ADOPTION PARTY!

As promised, we threw our 2nd biggest party (the first being our wedding of course) to celebrate becoming a forever family on December 3rd, 2015! Honestly it was more than I ever could have asked for, everything was absolutely perfect. We had numerous friends travel from out of town, some as far as Wisconsin to celebrate with us. I know I shouldn't be surprised by our support system after the last 2 years but I am still delighted and surprised that I had so many people come out to celebrate with us!

The party was at McCormick Stillman Railroad Park - a big, big thank you to Jeff and Jenn for booking the party for us (Scottsdale residents get a pretty large discount)! Jon's sister, Amy, did all the decorations. When she offered I was hoping for a couple streamers and balloons, what I got was so much more that can't be explained in words. 

The guest book - I love her homemade table runner!

Homemade tulle balls hanging!

Love It, Cherish It, Take It!

Somehow I missed taking a picture of the beautiful entrance with balloons on each side and a "Lyons" banner.

She also made an awesome photo booth!

My sister's family

College friends

Our Forever Family!

A huge thank you to Amy for outdoing all expectations I had on the decorations, we got so many compliments!

My sister also outdid herself with the cake. I asked for something similar to this. This is what she took from that picture:

It's all cake!

Details - down to Maggie's different colored eyes!

Thank you for the amazing cake, Lisa!

Jon and I both had speeches to thank everyone for all their love and support over the last 818 days. The kid's lawyer even showed up! The kids had a blast riding tricycles, jumping in the bounce house, and riding the train! Even some adults joined in the bounce house and train riding fun!

Grandma jumping with Jaxson!

The party flew by too fast for me but I had more fun than I could have imagined! Since so many people came from out of town, we had a small after party at our house after the kids went to bed. The plan was to have s'mores but as usual time got away from us so we just sat around the fire, reminiscing and drinking. It was the perfect end to the most perfect party.

Purple Drinks

Panda costumes = great night!

Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us. Thank you for everyone who helped throw an awesome party. Thank you for your love over the last 2 years! We hope we can raise these two children to make everyone proud!

One Month Later

It's been just over a month since we received the news that the judge ruled for our kids to stay where they belong. In one way, nothing has changed - no paperwork has been filed, the kids are still foster kids, we are still foster parents. In another way, so much has changed - the amount of stress in our lives has gone to almost 0, there are no more visits, there is no more judgement. I feel almost free.

Our lawyer sent us the adoption paperwork and originally Jon and I were the holdup on getting it filed. The paperwork asks for the children's new names........well we haven't talked about this since the kids were probably 6 months old so we weren't prepared. We spent about 3 weeks discussing different options and finally came to an agreement. We can't wait to share them!

Now we are waiting on our new adoption case worker to contact us. We cannot file the paperwork without her name. Luckily she contacted Jon last week and we have an appointment with her tomorrow morning. Hopefully that means the paperwork will be filed on Wednesday. Then a court date can get set up and we can finalize!

Expect the unexpected

I've sat through numerous court hearings and heard countless numbers of excuses and seen chance after chance be given while my children sit on the sidelines left unrepresented. I expected nothing less at the hearing this past Friday and chance after chance was afforded to birth parents, however I got a little bit of an unexpected twist. 

The Good
This hearing was just supposed to be a report and review, basically just a check in however birth dad did not show up. I don't think I explained this earlier because I didn't think it would be relevant in our case but now I must explain. Once the birth parents are served with the severance paperwork they MUST attend every court hearing from that point forward otherwise the state can sever their parental rights that day, no trial, no appeal, just sever and done instantly. As I said earlier, birth dad did not attend for the first time ever and yes, the state severed his parental rights. It was surreal. As of January 9, 2015, my children only have one daddy in their lives. 

The Bad
That all happened after birth mom's hearing. She was there and is definitely contesting the severance. The first trial date the court presented for severance was March 4 however her lawyer conveniently had something on the calendar that day and then proceeded to have something on her calendar for the next 5 days suggested which somehow pushed us to JULY! The judge had to ask this lawyer the next day she was available which pushed us another month.....so the severance trial is set for July 9th. That's 6 months away! After the trial, the judge has 30-60 days to make a decision. Don't worry, I'm an accountant and I'll do the math for you, that puts us at September 9th.....this is two years and two days past the day they came into our lives which also means the kids will be 2 years old. So yes, these kids will probably not be adopted into their forever home in 2015. Anger commence.

