Phone Photo Friday

11/21/2014

I haven’t been able to get my act together to finish a post since Monday so I’m using Phone Photo Friday to share two Instagram posts from earlier this week from past of the #knittogetherbyadoption Photo-a-Day.

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#knittogetherbyadoption Day 16: Quote. I have a file with lots of favorite quotes and this one caught my eye today because we keep hearing so many ignorant comments now that we’re expecting “one of our own.” We’ve had the honor of being mom and dad to six children and each one has been loved as our own and as a full member of our family. When we adopted Alianna she forever and ever became ours, fully our daughter just as if I gave birth to her. I know people don’t mean to be offensive but they need to realize their choice of words disrespects our daughter and our family and diminishes her status as our daughter, our real daughter, our own daughter.

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#knittogetherbyadoption Day 17: If you really knew me… You would know that I would be just as excited about adopting again as I am about the baby in my belly. My excitement stems from the fact that we’re adding another permanent family member. And while I am enjoying my first pregnancy I also have a deep desire to adopt again. If you really knew me, you’d know that adoption wasn’t our back up plan. We chose to become foster parents as soon as God opened our eyes to the need and we made that our first path into parenthood. If you really knew me, you’d know that the temptation to step away from foster parenting is real. It would be easy to take a break, and we might. But the truth is, we don’t feel released yet. Just yesterday we heard of a child abuse incident that happened close to home and now I can’t fathom going off the call list. Until more people step up to take care of these kids in our community or until people stop hurting children, I just don’t know how I could walk away and still sleep at night.

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Brother-Sister-Friends Forever

11/17/2014

After living for three months as (foster) brother and sister in the summer of 2013, Termain and Alianna will always think of each other as brother-sister-friends it seems, and I hope it stays that way. (He was originally nicknamed Buzz Lightyear here.) I’m beyond grateful to his mom allowing us to stay a part of their lives as friends (that still feel a lot like family) over a year after they were officially reunified. A couple Saturdays ago we had the privilege of babysitting Termain for several hours. We get together every few months but this is the first time he was with us without his mom. We were all a little nervous about how he’d do, since being at our house stirs up a lot of traumatic memories from the time he was separated from his mom. Thankfully, he did great! He and Ali play so well together and their love for each other is obvious.

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I just realized I never shared the photos from our last visit with them at Baby Vegas (AKA Chuck E Cheese) for his 4th birthday back in September. They wanted to do every game together.

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Phone Photo Friday

11/14/2014

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Home Tour: Guest Room

11/13/2014

In a matter of five minutes our Next Kid’s Room can be converted into a guest room by removing the portable crib, crib storage box, changing pad and diaper changing supply cart.

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This little night stand was bought at a yard sale and made over when I was putting together our first kids’ room back in 2011. I like this clock in here because it has a sleep timer with ocean sounds, rain or radio.

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I debated about leaving the rocking chair, but it could be moved out easily as well. (It’s currently only $78.25 on Amazon!)

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The black acoustic guitar was a gift from my parents on my 16th birthday. My professional guitarist husband thinks it’s trash but I say it’s sentimental. If any of our guests get inspired to bang out some tunes on a cheap old guitar with rusty strings, they can feel free. Otherwise, it’s art.

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This mid-century modern dresser was a vintage store score from our first kids’ room as well. I love it because it’s changing table height (which is why I moved it into this room) but also because it’s beautiful, sturdy, solid wood and in great condition. I picked up the bookshelf from a thrift store and gave it a new life with paint to match the nightstand and a stained plywood back.

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RELATED POSTS:

Home Tour: Next Kid’s (or Kids’) Room (this room with the baby elements added back in)

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God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

11/12/2014

Jason’s acoustic guitar album Christmas Classics has been on rotation in my iTunes for a couple weeks already. I haven’t decorated the house yet or taken a photo for our Christmas cards, but Christmas music? Yes. I started playing it in October. Jason’s album came out last October and this year he made a couple of videos to go along with it. Here’s the first one for the song “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

I love it so much! If you like it even just a little bit, we hope you’ll consider getting the whole album through JasonAhlbrandt.com or iTunes. And please share this video with everyone you know! 😉

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World Adoption Day

11/11/2014

Sunday as I was skimming my Instagram I discovered that it was the first ever World Adoption Day. Everyone is encouraged to show their support of adoption and celebration of family by drawing a smiley face on your palm. Jason was out of town but Ali and I jumped into the fun. Ali was pretty excited about the smiley faces and wanted to show everyone at church that we had matching hands.

