It's June Already???!!!

Howdy… long time no blog… so life is crazy and fun and more crazy in the Double J household these days… we’ve adapted to being parents and we feel like we’ve created this bubble of a happy safe life for the girls and for us too… And when I say “we” I must give credit where credit is due… I’m not sure how someone who isn’t a Christian would get through this crazy experience (incidentally, almost everyone that we have come in contact with that are foster parents, also are Christians)…. I just PRAISE GOD and Thank Him so much for giving us the strength and determination to do what we’re doing… it really is “in our weakness, He is strong”. I think back to those first few weeks and how I, myself, wanted to give up so badly. If it weren’t for people praying us through and all the encouragement and the Lord literally carrying me to a place where I could get my foothold again (I sound dramatic – but Jimmie will tell you, I was a basket case of emotions and mostly I was convinced that I could not do this) I totally would have given up. I’m so glad I didn’t. The girls and this experience have just blessed our lives in ways that we never would have thought possible and in ways that we never even knew we’d like to be blessed.

Here’s a story… one of the things (well one of the many little things anyway) that makes both Jimmie and I tear up right now is, well ya’ll know how I had made it a habit to tell Mayce every night at bedtime that God made her and Jesus loves her. Well I bought this children’s praise song cd… I think it might have been the cheapest one on the rack… but it has a ton of songs on it… some I know and some that I didn’t… on a side note it has on there 2 songs from my childhood that I LOVED… I’ll be a Sunbeam for Jesus and Climb Up Sunshine Mountain… but anyway… so we were listening to it one day on the way to or from daycare for the first time and a song came on called “God Made Me”. I was so excited! I said to Mayce… this is your song! So we had to play it a lot for her and within the last two weeks she has started singing along with the cd, especially on that song, at the top of her voice… The first time she sang along I just teared up and said little prayers of Thanksgiving… well last Thursday I was sick. I had managed to get the girls to daycare but then I went home and went to bed so when Jimmie got home he left in my car to get the girls and when he got home he told me how Mayce was singing to that cd and how he teared up when he heard her singing… I told him… see honey… THAT is why we are doing this…

Friday night we went to a dinner for foster parents. It was sooo neat to socialize and just share stories with other people in this experience. We went to a training session on Saturday because we have to have so many hours of training each year, and when we left I told Jimmie that I think we’ve joined a merry band of a special kind of crazy person… I mean really… here are normal every day people from various walks of life coming together and saying, yeah I’ll take some strange kids into my home – no matter what the baggage- care for them and fall head over heals in love for them and maybe I might be able to keep some for my very own but I’m willing to take on the burden of getting my heart broken in order to provide a safe haven for these little ones for as long as they need it… I mean really, who does that?? Lol well obviously me and Jimmie but I’d never really had it put to me like that before or maybe I have but I wasn’t actually in the experience… but that is what we’re doing and it’s crazy and sometimes heart wrenching but it’s also crazy fun and pretty rewarding too…

Anyways… so that’s what has been going on with me… well lots of stuff has been going on but that’s sort of like the all encompassing experience I’m going through right now…

Memorial day weekend was crazy busy… we had something to go to every day of the weekend and then on Monday mom and dad and Missy and Scott and the kids came down… that was so nice! Unexpectedly on Saturday we purchased one of those nice big wooden swing set play thingies… Jimmie had gone to our little ‘Burg to get ice and things like that and he come home saying our neighbor refurbishes wooden playlands and we can get one for a good price if we act quick cuz once he got it put together the price was going up… so he ran over and talked to the neighbor and the guy gave us a really good deal and brought it over and Jimmie put it together… he and I have even gone down the slide and sung on the swings… it’s fun!

So we had dinner just about ready and I had made corn on the cob so I open up the fridge to put the butter on the table – Jimmie and I both thought that there was a whole new tub of butter in there… there wasn’t! Agh! So I grabbed my keys and hopped in the car to go to the store. Isaac was close by and asked if he could go and I’m so glad he did! He and I spent some quality time together on the way to the store and on the way back. I’m just amazed at how quickly he is growing up… he is just so stinking funny and precious… but again… he’s just growing up too fast!

Well my dad just called out of the blue just to gab…that was nice!… he had a doctors appointment this morning to get him enrolled in medicare… that sounds so weird… he can’t be old enough for that can he?? In my mind, he’s still this super hero dad that was my youth leader when I was a teenager… the funny guy that everyone looked up to and everyone admired and wanted to be around… he’s still obviously all those things but I don’t like to be reminded that he is getting older… seriously, when I hear about people losing their parents, I think I just don’t know how they cope with that because if it were my parents, I just do not know how I’d deal… I know it’s the whole circle of life thing… but I just don’t want to be involved in that kind of circle right now or any time soon… ya know?!!

Anyways… I better go get some lunch… I just want to say Sara – I’ve been saying prayers for you and Brian and your family… I’m so glad that it turned out to be the medication! Mandy – stop scaring us like that! Seriously… I’m praying for you too brain twin!! Can’t wait to meet that little baby boy!