The maternal uncle is also still in the mix. We believe birth mom's lawyer is stalling the severance in order to give the interstate paperwork more time to process so the maternal uncle can adopt the kids.

I left court in a mix of emotions, I was crying yet in disbelief, smiling yet frustrated, excited yet angry. Up and down, but I like to think we just took 5 steps forward and only 2 step back.

Please keep us in your thoughts, prayers, and good wishes as we continue our way through this process, we still have another 8+ months to go.

Life is moving....literally!

It's getting harder and harder not being able to post pictures of my cuties. The older they get the more fun I have with them and I want so badly to share their adorableness with everyone!!

The big event these past months is we now have moving babies! The beautiful multi-color baby gate is now in place! This was an expensive purchase but well worth it. All the panels come apart so you can make the section larger or smaller and you can make whatever shape you want!

Baby boy is fully crawling but for the longest time he would get into the crawling position, figure out how to move his legs but not his arms and ended up face planting. He tried so hard and everyone around him tried to help him and show him even Grandpa has got down on the ground and exaggerated crawling motions! Baby girl is army crawling and she's really good at it! She has no problem getting what she wants but most of the time she'll just roll around.

Baby girl also started clapping this month and we think she might be starting to sign milk to us!! We also think both babies are starting to wave bye and are starting to give high fives.

Since we live in Phoenix and temperatures are already in the triple digits, we took them into the pool for the first time and have also started swimming lessons. Baby girl took to it right away - she was falling/reaching into the water after toys (with Jon there to catch her of course) and splashing around. Baby boy was definitely not too fond of it at first but after about 5 minutes he loosened up and started having some fun reaching for toys and splashing. Our swim instructor is awesome and does an amazing job with getting the twins used to things!

Mother's day was amazing. Jon woke up with both babies and took them to the store while I got to sleep in. Then he planned a picnic, the whole family including Maggie walked to the park and had a nice picnic and some playtime. We also did a 5k with my mom and sister (who is also pregnant!!).

For Father's day the twins made Jon beer bottle labels for his homemade beer. If you don't know us well, my husband enjoy's home brewing and calls his home brewery "Family Man Brewing". I had each twin use their hand or footprint as the background for some labels for his newest batches. They turned out really cute - just wish I had better calligraphy skills. Sorry for the black sections - I had the kid's names on each one.















As for the case - we just had court and we will have the twins at least until the next court date which is early September. Not much has progressed or changed since the last date - the state is still working on family reunification.

Over 4th of July we are taking the twins camping for the first time - anyone have any advice on how to survive and have fun?!

MILESTONES:

• First time in the pool
• First Mother's day
• First Father's day
• Started swimming lessons
• First time playing in a box
• First hike
• Crawling (Baby boy)
• Army Crawling (Baby girl)
• Clapping (Baby girl)
• Fart noises with mouth (Baby boy) - hilarious!

1/4 of a year old

We still have the twins and the birth parents finally stopped contesting CPS dependency (I didn't make it to this hearing). Now our case will finally move out of the investigative stage and move into an on-going phase. This also means we get a new case worker. Our case has been transitioning to a new worker for over 3 weeks now...I'm still waiting to hear from someone.

Before our case worker switched the file she gave me an update and then asked me if we were interested in adopting the twins to which I replied "Yes, of course!". I was flying high the rest of our conversation until she so nonchalantly said at the end "Oh, and there are some out of state relatives interested in adopting them too." That crashed my hopes pretty quickly so now I'm back to taking one day at a time.

This month has been more difficult for me with the supervised visits. Right now there are 2 visits a week and both parents can attend together. It seems like I either get a note or a verbal complaint/concern after every visit. On top of that the twins come home fussy and starving after the majority of their visits even though I'm always told they "just ate before we left". The most recent note complained about FIVE different things. One of the items birth mom knew that I had already addressed because I sent a note telling her I had already gone to the doctor for it. Another concern of hers is that the babies smell and she wants to know how often I bathe them. As far as I've been told I shouldn't bathe them everyday because it'll dry out their skin and according to the doctor it's not necessary to bathe them everyday because they aren't crawling or walking anyway. Birth mom again told me to take both babies to the doctor for her concerns (I should start a tally). Since the two major things in her note I had already addressed with the doctor the day before, I'm not going back until the next scheduled appointment.

