A friend of mine is doing a new blog for her jewelry business and has a new piece she’s made to honor adoption. She wanted “our story” to put on her blog and she’s making me a cool “Choosen” necklace. I was more than happy to do it and can’t wait to see the finished product. Her website has some amazing, personalized pieces, you can check them out at The Silver Diva.
Anyhow, we get asked about our story as our family doesn’t fall into the traditional category! Here it is:
Dee and I started out as foster parents 9 years ago, with the hopes of adopting a baby and starting our family. We had a few kids placed with us that didn’t end up staying, which was heartbreaking, and we questioned whether adoption was the right route for us. Thankfully, we persevered and were soon placed with Dominic Ray (now known as Levi Dominic, 11 months old). He fit perfectly into our family and we all adored him from the start. After he had been with us about a month, one of his relatives came forward and he left to live with them the day before his first birthday. Again, we were devastated but believed that things would eventually work out for us. We were called shortly after Levi left about picking up a 3 day old baby boy (Edgar Pablo, now known as Carlos Stephen) from the hospital and were told that his mother’s wish was for him to be adopted. We finally had our baby boy and Carlos was perfect. Two weeks after Carlos came to us, we got a call asking if we would take Levi back, because his relative placement had fallen through. We were more than happy to! We couldn’t believe how quickly our lives had changed. Within a month’s time we were the parents of a newborn and a 1 year old. We adjusted to parenthood, the joys and the struggles, and after Levi turned 2 decided to continue fostering. It’s a way we could give back and provide a safe start for a babies in need of that. We weren’t planning on adopting any more kids, but we got a call from a friend of the family when Carlos turned 14 months old. She had just given birth to a little boy and asked if we would raise him. It was a big step to take, but we knew we had the love and hoped we had the energy. Kitsap Baby Kitsap (now, thank God, known as Trey, joined us when he was just 9 days old and completed our family.
We get asked about our story a lot and about how each of our boys came to live with us. We are happy to tell it, as we hope that our story might inspire others. There were certainly bumps in the road, were kids who we thought should have stayed, but if they had we wouldn’t have our boys. Things work out the way they do for a reason, and the kids who are meant to be with you, do stay. We still take in foster babies, but aren’t looking to adopt more at this point. Our family is complete with Levi (almost 8), Carlos (almost 7) and Trey (5 1/2). Life is certainly busy but we can’t imagine it any other way. Our boys are truly amazing!

We are all packed up for our trip to Great Wolf Lodge. It’s so funny, because we have the kids convinced we are doing a long road trip and going to a boring “mama lecture” where all they get to do is be quiet and draw. Oh, and we’re staying in a hotel without a pool. Ha are they going to be so surprised when we pull up to Great Wolf! I’m seriously trying to be sympathetic to the pleas not to have to go….

We’ve got not one…but TWO boy with their first loose tooth! Now the race is on to see who’s will actually come out first.
Carlos has “willed” his teeth not to fall out at all, and he’s almost 7 so he’s done a good job of keeping them. But now that one’s loose he’s excited.
Trey is jazzed and is wiggling, wiggling, wiggling (gotta love sensory issues).
We’re taking bets!

Ok, so our wild night out was seeing Gnomeo and Juliet but hey, it was a night out! We met up with the Nordstroms and Katy, Dee and I pre-funked for the movie with a couple shots of Patron and some tasty Mexican food.
LOVE LOVE LOVE Gnomeo and Juliet. Love story, clinking garden gnomes and Elton John soundtrack? What’s not to love?
Always fun to hang out with Katy and her crew, too.

At the end of January, our niece Leila (aka Pickle) turned 9 years old. We have been trying to find a time to get together to celebrate and we finally did this last weekend.
Linda, Scott and the girls drove up and we hopped on the ferry for a day in the big city. The wind was crazy and we spent a lot of the ride out on deck. It was so strong at one point that I could lean back and be supported by the wind.
We had a bite to eat at Red Robin, then headed to the aquarium. It had been awhile since we had been there, and the girls had never been, so everyone was excited. Leila couldn’t wait to get to the seals and otters. Our guys favorite part was the touch tank and octopus feeding.
We had promised a trip to the carousel/arcade on the walk back to the ferry. Always a hit!
It was a long day with lots of walking, the boys were all exhausted when we got home but everyone had so much fun. Always great to see the Wilkes and make some memories!

Every year Papa Murphy’s pizza sells a heart shaped pizza to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It’s a fun tradition but this year Mary took it to a new level. She bought the pizza dough from Central Market and everyone made their own pizza. They turned out great, heart shaped even!
Finished it off with a WW Bread Pudding recipe with butter rum sauce.
We all have Valentine’s for each other, the kids were jazzed to get pillow pets and chocolate.
A great evening was had by all.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone, hope yours was as good as ours was.

So Trey had a project sent home from school the other day…a big piece of cardstock and the number “100”. He had to find 100 of the same thing to put on the paper in order to represent the 100th day of school.
We were trying to come up with something fun (marshmallows, toothpicks, beach glass) and decided on 100 signatures.
We were heading to Jason and Monica’s for dinner Friday night so we knew we’d get 10 there, and our family made 15. Shouldn’t be too tough to get 85 more, right? Well, turns out it was a lot of work for him but he really thought it was fun and now has a better idea of how many 100 really is. Thank God for Levi and Carlos’ school, we went to Monday Morning sing and then into the 3rd grade, 4th grade, 1st grade and Kindergarten classrooms and the kids (and teachers!) were more than willing to help Trey out. He got signatures from 97 people and 2 dogs!