Slowly By Slowly-Negrete Adoption

I would describe our home visit as uneventful! But the hours leading up to it were stressful! Aside from the craziness of cleaning, organizing, hanging pictures (thanks awesome sister Hayley for helping!) etc. the whole day today was nuts!! I went to work, my kids were unusually horrible and driving me crazy. No one would listen or focus, I thought I was going to loose my mind. Thankfully we had a dance class scheduled at the end of the day at then end of the day....until LOCKDOWN! As I picked my kids up from lunch, I noticed several circling sheriff's helicopters and many more sirens and knew it was coming. Moments later we are rushing kids into the classroom, locking doors, turning off the lights and staying quiet. I watched as the minutes crept by and realized the helicopters were still circling after more than an hour. Just before our normal dismissal time, the police allowed us out of lockdown to get kids home to their parents (all the while not knowing if the situation

Well it only took 4 days but all my teaching stuff has been moved to my new classroom!! My amazing master teacher gave me all her books/ materials when she retired after I student taught. We have been storing these for years and praying they would one day be used. 6th Grade just wasn't the place for all those "little kid books." But now there are little kids who are loving those books and we have empty closets!! The baby room is screaming to be filled with kid stuff...and kids!!!! (Don't tell Chris) My first week of teaching is almost over and it's been wonderfully exhausting. Boy oh boy can 8 year olds talk. They don't need any kind of an audience to have a full conversation. Everything is made into a toy. And, maybe I'm ignorant, but do all 8 year old boys put EVERYTHING in their mouth? Paper, tape, erasers, paper clips...literally anything! I bet I said 100 times today "spit out whatever is in your mouth." I don't even ask any

Remember a few posts back..."What a Difference a Year Makes." Well that's all still great and true but today has blown me away. It is awesome to serve a God who works on long and short schedules...like really short...less than 6 hours short! I've been struggling a lot the last few weeks with being unemployed. I want to trust that I am not defined by my job but when my job is my passion and uses my gifts it's hard to separate. Yesterday and today I couldn't shake the "God what are you doing? Are you going to provide me a job? Are you listening to my pleading, do you hear my desperation?"  I was offered a position earlier this week that only paid $10 an hour and was basically babysitting and I've questioned God, "am I meant to take a low paying, boring (for me) job? Are you asking me to depend on you more and more financially??" Neither Chris or I felt peace accepting this job so I turned it down but I've second guessed whehter it w

This post may be super boring for you but I searched and searched for information on what social workers ask during the home study process. My hope is this alleviates some fear and stress over "preparing" for the interviews. Today I had my individual interview for our home study. Both Chris and I were supposed to be interrogated interviewed but he had to work instead so we can go to a wedding on Saturday. He will make his up on the 26th or 28th and he'll do it on the same day as our home inspection part!! That means we should be wrapping this whole thing up by the end of the month!! After that, our work is done and our social workers will be writing our home study. So a quick recap of my interview. She asked: About my relationship with all family members and how they feel about our adoption.  About my parent's marriage and how I perceived it.  About my parents/siblings occupations, where they lived, how old they are, where I am in birth order, their temperament