Dealing with birth mom's notes is one thing but its even more frustrating because the case aide seems to support birth mom's accusations. On top of that, she's very uneducated about babies which seems odd since her entire job is to transport children and supervise visits. She asked the daycare why the babies always sleep on their backs and she asked me why baby boy was losing some of his hair.

As much as I get frustrated, everything just melts away when I hold one of them in my arms. This morning baby boy woke at 4am and after he finished his bottle he just cuddled with me - there is nothing like cuddling with a tiny baby in his cute little footy, fleece pajamas. Those are the moments that make me keep fighting.

MILESTONES:

• First Thanksgiving
• First road trip (to Yuma for Thanksgiving!)
• Baby Boy has started hitting his giraffe toy that hangs in his carseat
• Both babies can sit in the Bumbo chair unassisted
• Baby Girl can roll onto her side
• Both babies can lift their heads when on tummy time
• Baby Girl is on the verge of laughing
• First weekend alone with Mommy (Jon was in Chicago for a death in the family)
• First weekend alone with Daddy (I was running a half marathon in Las Vegas)

OFFICIALLY Certified Foster Parents

We PASSED! The state has looked into our home life, our dog, our finances, our upbringing, our marriage, our criminal history and found nothing too concerning. So it's official! We are finally licensed foster/adoption parents!!! The news came last Thursday, August 29th. 

On Friday morning I called our licensing agent and discussed preferences and placement lists. We decided to accept children ages 0-3 as long as one is under the age of 1. After numerous other questions, we also decided to be placed on the immediate placement list so literally a call could come at any time. That's exactly what our agency said to us and she wasn't lying.

Friday around 3pm, I received our first placement call. I knew it was a placement call before I answered the phone, I'm not sure why but I just knew. I'm glad I did because CPS does not do anything to help you determine if this is the child for your family or not. This is how the phone call went: 

     CPS: "Hi my name is ____ from Child Protective Services. I have a 1 year old boy that I was wondering if you could take."
     Tina: ............. (attempting to remember our classes and what they told us to ask)........"Ummm do you know why they are being removed from the home?"
     CPS: "Yes, ___________ on his younger, 5 month old brother; his 4 year old brother has already been placed"
     Tina: (Quickly doing the math on a 1 year old and a 5 month old....doesn't really add up) "Is he exactly 1 year old or is he younger or older? What ethnicity is he? Where is the 5 month old?" (I caught on quickly, CPS knows a lot but they try to tell you nothing)
     CPS: "He's a little over a year, he was born on March 8th"
     Tina: (Confused because I'm pretty sure that means he's almost 18 months which is very different than a 1 year old) "We are going to have to decline, he isn't within our preferences."
     CPS: "Okay, thank you for your time."

We had heard CPS was typically pushy and didn't like when you declined but this guy wasn't upset at all, he was very polite which is what I would hope. The excitement of Friday didn't end there. At 9pm that evening Jon received our 2nd placement call. It went very similar to the first except this CPS agent didn't have hardly any information. We also realized at this point that our preferences must not be in the system because we again turned the children down due to not meeting our preferences. Jon asked the CPS agent if our preferences were in there and she said no so she updated them. Since that call, we haven't heard anything. The excitement of the calls and being licensed have really made the next 2 days difficult because now we feel mentally ready but nothing has happened. Every time Jon's phone rings, we both get that little bolt of adrenaline/excitement. 

We will definitely update once we accept our first placement but until then I wanted to remind everyone of some rules we have to follow regarding confidentiality.

1. You won't see pictures on this blog, or on Facebook or Instagram, with any identifying details (i.e. no faces). Once we have adopted the children pictures are fair game!
2. This also means that you cannot take pictures of our children either. I know it'll be hard, but remember these are someone else's kid's until we adopt and we can't have pictures floating around due to confidentiality. Again, once the adoption is finalized, start snapping away!
3. Close family and friends will know the children and their names because they will be attending events with us, however please refrain from using their names in the online world due to confidentiality. 
4. Please do not ask us why the children came into our care. If it is necessary for you to know, you will know but otherwise just treat them like any other niece, nephew, grandchild, or kid.
5. We will be unable to post specifics about the case or court details. Major decisions can be posted in a general overview but all the details are kept confidential to protect the children. Details of their cases are their own to share, as they see fit (and when they can talk).

