For those of you who did not know, my grandmother who recently passed away was a HUGE dog lover and hated hearing stories regarding dogs being abused or neglected and Animal Planet was ALWAYS on her TV.
Well the weekend of Thanksgiving, that Sunday the girls and I went out to the Belmont County Animal Shelter to drop off some donations in memory of my grandmother and also it was her birthday.
Prior to us going out to the shelter I have been following the shelter on FB regarding their adoptable dogs and back in July an older Labrador came to the shelter after he was removed from his family because he was being neglected caught my eye.
So while we were there I asked if we could look around at all the dogs that were up to adoption, for those of you who have never been to this shelter, the dogs (during the day) are outside tied to a dog house and it had been raining days earlier so things were alittle muddy.
The girls enjoyed looking at all the dogs and it allowed me to talk about how & why the dogs where there and how important it is to take care of your pet.
I knew that I wanted to try to see if that older lab was still there and there he was sitting so nicely while all the other dogs were barking and going crazy. We walked over to him very slowly and he laid down on the muddy ground, rolled over and wanted us to pet his tummy!!!!
He was super sweet and from that moment, I knew I HAD to get him out of there!!! He had been there since July so his time was a tickin' and needed to be rescued!!
As soon as I got home I sent out a mass e-mail to a couple of different lab rescues and private rescues and I heard back from 2.
After MANY, MANY, MANY e-mails I am happy to say that the older Labrador who was at the shelter for 6 months, time was a tickin' for him...is now soundly sleeping on my bedroom floor!!
I was DETERMINED to save this dog's life, there was a fire in me that was going to get him rescued and more importantly, I know that my grandmother is smiling down and so happy that a dog is saved.
I can not save them all, but with alittle determination, I did save THIS dog!!!!
We are D-O-N-E with our classes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAHOOOOOOOOOO...can ya tell that I am excited???? I never thought on Sept 14th that we would ever finish, but here we are facing a MOUNTAIN of paperwork.
I want to give my readers alittle taste of ALL the different paperwork that we are facing right now (I am sure that there will be MANY MANY more after this initial set):
Alternative Care Plan Form Application for Child Placement (6pgs.) Financial Statement Form Local Criminal Record Check Form Statewide Automatic Child Welfare Information System Form Autobiography (11 pgs) We BOTH have to complete one Child Characteristic Checklist (10 pgs) Statement of Auto Insurance Form Foster Caregiver Responsibilities Form
Good thing that we are used to this much paperwork, from going down the adoption road TWICE!!!
We are trying to get all the information completed and sent back to our local Jobs & Family Services and we shall see what the next step will be.
Please keep us in your thoughts that this journey can go as smoothly as it can, we are aware that we are going to be facing some MAJOR bumps and heartache, but thoughts/prayers on our side will help us through!!!!
I realized that I have not updated my blog since over a month ago when I announced that we were going to be taking classes to becoming foster parents and hopefully adoptive parents to a child. Well we have 3 classes left......THREE!!!!!!!!!!! I can not believe that we only have 3 more! It was so OVERWHELMING in the beginning when I would sit back and think that we had to go through 13 classes, 2 nights a week for 3 hours each class.
And now I can ALMOST see the finish line, we are almost getting ready to break through the tape!
There has been so many different signs that tells me that we are doing the right thing. Two that I can remember so vividly is our first night of class, we just pulled into the parking lot and Carrie Underwood's song "Temporary Home" came on the radio and for those of you who have never heard of it, it is about alittle boy moving from home to home who is in the system (very heartbreaking) and than yesterday a clip on ESPN came on regarding a NFL athlete who had a rough childhood, mother signed over her rights to the state and than a women stepped in and raised him as her own. Just reinforced why we are doing this, going down this road. That a positive relationship with an adult can make a HUGEdifference in a child's life.
So please stay tuned and follow along as the Webers start this new journey!!!!
I have been sitting on this post for some time now.....I recently did a post saying that there are some exciting things happening in the Weber home. I shared the news that M started preschool and is LOVIN' it and now I am ready to clue you all in on the other exciting thing that is about to happen.
But before I do so, please let me share a quick fact with you ~ Did you know???
* Today there are an estimated 423,773 children in foster care in the United States.... 423,773!!!!!!!! And 114,556 of these children are legally and permanently separated from their birth family and waiting to be adopted.
