinking of getting it for him for Christmas.)

After the fun indoors we went back out to find a B.A. firetruck complete with water rescue equipment, jaws of life and chocolate lab...

... and sweet bikers who fingerprinted our kids and let them take pictures on their Harley's.

Could we have had more fun? Don't answer that...

Outrigger Island

This week is VBS at our church and my kids are really getting on board with the island theme. This is the first year that Noah is able to do all the VBS activities and he is lovin' it! Lauragale's favorite part is the music and as you can see from the photo, she is spending her free time creating and performing dances, in costume, to the VBS music cd. (and she's dragged Bubby into this, too!)

While those two are living it up, I am volunteering in the kitchen with my friend Jonni. It is only the first day of VBS, but there has already been so much to blog about! To see a rundown of our kitchen-based escapades, just click here to read it straight from Baloney's "mouth."

My personal favorite VBS kitchen story of the day would be one that happened first thing this morning...

We are not only in charge of feeding the 450 volunteers each day, but also coordinating snacks for the 1,000 children as well. Our sweet friend Stephanie was in charge of the kid's snacks this morning and had the gracious help of 3 teens who were so sweet and willing to go to all lengths to accomplish the task at hand.

As we started the day, I gave the teens instructions to take 8 (bags of) Goldfish from the cases and put them into the plastic bags. Seemed like simple enough directions, but as I was leaving to return to the kitchen, I noticed that our sweet male teen helper has opened the 4 ounce bag of Goldfish and is proceeding to put 8 GOLDFISH (singular goldfish-- one cracker) in each plastic sack. Soooo, I guess he was thinking the church REALLY cut back this year and each child was only getting 1 GOLDFISH each for their mid-morning snack.

"Now don't eat that all in one bite sweeties! Nibble!"

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Ummm, more like Tag Body Spray...


My son asked me on Friday if he could have some "Boy Polish". Needless to say I was scared to ask what he meant. Well, I went ahead and jumped on that grenade and pursued the "boy polish". He went on to say that it was "the stuff you spray on your body to smell good."... Ok, so he means cologne!

I told the boy that I would have to do a little research to find cologne fit for a boy, but that was not acceptable. Evidently he had a hot date that night or something and felt like it was an emergency. Sooooo, during our trip to the grocery store later in the day, we located the deodorant body spray aisle...

Were you aware of the sheer number and variety of body spray for men? It is embarrassing! The cosmetics industry must feel that most men stink for the most part. I am not kidding, we spent at least 15 minutes in the body spray area testing and re-testing EVERY variety that the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market carries.

The names are no better than the fragrances either! We tried "Midnight", "All-Nighter", "Get Yours", "VIP Access", "Lucky Day", "First Move", "After Hours" and "Spin It". After covering he and myself from head to toe, he chose "Spin It"... probably because it was in green packaging, not because he liked the fragrance the best.

We left that aisle smelling like we should have been wearing polyester leisure suits and gold chains! I swear everyone we passed did a double-take (smell style) and had a confused yet disgusted look on their face... it was lovely.

Soooo, next time you run into Bubby, take a good whiff and enjoy... lock up your daughters too, he is only 5, but he smells like Teen Spirit!!!

Various Summer Activites

I am just now getting around to posting about last week... I am sure you all are waiting with baited breath!

The week started off with golf camp for both the kids. They both enjoyed it a lot and we are looking forward to a future which includes at least ONE activity that the whole family enjoys and can participate in! Here are Annika and Tiger with the balls they won on the first day of camp...

Tuesday was Noah's last karate class at The Little Gym. This was his second season and he received his orange belt and a cute medal. It is just for fun so the belt does not mean much, but it does to him. He was very proud, but does not seem too interested in continuing the karate in the fall.

The rest of the week was made up of more golf camp, a new Beth Moore bible study (that is going to be great!), a charity street party and three birthday parties!! We were even able to start cleaning out the extra room we are using for the foster child. We made soooo much progress! I was and still am, thrilled!! Here are a few pictures of the room as it is now... It is not a true "Before" picture, but I was too embarrassed to post that one! These pic's are after most everything from the office was cleared out. Now it is awaiting paint. (And yes, we are going to take the deer head out of the room before we have a scared child sleep in there.)
Finally, I wanted to include a short film made by my daughter. She is really into making what I will call "Digital Shorts". She is pretty entertaining but is really going to need some cinematography classes if she is going to make a career out of this... you will see, the camera work is still in it's primal stages. Enjoy, but heed my warning... this puppy is 3.5 minutes long!


Lot's going on, so I will be posting more often!

Love, Brent

Cryin' In the Rain

Well, more like whining...

I posted about Bubber's real birthday day happenings back on Tuesday, but wanted to post some pics of his party on Saturday.

For quite a while now, Noah has been wanting to have a "Golf Birthday Party" so this year we planned a party at the local mini-golf course. It was a cute idea... even the invitations were cute. But no amount of cuteness could make up for the fact that as soon as everyone had arrived and picked their favorite colored golf ball to play with, it started pouring down rain. And not just rain, there was lots of lightning and possible hail to boot!!

Needless to say it was a big let down. But our friends and family were so understanding and helpful! We decided to open gifts first, followed by eating pizza and oh so cute golf cookies (made by Jennifer at Icing on the Top) and free play in the arcade. All the 5 year old's seemed to have a nice time even though there was no min-golf playing, but the parents seemed to waiver between trying to control the rained-out crew and starring out into the parking lot... either hoping their nice cars were not getting pummeled with hail or deciding whether to split the joint in favor of saving themselves and dodging the storm.

In spite of the rain, Noah had a good time, but he was very disappointed that he was not able to "golf". As we were comforting Noah and reminding him we would be back so we could play a round without the inclement weather overhead, the rain subsided and the sun came out... just in time for the drive home. Niiiice.

** I want to thank my friend Malisa with "Fresh from God Photography" for all the great party pics she took for us! Thanks friend!! **