Conversations with my two year old...

Lately Ava has been saying funny things. Since I know I will forget them...I need to write them down.

Saturday:
Ava walks into the kitchen with something inside her pajamas. I ask her what it is and she says "It's my baby...want to feel him move?" Then a few minutes later she unzips her super cute footed jammers and says "Welcome baby brother....he's here!" And out comes Mr. Dog (posing as baby brother).
Later that night...
Ava was reading books to Mr. Dog on the floor before we were getting ready to leave. She wanted to bring the books (and the rest of her set-up of blankets and pillows) with us. She asked if I could carry the book and I agreed. She looked at me and said "Thank you Mommy, you are such a big helper!"
Today:
I had lunch with Ava and Caleb during my work day. Here is our conversation as we were driving back to the office:
Ava: Mommy are you coming home?
Ashlee: No, I need to go back to my office and work on a consent agreement.
Ava: Can I come help you?
Ashlee: I thought you just said you were tired...
Ava: Oh yeah...well, you can call someone else to come help you then...but not Carrie because I took her to the airport last morning...
Ashlee: That sounds good...(pulling up to the office now).
Ava: Don't forget to call someone if you need help...it's ok to get help.

2 more weeks...

Well, we are down to the end of the road on this pregnancy. Our bedroom is cleaned! We still don't have a name nor are we registered at the hospital...but we can have a water birth if we want to because we are certified in that! I am sure there are many other things that I haven't thought about for time #2 but I figure we can figure it out after he is here.

I have been sick a lot lately with stomach ailments but now feel a ton better! I have been processing a lot what a second baby will be like for our little family of three. Ava seems to adjust well to change but she is much older now than she was when the girls lived with us and has so many more opinions! She is excited about baby brother. Yesterday, she put her dog inside her footed pajamas and then told me she was having a baby and I could feel him because he was moving. Then she pulled him out and said "Welcome baby brother...he's here!" I have some anxiety about the actual "delivery" part because I know it will be very different this time than the first time (seeing the midwives is very different than the doctor I saw the first time). Regardless, in a few short weeks, we will again have a newborn and I am convinced that I will sleep more than I am sleeping now...even if he cries a lot at night! It's a good thing that I have a few years to figure out what to do with a boy!

Work has been so good lately and I continue to be grateful for me job. I am happy to have a good bit of time off to spend with Ava and the baby but will miss working with my clients. I continue to see so much injustice as it relates to housing. I wish that I could be a part of a bigger picture for change. I drive through my neighborhood and see so many empty houses and then I work with clients who are losing their housing and get calls every day from people who are homeless and need housing....why can't some of these things come together! I never run out of things that I would like to be a part of...I pray often for wisdom that I can discern where God has really called me to invest.

Speaking of....We have talked a lot about foster care lately. We are praying through what it would look like to be foster parents again. We don't have the option in the house we currently live in, but again as we drive around and see huge houses sitting empty I can't help but think about our future as parents for children who don't have anyone to care for them. We just need a bigger house:)!

I leave you with a few pictures from Halloween...a holiday that was not celebrated by my family growing up but that we have been able to have fun with as Ava was a little older this year. We don't want to take lightly some of the evil that is present in our world, but we don't have to be a part of that. Bring on the candy and cute costumes! This was actually the first time that Caleb or I had ever been trick or treating as well as Ava's first time! We enjoyed ourselves and were excited for the friends who invited us to tag along with their 2-3 year olds as well.

No blog for a LONG time!

To describe the last 5 months....


Change. Adjustments. Joy. New Jobs. travel. potty training. tantrums. Lots of singing!




Going back to life with 1 child took more adjustment than I thought. At times I think it was harder to adjust back to 1 child than it was to adjust to having three instantly. We are excited that baby Starr #2 will be here in November. It's been a good year so far with Caleb, Ava and I. Our house is still filled with kids which makes life good for Ava. She misses the girls a lot but luckily, we have a couple girls that live next door who are about Anniiyah and Makayla's age that she gets to play with a lot.



Our newest challange has been potty training and the "2 year old attitude." If I survive Ava being two, it's a small miracle. She is more fun than I could have ever imagined but she has been become much more challenging than I thought. I keep telling myself "this will pass."



Caleb and I got a chance to go to Puerto Rico alone for 5 days. It was incredible to have so much time together. Soon I will post pictures of Ava and our beach trip with the Henley's.