We look forward to sharing the next steps of our journey with everyone! Please keep us in your thoughts while we await our life changing phone call!

Medically Complex 3 of 3

This past Saturday we completed our last training class! 

We covered the ways to nurture and discipline a child with special needs. The majority of this was a repeat of PS MAPPS which was frustrating to sit through again.

The interesting part of this class was the talk about taking care of ourselves as foster parents. So far all the classes are concerned with the children and what's best for the child you are caring for so it was definitely different to talk about making sure we take care of ourselves and the grieving process we'll go through when a child reunites with a parent.

Here's our "Road to Good Self-Care"

• Give yourself permission to need something
• Keep it simple
• Don't compare yourself to others
• Plan the hardest part of your day ahead of time
• Join a parent support group
• Have down time every day
• Plan things to look forward to
• Accentuate the positive

As part of taking care of ourselves we discussed how to use respite care and what information we would need to provide them. 

And finally we discussed important milestones of children so we can hopefully be proactive about identifying a child that is behind and needs additional help.

After 15 more hours of training, we graduated!

License countdown: Somewhere between 8 to 23 days!

There probably won't be another update until we get fully licensed and then it'll be whenever the BIG day is. Keep us in your thoughts as our lives are about to drastically change!

Medically Complex 2 of 3

This week we discussed diagnosis, diseases & conditions. We discussed everything from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), to Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) to Substance Exposed Neonatal (SEN) and lots of others in between.

FAS causes mental and physical defects and is typically a chronic disease. The most interesting thing I learned about this is a physical defect of a child with FAS is a smooth philtrum. After learning this, it's hard not to look at adults for this symptom.

An infant with SEN is typically something the child can overcome and grow out of and doesn't leave physical defects. These children can have withdrawal symptoms beginning at 72 hours and can continue for up to 6 months. They are typically easily irritable and sensitive to light, sound, and smells. We learned different ways to help calm and sooth these infants such as speaking quietly and turning down lights.

These instructors are definitely interested in keeping us involved. This week we had a "Myth or Fact" worksheet to keep us awake. Here are a couple of the questions:

• You can catch poison ivy from someone who has it. 
• Myth or Fact
• It's easier for a couple to conceive if the man wears boxer shorts instead of briefs
• Myth or Fact
• Eating turkey causes drowsiness
• Myth or Fact
• Before modern pregnancy tests, if a rabbit injected with a woman's urine died, the woman was pregnant.
• Myth or Fact
• Your heart stops beating every time you sneeze.
• Myth or Fact
• Homemade chicken soup is good for a cold.
• Myth or Fact

Answers to come!

One more class and then we are set. I think one of the only things we have left to do is practice installing the car seat into our vehicles so we aren't frantically trying to figure it out on our way to pick up a child.

35 days or less until we are licensed!

Medically Complex 1 of 3

Yesterday we attended our first of three Medically Complex classes. We covered how quickly we should have an EPST ( Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and treatment) Exam after accepting a placement along with proper medication administration and the different medical resources available to us as foster parents.

Some of it covered the same topics as Medication Administration but a review can't hurt when it comes to medical assistance. Our teachers for this course are much better than the original PS MAPPS course. They are much better at keeping us involved. Such as training us on properly removing gloves. We had to wear gloves, have chocolate syrup poured on them, smear it around, then properly remove them without getting any chocolate syrup on ourselves or the desks! Another way they kept us involved was with proper medication administration. Each group received 3 "prescription" bottles and had to identify the thing that was wrong with the prescription. Sometimes there was a peanut allergy listed on the label and then there were peanut M&Ms as "pills" in the bottle or the expiration date had passed, etc.

We also got out of this class earlier than any of our other classes so all and in all it wasn't too bad. Keep posted for next week's update!

42 days or less until we are licensed!

The Countdown Begins

Just wanted to give a quick update, we had some set backs with our license application. Nothing major, just getting forms updated by doctors which can take awhile because doctors are so busy.

