Adopting J

We found out about J back at the beginning of November when we went to a waiting children mixer where loads of children who were in foster care and waiting for forever families were showcased. Daniel and I felt an instant connection with him and talked to all of the staff members who were there that evening about him. We asked our caseworker, who was there that evening, to send us his CSI (Child Study Inventory). We received it the following week and devoured it. His caseworker was on vacation but as soon as she was back to work we called to let her know we were interested.

The next step was having his caseworker and ours come out to the house to do an "interview" - basically discussing him with us and how we might handle certain situations that might arise with him. We had to wait while other interested families were interviewed and a matching conference was set up

On Thursday, Dec. 9, we got the call at 4:45 that we matched with J! I had been a nervous wreck all afternoon but Amira did a fabulous job of entertaining me. Daniel had been waiting for me to call and let him know when I heard something so by the time he arrived home at 4:30 he was convinced that I hadn't called because I had gotten bad news and was crying. He had even planned to get up early the next morning and remove J's bed from his room before I got up so I wouldn't have to deal with it - what a wonderful husband I have!

On Friday we got another call from J's caseworker saying we needed to decide how much subsidy we wanted to ask for to cover the cost of having him in our home. We have never done that before so we ended up making a bit of a stab in the dark. We can go back and ask for more if we need to but we have to have some amount of subsidy when he arrives. If we didn't ask for subsidy before he is adopted then we wouldn't be able to go back and ask for it later if we found out we needed it. We also picked up half of his file to start reading that half while the adoption supervisor finishes reading the second half.

Over the weekend we spent a few hours reading through the half of J's file that we have - no surprises in it thankfully. And today, after Jacob's final electricity class, he and Daniel will be stopping to pick up the rest of J's file so we can finish reading it. His caseworker will be coming out on Wednesday to have us sign off on his file and to pick up a letter and gift from us to him. We are planning to have our first visit with him on Dec. 26th.

Morning Routine

Eventually I want to put this in the side bar but I have to figure out how to do that first so for right now it's a post.

Morning Routine:
Make Coffee
Make Breakfast
Make bed
Get dressed
Pick up bedroom
Wipe up bathroom
Wipe up guest bathroom
Soak beans
Grind wheat for the day
Feed sourdough
Strain kefir
Check calendar
Wake son

Projects

We are in the midst of the busy 4H season and have several projects going.

Amira is doing a Food and Nutrition project, a dog project, and a breed rabbit project this year. She is also the President of the 4H club. She has come a long way from the shy little girl who hated to do demonstrations because she had to talk in front of everyone!

Jacob is busy with a dog project, a breed rabbit project and a beekeeping project.

I am working on several projects of my own (not 4H projects obviously!) lol I am busy crocheting an afghan for my niece, planning an Open House for July, and settling into our new house. I have one room left to paint but a lot of decorating to do and some organizing as well.

Regionals

Our family traveled Thursday evening to the Mock Trial regional competition. We decided to stay overnight in a hotel close to the courthouse so we didn't have to get up early and travel roads that may be snow covered. We took Jacob out to eat to celebrate his birthday that evening before going back to the hotel.

No one slept very well in the hotel - strange beds and strange sounds. The heater clicked on approximately every 5 minutes for about 20 seconds and there was a train not far from the hotel.

Friday morning we met the rest of the team at the courthouse. The plaintiff side of Amira's team competed in the morning and the defendant side in the afternoon. The local Bar Association provided a pizza and pop lunch for the competitors. None of the members of her team won any of the awards and their team will not be going on to the state competition. The other homeschool team did win a few awards and will be moving on to the next level.

Amira was very excited for her friends that will be moving on but was rather glad to be finished herself.

We made it back home before the worst of the snow hit on Friday night.