Daniel Turned Six!

I blinked and Daniel turned 6 in June!!  I'm late posting this, and it seems like I barely have time to turn around much lately.  Between swimming lessons, karate, and Tic-Tac, things are non-stop!!  Daniel tests for his yellow belt this coming Monday!!

Here are some fun photos from his birthday party!!

In other news, Tic-Tac is doing wonderfully!!  We now have top teeth pushing through, he can sit up on his own, he has started pulling up (only a few times) and he "talks" non-stop!!  We even see some personality coming out now!!

Foster-To-Adopt Timeline

I thought I would share a very loose, generic look at a typical foster-to-adopt timeline for those that aren't familiar.  This is our basic understanding and this is most likely not exact or perfect.  We are also in Virginia, and I'm sure it varies from state to state.    

Some acronyms:

DSS - Department of Social Services

CPS - Child Protective Services

Step 1:  Receive phone call from DSS asking if you are willing to accept a particular child.  Not much information is given at this time and you have to make an almost immediate decision.

Step 2:  CPS Officer arrives with child (sometimes within minutes of the initial phone call)!

Step 3:  Court Hearing within the first week to determine that child should remain in foster care.  Case is still a CPS case.  This is the earliest a child usually would be removed from foster and given back to their birthparents.

Step 4:  Court Hearing within 30 days of removal to determine that child should remain in foster care, (at this point the case is handled by a foster care worker and is no longer a CPS case) or be returned to the birthparents.

Step 5:  Court hearing at the 75 day mark or 45 days from the Step 4 Court Hearing.  This hearing puts a plan in motion and is an order to the birthparents and foster parents on what they need to be doing.  Foster parents are ordered to continue to provide a safe, loving home.  Birthparents may be ordered to do many things like take a parenting class, get a job, clean the home, and/or go to rehab. 

Step 6:  Within 6 months of the Step 5 Court Hearing a Foster Care Review Hearing should be set up to report the progress of the birthparents.

Step 7: Within 5 months of the Foster Care Review Hearing a Permanency Review Hearing will be held.  This hearing can be held sooner if the plan can be reached sooner.

Step 8: If the permanency plan is for adoption then foster parents may move forward.  There may be additional review hearings until adoption is complete (every 6 months)

In order to adopt, the child must have been in the adoptive parents home for at least 6 months.  We are of the understanding that this back-dates to the date of the initial placement of the child in our home.  So even if parental rights are terminated in the final steps, the 6 month goal would have been met at this point and you can petition for adoption.   

Next up:  What we've been up to, including Daniel's 6th Birthday!!

Disney World, Sea World, Islands of Adventure - 2012 Vacation!

We had an amazing time on vacation!!  We headed to Kissimmee, FL and stayed the week with plans to visit all the parks we really wanted to see!

We started with a long, long drive Saturday, followed by a visit to Downtown Disney on Sunday!!  Here we enjoyed eating at the Rainforest Cafe, playing and purchasing at the Lego Store (can we say AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and having a good time!!

Monday we headed to Sea World and we had a blast!!  Daniel loved the dolphins and the whales the most!  We even sat in the splash zone during the Shamu show and got soaked!!  Daniel rode the Shamu coaster and Cassandra (my sis) and I rode the Cracken!!  We saw plenty of other shows and had a great time.  I highly recommend Sea World as a must see for the kids!!

Tuesday we headed to the Magic Kingdom and had a magic day!  Daniel did great - he walked from 8:45 am to about 9:00 pm.  He refused a stroller and insisted on keeping up with us.  We rode everything in sight, except Space Mountain, which I wasn't comfortable putting him on just yet, even though he meets the height requirement.  He especially LOVED the Haunted Mansion and the Pirates ride!!  We never waited more than 20 minutes for a ride!!  We watched the electrical parade and made it back to a porch of a building to watch the night time castle show and the fireworks.  It was here I noticed Daniel could barely control his body movements and he was saying silly things we couldn't understand.  I picked him up and he fell sound asleep in the matter of an instant on my shoulder.  I sat on the porch and Troy laid a blanket over us and Daniel slept through the fireworks.  He never even budged during the loud booms!!  Troy took lots of pictures to show Daniel the next day!!

 Do you see how tired he is!!!!  He tends to hold my hair when he's exhausted!!

 

Wednesday was an easy day for us and we visited my mom at her campground and old friends came to visit.  It was great to see them, including a very old friend of mine that I used to play with when I was young and when we lived in Orlando.  I got to take my family by my old house and show them my elementary and middle schools.  Daniel spent the night with my mom while we headed back to the condo.

Thursday Troy, Cassandra, Brett and I headed to Islands of Adventure to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!!  Cassandra is 13 years younger than I am and when she read Harry Potter as a young teen she begged me to read it with her.  I did and got hooked so this was great fun for the two of us to experience together!  We rode the rides, drank butterbeer and had a great time.  Cassandra and I also braved all the other coasters in the park, including the Hulk and one that shoots you straight up and back down!!   I came home with Luna's second wand and a Gryffindor keychain!!