However, we are finally done with the paperwork and our license application has officially been submitted as of July 31st!

In 45-60 30-45 days we will officially be licensed foster/adoption parents!

Technically 59 44 days today...

Home Study (aka 4 hour interview with our agency)

The final item before our paperwork is submitted to the licensing board is a 4 hour interview with our licensing specialist. After 5 hours of First Aid/CPR classes, 3 hours of state online portal forms, 15+ hours of paperwork, and over 30 hours of PS MAPPS courses, I didn't understand what else could be left to ask us. We've already talked about losses in our lives, how we were raised, how we met, detailed out our finances, and talked about how we plan to raise children, what else could be left? I had a slight gut feeling that numerous things were going to be repeated from earlier paperwork.

Unfortounately I was right. Luckily our licensing specialist is nice and down to earth so it wasn't awful and she was able to take the 4 hours down to 3 hours and 15 minutes. Here's a quick rundown of the questions we were asked:

Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
Have you ever filed for bankruptcy?
Do you think you can financially support a child?
Describe your parents.
How often do you talk to your parents?
How were you disciplined growing up?
Do you plan to parent the same as your parents did? Why or why not?
Describe each sibling's personality.
How was your relationship with each sibling growing up?
How is your relationship with each sibling now?
What is your biggest accomplishment/happiest moment in life?
How did you two meet?
How do you think you make a good wife/husband?
How do you think your wife/husband shows you love and affection?
Have you ever smoked cigarates or done drugs?
Do you drink? How often?
What is the biggest loss that's occured in your life?
Do you have a support system?
What discpline methods do you plan to use?
How many times will you try something with a child before you give up?

After all the questions, she did a quick walk through of our house. Then she had us sign paperwork stating she didn't see any concerns with us and that our paperwork is getting submitted for licensure. I'd say we passed with flying colors!

It'll probably be submitted within the next week and then it'll take 30-45 days to be fully licensed!

So now we just wait...until August. We have 3 more classes called Medically Fragile that are an agency specific requirement since we are taking in children under the age of 2. We'll keep you updated!

Dr. Seuss Room

I'm amazed that in 2 short months we went from a guest room and office to full blown children's room and office/guest room. After we picked the theme (Dr. Seuss in case you missed the last few posts), it came down to selecting colors. We already knew we wanted to do a grass/sky scene so we had something to stick the decals on. Check out the decals here: Dr. Seuss decals! Then we went paint shopping!

And started painting the sky....

Well first comes the typical name painting on the walls - no room is complete without a Lyons stamp! "Baby" is a custom made blue to match the colors in the Dr. Seuss decals. "Lyons" is a traditional light blue. It took awhile to choose as the Dr. Seuss blue was very vibrant and fun but in the end we decided on a more sky blue color. 

The room sat with just the sky blue and green, grassy hills for weeks while Jon pulled off the pale yellow base boards and nailed on new, fancy white base boards. For those that don't know, our house was flipped and the paint job was awful! They painted EVERYTHING this disgusting pale yellow color. By everything, I mean base boards, window trim, air vents, closets....literally everything! As we update rooms, we are slowly fixing their laziness.

After the adoption shower, it was finally time to start putting the room together. Jon put together the crib and toddler bed with Maggie's help of course. 

I worked on putting the books on the bookshelf, taking apart the diaper cakes, putting diapers away, putting sheets on mattresses, organizing toys, etc. Look how tiny little kid clothes are!

Yesterday we got to put the finishing touches on the room. Dr. Seuss decals went up, truffula trees went up and picture frames went up. We can now say we are officially ready for our children!!

Interesting fact: The dresser in this picture is the dresser my parents used to change me!

The curtains in this picture were made by my mom. They have little truffula trees on them.
The pink, yellow, & blue truffula trees in the corner are from our adoption shower!

What do you think of our future children's room?

Foster/Adoption Shower

This past Saturday our families threw us a foster/adoption shower. Think baby shower but the woman isn't pregnant, otherwise pretty much the same idea. I was amazed to see that we had over 50 people show up (spouses & kids were invited)! 

The food was what else but NACHOS! Jon's family brought all the makings for nachos including beef AND chicken! There were chips, cheese, beans, jalapenos, tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream, salsa, and guacamole. Jon and I have a strange addiction to nachos, it all began when we were dating...there's a good story behind that one. Ask us about it sometime!