I wrote the above post in May and never posted it. Oops! It's now October and it's been almost 10 months since I have updated. I miss posting on the blog because it's a great way for me to go back and read about what I was thinking and feeling at different points in time....and for the 4 other people who read it, you too can know what's been going on. hehe.



This year we made it through potty training, transition to a big girl bed, removal of the pacifier, 34 1/2 weeks of pregnancy (so far), Caleb being on disability for 2 months, a new program at my job that took insane amounts of energy, multiple short term service groups, and about 10 trips all over the country. Life has been good and full.

Ava continues to be full of energy. She tells stories and sings songs constantly. Her favorite story is about when she was born. She reads through her baby book and says "This is when I was crying and they gave me to mommy and I was so happy....and this is when Nana and Pops came to take care of me...and pops had a mustache!" She thinks that dad's mustache is hilarious and let's be honest, what mustache isn't hilarious! Yesterday she kept singing a song called "I'm a stick." We have no idea what she is talking about but she just keeps singing. She started preschool this year and gets to be in class with her best friend Zachary and another friend named Sam. We hear some other kids names mentioned but not often. Some days I feel like she is so easy and other days, I want to pull my hair out by her lack of listening. The girl always has an agenda and she will tell me what a good "plan" for the day is. I am nervous for her to grow up:).

Caleb has decided to apply to be a City of Atlanta Fireman. I have a LOT of mixed feelings about this but overall, I am excited for him. The application process was SUPER long and took us almost a month to compile all the documents needed but he got an email last week saying that he need to come to a mandatory orientation for the physical exam...so I guess that's a step in the right direction. We are both praying that God will lead him to know the best decision to make. He LOVES Habitat so much but it doesn't seem to be a sustainable place for the future (have I mentioned how much insurance for our family costs! blah!....the city provides great benefits).

I continue to love the Georgia Law Center more than I can describe. I knew pretty early on in Mission Year from working at Central that advocating for my clients was something that I loved doing. I am grateful to be able to enjoy work and also get plenty of great time with Ava since I am only part-time. I am anticipating meeting the newest member of our family in the next 5-6 weeks. These past few weeks have been really long and I am ready for pregnancy to be over. We still don't have a name so he continues to be "baby boy Starr." I am also excited to watch Ava get to be a big sister. She is very excited for "baby brother."

We have been able to continue our relationship with Anniiyah and Makayla and I love them so much. Continue to pray for their adjustment to home and lots of siblings and another new school (they moved again since being back with mom) and visitation with fathers. It's a lot for kids to handle.

And once again...we prepare to transition to a new phase of life...the newborn stage! I have a feeling that Ava will be all up in baby brothers business all the time! We have been working on being gentle. She told me the other day "I won't hurt baby brother...I will be careful!" She asked me yesterday if baby brother was crying in my stomach.

I will post some pics soon and hopefully update about baby brothers arrival!

Home Alone..

Tonight Caleb and I are home alone without kids for the first time in two years. I always talk about just wanting moments of peace and silence but it's feels weird. Caleb and I love time just together but tonight feels different. I started to write this whole blog but I am just not sure I can right now. We dropped the girls off with their mom tonight. We both felt a level of peace knowing that this is how it has to be for now. We pray. We wait. We hope. We don't pray that the girls come back to live at our house. We pray that they can be healthy and thrive with their mom who loves them. We pray that we can continue to love them in a different way now that we are not serving in the role of their parents. Oh how precious are these girls to us! Thank you for your encouraging words, and text messages, and phone calls, and facebook comments! We can't tell you how much we appreciate them all. We are Indiana bound tomorrow!

The end?

It was exactly one year ago today that I got a call saying that Anniiyah, Makayla, and their brothers and sisters were taken into the states custody. We began calling social workers trying to figure out how we could have Anniiyah and Makayla come live with us for "a while." We didn't know what "a while" meant and at the time it seemed indefinite. Over the past year, we have had many ups and downs in dealing with the state and what our role is for this family and what the future would look like. We have had countless meetings to figure out what the best thing would be for all the children involved. We picked up the girls and about 15 garbage bags of their stuff 10 months ago today. Life changed a TON that day. We became parents of three kids instantly. I have said several times over this past year "I am really young and really inexperienced and I just don't know if I have the ability to do ALL this." God has been so faithful to us in equipping us to do what we needed to do. By His strength, we were able to be a family of 5 who actually made it to school and work on time, had a semi-clean house (it's all about perspective), and were able to get most necessary things accomplished. It also helps that we have had an incredible community of people to do life with!

