WE WANT SPRING! WE WANT SPRING!

Can you tell I we are a little anxious for spring to get here!?

The kids are sick of being inside. G has shoveled snow all winter, and he’s over it. He requested yesterday to go to the park, have a picnic, and fly a kite. He also wants his sandbox to defrost. Lucy is perfecting her tricycle riding skills….in Nana and Papa’s garage. I think she is ready for some outdoor action!  There is only so much you can do with the powdery white stuff.

Workin’

 

I need some sunshine! To hopefully encourage spring to come a little sooner, Jeremiah and I planned out our garden the other night. I am going to use the square foot method of gardening this year and see how it works. I have done a lot of research on it and apparently you get more produce out of less space with less work. Sounds good to me!  I planned it all out and hopefully will be as organized as my drawing! haha!

Science here, folks 😉

I also have been busy cooking freezer meals and doing our monthly exchange. I made hamburger patties this month in anticipation we could grill.  Again with encouraging the sunshine…..

Lines 3-14 are group exchange meals! YUM!! {Thank you L, for the artwork}

   

I went on my first somewhat *warm* run the other night. With Daylight Saving’s Time, it has been nice to come home when it’s daylight and maybe warm. Last Thursday I went out for a run and it was upper 40 degrees! Heat wave!  This winter I have been somewhat of a ‘pansy’ as J puts it, only running outdoors when it was warm and sunny. I think we only broke out the traction soles for 2 runs this year. 70 degrees is really more my style!

I decided to make L’s Easter dress this year.  It will be my 2nd attempt at a dress for her.  It is sleeveless and should turn out something like this.  I guess I may be pushing things a bit too much; I may have to get a little cardi to cover her up. Fabric comes in Thursday!!!!

I have a list of other spring projects started, consisting of, but not limited to: painting the kid’s new *shared* bedroom and re-decorating it (watch for future blog post on this little endeavor), constructing a water barrell and compost bin, attending a ‘canning for dummies’ class, cleaning out the garage, laying new mulch, building a new *bigger* sandbox, possibly digging in an in-ground trampoline, etc etc. I have also signed G up for a kid’s fishing class and canoe trip (all free for 3+!) awesome!

As anxious as we are for spring to get here, I think Mother Nature may have some other plans. I saw this *possible* forecast by meteorologist Terry Swails for the Quad Cities tonight on facebook:

Hold the bus! I hope Terry Swails is WRONG!!!

Blessings;

The Costello’s

Three’s Company: Beginning Adoption

We have some news in our house!

 

Mmmmm…frosting!

 

Gabriel is officially registered for preschool for next fall. He will attend Zion Lutheran Preschool in Wilton! The preschool teaches a Christian curriculum and is only about 3 blocks from where I work. I have heard nothing but good things about it from everyone I talk to!  We went to their open house and were thoroughly impressed. Great staff, classrooms, and teaching philosophies. He will go on M, W, F for 3 hours in the morning. He’s excited and so are we!

Jeremiah is halfway through his student teaching at North High School in Davenport. He has finals this week and then will enjoy 11 days off for Spring Break (with some work in there)!  He is really doing great working with the high school kids.  He is really a creative teacher and is working hard to set up his curriculum for the next block of classes. 8 weeks to go!

Lucy is becoming more and more of a little lady by the day. She is picking up words EVERYWHERE and constantly either has a baby doll or purse in tow.  She says a new word every day! She loves to assist me with anything and everything and especially loves pulling up a chair next to her big brother to help me cook. 

And onto my blog title……

Jeremiah and I have been contemplating the idea of adoption since Lucy was born. We both feel called to adopt and really would love to grow our family through adoption.  We really both want a large family and would like to achieve this through biological and adopted children.

Sooo…. for months now we have been researching. I have called numerous adoption agencies, spoke to several adoption workers, and mulled over their websites. We have thought about international vs. domestic. How this would change all of our lives.

After comparing costs, wait times, and restrictions, and talking to MANY people who have done this before, we have decided to work through the Iowa KidsNet program with DHS and the foster care system.  We attended an informational (I felt like it was a ‘weed out’ meeting!) meeting about a month ago and signed our names away to be checked for background, criminal, abuse, and any other history that may come up. Good thing ours came back clear!  Next we were fingerprinted at the county jail (G was a bit freaked out that we were at a jail!)and sent those off to be analyzed. So far, so good.

Our next step is the PS-MAPP classes , a series of 10- 3 hr sessions that will teach us everything we need to know about obtaining a license, the adoption legalities, bringing a new child into your home, and post-adoption issues.  We start these April 2. This will include in-depth training, a home study, and further evaluation of us as a family.  We are hoping to be licensed in foster care and adoption, but are only pursuing adoption at this time.  We are told that families usually obtain their adoption license about 4-5 months after beginning the PS-MAPP classes. That would put us around August or September of this fall.

There are still a lot of uncertainties.  We don’t know that there will be any children available for us to adopt right away after we obtain our license; we may have to wait for awhile. We would like G to remain the oldest, so we are hoping for a child age 4 or younger. We are open to male or female, any race or ethnicity, most special needs, and possibly siblings. 

It is amazing to me how many people I know or meet that have experiences with adoption.  At least 3 of my recent patients are foster or adoptive parents.  I have several adopted cousins (you would never guess!), and know many people in the community who have either adopted or been adopted.

I have decided to blog about our journey through this adoption process in a ‘Three’s Company’ series. I feel like it will be really fun to read back on this in a few years and see how far we have come and how much we have learned. I also think it will be great to hear from any readers who have experience or advice in this area to help us along the way! Plus, I didn’t want people to see us with a new child and say, ‘Who’s the kid? You weren’t pregnant!?’ 😉

We are really looking forward to this journey.  I know there will be bumps along the way, but we really hope that this will be a great experience and a child is brought to us sooner than later!

Thanks for reading!