The theme was Dr. Seuss of course. My mom and sister did a superb job transforming the room into a Dr. Seuss wonderland. They had truffula trees hanging from the ceiling, Dr. Seuss activity pages for placemats, Dr. Seuss books for center pieces, green (deviled) eggs & ham, Cat in the Hat cake, Thing 1 & Thing 2 cake, Lorax punch and much much more!

Green (deviled) eggs & ham

One Fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish,
Will you have a goldfish?

The Truffula trees

Table settings & Karl, Kari & Stephanie

The Lorax punch

CAKES: Thing 1, Thing 2 & 2 baby things, Cat in the Hat,
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish NEW fish! 

Lorax nutter butters

Welcome New Lyon Fish banner

After some socializing and eating we played our first game. Dr. Seuss quotes with missing words. Of course Jenna Cochran, first grade teacher, won! She got all of them but 1! The second game was guessing how many goldfish and worms were in a jar. Kris Lyons won the goldfish and Ron Lobitz won the worms. I'm not much of a baby shower game person so my mom kept it short and sweet at 2 games.

Then we opened presents so the kids could go out to the pool and swim. We received so many wonderful things. Bath toys, books, car seats, stroller, mattress, diapers, stuffed animals, crib, baby photo albums, baby learning videos, toys, gift cards, etc! We are so thankful for our wonderful friends and family that are helping us on our adventure!

The gift table

Diaper tricycle made by my mom

Barn my dad fixed up

I hope our child loves to read because we received piles of books! We didn't originally plan to buy a bookshelf but now we'll need one. I love reading so I'm excited to open each of these books when I have little ones to read to!

 After we opened gifts, we socialized a bit more and then headed down to the pool for some fun! It was an amazing evening and we are so very thankful for all the hard work our families put into it and for all our friends and family that came to celebrate with us!

The only thing I regret is not taking more pictures! I'm missing pictures of people, if anyone has any please e-mail them to me!

Medication Administration

Last night was our last class for this PS MAPP section. (We still have Medically Fragile in August but that won't hold up our licensure as that is a licensing agency requirement verses a state requirement.)

The topic last night was Medication Administration and was the only class that had a test. We were given the test at the beginning of class and told that it would mirror the powerpoint. Sadly, I still saw people leaning over and copying from their neighbor. If you can't answer some simple true/false and fill in the blank questions that are almost verbatim off a PowerPoint then I don't think you should be parenting. Luckily for them, I don't make the requirements otherwise I would have failed some people.

Most of what we covered is pretty basic stuff. Wash your hands before administering, explain what you are doing, check the labels, make sure there are no funny pills mixed in with the regular, you know, the norm. Then we started walking through the documentation required. If you know me, you know I am OCD about being organized but even I am overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork we'll be completing. If you're curious on how many forms I get to keep track of here's the  DES foster parent forms website. Although the only form that appears to be missing is the medication one.

For med's alone, I have to document every single time I or someone else give the child any meds including over the counter (cough medicines, ointments, aspirin, tums, etc). According to our instructor this apparently includes sunscreen. Last time I checked, sunscreen wasn't considered a medicine but what do I know? Don't mind me if you see me with a child and my head in a tablet, I'm probably documenting that we just put some aloe on the child because we forgot to use sunscreen because I didn't have time to document it so now we have a burnt child. That's another thing, most of these forms have to be signed so we are not sure if they can be done electronically. We are going to look into it and then I'll just carry a tablet around instead of a binder full of silly paperwork. Someone needs to tell DES to get with the 21st Century!






Needless to say, Jon and I passed our exams and received our certificates for both PS MAPP's and Med Admin. Look how pretty they are! We worked so hard for these! 

For all our loyal blog readers, you get a sneak peek at a little project Jon and I have been keeping secret. We've been looking for a way to make the foster/adoption announcement public (right now it's mostly close friends and family) and we thought, why not do a foster/adoption photo shoot? So we did and we just got the pictures back. Here's a sneak peek of our soon to be official announcement:

We are excited to share all the photos very soon...

I'm not sure how often our updates will come now that our main classes are completed but I will still try to do things every couple of weeks so no one gets bored :)