Yesterday, I got a call saying that the state was granting custody back to the girls mom as of December 18th. I knew this was more than likely going to happen, but it instantly brought a flood of emotions. I am glad that reunification is happening. The girls love their mom and she loves them. I pray that this will be a healthy transition for the entire family. My heart hurts though over the family that I am losing. I know it's selfish but I love my family of 5. I love hearing "mommy, I missed you so much when I was at school today" every day from Makayla. I love Anniiyah's clumsiness as she flings herself all over the house. I love that Ava tries to do everything that Makayla does and follows her around like her shadow. We have only had them for a little less than a year but our family feels complete with them. I know that in some ways, life will get a lot easier. I realized that I spend countless hours of the week dealing with fits, and getting Makayla to eat, and doing hair, and redoing hair, doing homework, all those other things that come with having a 7 and 5 year old. Yesterday though when I was driving home, I couldn't think of any of those things. I could only think of all the incredible things that these girls bring to our lives that we are going to miss. I kept thinking...is this really the end? Are they really not going to live with us anymore? Yes, they are going home and will not be here everyday but I know that this is in no way the "end" of anything. We have loved their entire family for four years and we will continue to love their family...and their family loves us! I needed my time to cry yesterday but today I feel more peace. We said a year ago that we would do whatever we needed to do, for as long as we needed to do it. We will continue to love Anniiyah and Makayla and their mom and all their brothers and sisters... The next couple weeks will be full of emotion as we prepare to take the girls back home but I am praying that we will all feel the presence of our Savior. We were shopping last night and looking at Christmas stuff and Anniiyah said "Mom, don't forget the most important thing about Christmas...Jesus!" So true! What a great time of year to be constantly focused on the birth of Christ and on His life...I know I am going to need that over these next couple weeks! Thank you for all our support and encouragement!

Video's for Christmas

Here are a few video's from the past week or so. The first video is after we broke a snowman when puting up the Christmas decorations. Ava put her hand on her head and said "oh no, Christmas is broken!" It was super cute and I tried to get her to do it agin. The next video is of Makayla performing her favorite song.... I would post more video's but it takes SOOO long to get them to load.

A blurr....

Oh my...The last month has been a blur! I will give some highlights and obviously post pictures!

The girls began weekend visits with their mom. We continue to pray for healing and restoration for these precious girls. I wish we could know what that actually means. They are struggling to understand what is happening. It's a lot of transition for them to be with us for 5 days and mom for 2.

* Went to Indiana for Aunt Kourtney's wedding. Kids and parents were all very tired by the end of the journey. Great wedding and we are excited for Kourtney and Brandon to start their life together!

I also got to be the matron of honor in Tricia's wedding. Tricia and I have been best friends since 8th grade and it was an honor to share in her and Chauncey's special day. Big marriage month!

I have started to come to the realization that our family may soon by changing. It was exactly one year ago that we started talking and praying about what our role would be in the life of Anniiyah and Makayla and their mom and their siblings. We had conversations with friends and felt called to do anything we could to bring them into our family. We knew that it was likely temporary. We also knew that we wanted them to be with their mom if possible. This past year has not been easy but God has been very real to us. He has showed us that we need to let go of trying to control our lives. We can't plan...we have no idea what tomorrow might look like. Evey Sunday night I feel like we start over. For all the hard, I look at my beautiful girls and I am so thankful I got to know and love them as much as I have. The level of joy that they bring to our home can't be described. Court is December 8th and we are thankful for your prayers. I wish I could tell you exactly how to pray but I am still processing.

On a lighter note...we are getting excited for Christmas. We are going to do something special with the girls for advent every evening becuase we want to instill in them what Christmas is about.

I wish I had some good videos to post of all the dancing that goes on in our house these days. My favorite moments are when we are all hanging out and the girls and dancing and singing at the top of their lungs. Ava loves hte Little Mermaid and sings "Part of that WOOOOORRRRRLLLLLDDDDDD" at the top of her lungs. Makes me laugh every time! Makayla and Ava love to find anything they can use for dress up (for ava it's a floppy pink hat) and they follow each other around the house with a shopping cart. OH the life of three little girls!