During our trip we were called by dss and asked to accept 2 little boys into our home.  We said yes and my in-laws were helping to do some final preparations for us at home, while we were away.  It didn't pan out, so we're hoping for the best for the little ones and waiting for the next call.

I'll be posting on my other blog, some tips and tricks for a frugal trip to some of the places we went in a few days!!!

4 Years a Family!

Yesterday marks the fourth anniversary of our court date in Russia and when the Judge said yes, entrusting to us one special little boy! Since it was so late in the afternoon, we could not pick him up that day (our 10 days were waived), so we had to wait one more day!

Troy and I were so tired from our long day and 4 hours in court (that were pleasant, but long) and we celebrated with an exciting PB&J for dinner in our room!! We laughed that Daniel was already on a sleepover and then we barely slept anticipating and packing our things to pick up Daniel and fly back to Moscow.

Oh how I miss that sweet little baby boy we picked up. But oh how I love the little man he's grown into!

Then....

and Now....

Introducing "The Furious Eleven"

This was too fun not to share!!

I came home from work yesterday and was introduced to "The Furious Eleven". Daniel and Troy worked hard making a crime fighting crew and Daniel named them appropriately!!

Alas, I shall make you wait no longer....

This neat guy below, Daniel created all his own and is named Duckie Dodo - he is the fixer of all the machines of "The Furious Eleven"!
This fellow below is Spider and he is a "guard" in the words of Daniel and "protects" "The Furious Eleven"!
No name yet for this guy - any suggestions?!?!?
Daniel is quite the builder and can play for hours building blocks quietly. I'm one lucky mom, in more ways than one!!

Catching Up

No time to post when tax season rolls around. So in order to catch you up with our lives here is what we've been up to:

Daniel learns how to put brakes on my car. He officially knows more than I do about cars at this point!

Daniel learns how to check and change my car's oil. He now officially knows twice as much as I do about cars.


Daniel grows like a stink weed in March and April. He ate two PB&Js for lunch and rounded his day out with a whole can of Chicken and Stars soup. Is it wrong to wish you had your child's genes?!
We went and saw Monster Jam complete with taking a friend of Daniels' from Kindergarten who was excellently behaved. I think we proved to ourselves that we can handle more than one child at a time, which is a good thing since our foster care social worker called and wanted to know EXACTLY when we were returning from our upcoming vacation.




Troy found this completely awesome stuff for the bath called Squishy Baff. You add powder to the tub and it turns it to beads of goo and then you add a second powder to turn it back to liquid. Daniel loved it. I took a few photos and stayed out of the bathroom, claiming that Squishy Baff was a dad thing only, complete with a dad cleanup time!
Daniel is rocking out Kindergarten. He's aced all his Friday spelling tests and he's reading short books to us. Of course he's also reading everything else and we can't spell anything to each other anymore because Daniel sounds it all out. No more hiding the fact that we might go to the "p-o-o-l later". Daniel quickly yells "Pool".We've had a great couple of months and are looking forward to the end of tax season and a trip to Florida! When we return, it sounds like we'll have a foster placement right away. We'll keep everyone updated!!

Wow - Another Month Gone By! (Growing Boy & Bedroom Update)

I can't believe yet another month has gone by! Time sure is flying, which is good and bad at the same time. I need to remember to slow down and savor each moment a little more!

Daniel is still doing fabulous in Kindergarten! He's reading more and more and sounding out words on his own now. They are already doing addition and subtraction! Daniel's catching on quickly and while we have parent/teacher conferences next week, the teacher sent me a note home saying Daniel was doing just fine and she really didn't need to me at all, unless I wanted to come in. Since she's great with email, we are skipping the conference!

Daniel is also growing like crazy. Just this past month, he shot up another 1/2 inch! We told him last month, he needed to grow 3 inches by the time we went to Disney (he really doesn't - I think there is only one ride he can't ride). Apparently he took the request to heart and has been eating and growing to beat the band!! We are also dealing with growing pains in his legs, but not so severe, that often times he just needs the break of bed time and feels better in the morning.

In foster-to-adopt news, we attended our first PRIDE meeting, which stands for PARENT RESOURCES FOR INFORMATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND EDUCATION.

We learned a lot of things at the first meeting, including the conditions of some children when they are taken into care. It is truly heartbreaking to know how many children are neglected and mistreated and how severely. This path is not easy and I have to admit that we are a bit scared. Please pray for us as we continue through the classes. There are 7 in all and each week we have homework. Since all our paperwork is done, this week we had to create genograms of our families. Genograms are a little more complicated than family trees, but I think we did a good job.

Here is a recent picture of our growing boy - he LOVES tortellini with broccoli, chicken and cheese sauce. So much that he picked out the gigantic serving fork to eat with! Did we let him eat with it? You betcha - because I figure a silly dinner every now and then won't hurt!!
Lastly, here is the mostly completed bedroom for our special child/children. I really don't like saying "foster" child all the time because I don't want to label a child as such in our home. I need to come up with some other way! I still have a few things a corner of the room to go through and to wash the baby bedding (in case) and then we're finished.