(Taken from the Dave Thomas Foundation)
These numbers hurt my heart......just thinking about these poor children, going from home to home, possibly having no one love on them, telling them how important or loved they are, participating in "family" activities...just kills me!!
So with these STAGGERING numbers and knowing that there are children out there who need a forever home or a temporary home for someone to love them & tell them how special they are, Josh and I are entering the fostercare-to-adopt world.
We start our first class is next week on the 14th (our 9yr anniversary) and the very last class is October 31st. Yep, 6 weeks of classes, 2 days a week, every Monday & Wednesday from 6:15-9:15. Without the help of some AMAZING neighbors, friends & family who have said that they would watch the girls, we would not have been able to make this happen.
For those of you who know us, we have ALWAYS had a special place in our hearts for the foster care system, we would toss around the idea of, "yeah, that sounds like something we want to do", "yeah, we would love to adopt from the system". Well folks, we are here and we are going to do it!!!
We know that we can not save them all but what we do know, is for that special child who is placed in our home, we will change their life.
Here is a message that I sent to a wonderful friend of mine, when I shared with her what we were about to do:
We have been down the road with newborns, we have been blessed with 2 healthy newborns, we got to experience everything that a newborn does, got to witness all of our girls FIRSTS! So we have a peace that since we have been lucky/blessed to have done it 2 times, why not open up and see what God has instore for us.
Yes we may not be able to witness all of this child's firsts, but we will be able to have a major impact on the rest of their precious life!!!!
We are scared...once again we face a whole new "unknows" but it is so hard to explain, we have this peace in our hearts....that we know we are doing the right thing.
We have always talked about adopting from the system and foster children always had a place in our hearts, so now we are going to hopefully make this a dream come true!
Please keep us in your prayers that we are making the right decision for our family and for growing our family. I know that this road is not going to be smooth, but I am SUPER giddy to see how our journey is going to go.
So like I told her, we are going to need all the prayers & support that we can get, this is not going to be a "walk in the park" it will have it's ups & downs and I am sure alot of heart ache, but this is our calling.
In closing, I want to say that I am scared, scared of the unknowns...like adoption (in the beginning) I only would hear about the horror stories. But I am telling myself, if I turn around now just because I am scared, that leaves another child in the system, another child with out a forever home. And if we all just turned our heads because we were scared, than those numbers at the top would be off the charts. I am looking forward to putting a wonderful spin on the foster care system and being able to stand on my soap-box and tell everyone I know the wonderful things that have happened...like I now do with domestic adoption.
But believe me, my/our heads are not in the clouds...we know that there are going to be challenges, but we after our classes & support, hopefully we will be ready for whatever comes our way!!!!
I hope that you all will stayed tuned to see how this journey goes and follow our path to adding a 3rd child (newborn-2yr) into the Weber home!!!
P.S We are still homestudy ready for a domestic adoption and if something comes our way, like how our girls can into our lives than we will be happy also.
A while ago, I posted that things are happening in the Weber home. Right now I am only going to talk about what happened today:
1) M started preschool today...that is a HUGE milestone in our home. Just seems like yesterday we were holding her for the first time and today we watched her get on a school bus with her princess backpack on.
Stay tuned for the other thing that is getting ready to happen here in our home :-)
Today was M's FIRST day of preschool....she has been looking forward to this day since she turned 3 in February!!!!!
She woke up this morning around 7:30 and was ready to go...she put her new shoes on with her butterfly pj's and insisted that she was ready for school. I had to keep telling her that she did not get to go to school for a couple more hours and than FINALLY that time came.
I got her a "prettied" up in her new dress & sandals and out the door we went to the bus stop/ Well e got to the bus stop 15 min early ~ bus was supposed to be there at 11:30 and it came rolling in at 12:30 (her class started at 12:15).
We followed the bus (YEP, we were THOSE parents) and she ended up getting to school at 1:00. We watched her get off the bus and than headed on back home.
The time came to pick her up and this time the bus was only 30 min late and she was so happy to see us. She got in the car and started telling us all about her day.
She is looking forward to tomorrow....I just can not BELIEVE that she is a PRESCHOOLER!!!!
Yesterday was the 3yr anniversary of M's adoption being finalized. Every year we celebrate with friends and I always order the cake from one of the best bakery's in town. This year...we celebrated BIG time with our wonderful friends. We had a HUGE bonfire, smores, music and all the kids ran till they dropped (like 11 pm), they had a BLAST!!
We love you M and are so lucky to have you as our daugther and we look forward to many more celebrations of this special day!!