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16 Week Froggie Update

11/10/2014

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Actually it’s 17 weeks now, but I intended to write this last week. My OB check ups are every 4 weeks so last week I had another one. Everything is perfect – baby’s heart rate, the way my body is growing, my blood pressure, etc. Thank you, Jesus! A few days before the start of week 16 something very exciting happened – we started to feel baby Froggie moving! For a couple days I had been occasionally feeling flutters but I wasn’t sure if was Froggie, since this is my first pregnancy and it’s early. One night Jason had his ear up to my belly, talking to baby and listening to the sloshing sounds in response. I was feeling little flutters that corresponded to the sounds he was hearing and then POP! He felt a push against his cheek at the same moment I definitely felt a little push from the inside. So neat! A week later I’m still feeling similar little flutters a few times a day, sometimes it’s as frequent as the “popcorn popping” feeling I’ve read about. My next check up and our big ultrasound appointment is at 20 weeks in the first week of December. Big sister Ali is excited to come along to that appointment both to see her little sibling on the screen and to find out what all these check ups are about. We’ve decided we’re going to hold the gender reveal surprise until Christmas Day. That should be very exciting and memorable. Now I can’t wait until Christmas! We’re hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house so I’m using all my self-control to resist decorating the house for Christmas before Thanksgiving. (As if it’ll make Christmas come sooner!)

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At 16 weeks gestation, a baby is about the size of an avocado (at least in length, from head to rump). In honor of that, I ate a lot of avocados. We also had a visit from a real frog. Jason found this cute little guy while he was cutting back from elephant ear plants in the courtyard. He just missed getting his butt chopped off!

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Phone Photo Friday

11/07/2014

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Home Tour: Next Kid’s (or Kids’) Room

11/04/2014

This room makeover is finally complete and ready for our next inhabitants—our next foster placement, baby Froggie due in April or overnight guests. The room includes the rocker I bought when baby Alianna arrived. We replaced the shower curtain we’ve been using in our foster kids’ room for the past 3 years with these textured green light-blocking curtains from Target.

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I stuck to my floor plan pretty closely but I decided that a footstool took up unnecessary space.

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The double bed is low and close enough to be used in place of a footstool.

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A second rug gives a fair amount of soft play space on the floor. The poster is by French Paper Co. and was a gift from my art school bestie, Renata, for our first kids room.

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I’m still a very big fan of this crib, which I nominated as The Ideal Crib for Foster Parents last year. It’s smaller than a typical crib and can easily be folded down to move into another room or store flat to about a 6″ depth. The poster and storage toy box are from IKEA.

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That blank spot above the dresser/changing table is begging for some artwork. Both rugs in this room are from IKEA. The vintage metal cart between the bookshelf and dresser holds diaper changing supplies, burp cloths, bibs and receiving blankets. It’s easy to move around as needed and is still stocked from Pumpkin.

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The bulletin board above the bookshelf is a collage of family photos, separated by “Who Lives Here” on the left side and photos of our former foster children on the right side. I have temporarily hanging here the first and so far only gift I have bought for our belly baby “Froggie.” It’s such a simple phrase to put on a bib but for foster and adoptive parents it’s always loaded… because we are not the only mom and dad in those cases. With baby Froggie, for the first time, we’re the only Mom and Dad. Our baby can wear this bib without anyone getting offended, feeling left out or jealous, and without raising any questions (unless we’re questioning his or her feelings about Jason and me, I suppose!).

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I’ll come back soon with a second part of this room tour when the room is converted into a guest room. I don’t think I mentioned in previous posts that this room is approximately 10′ x 12′. It can accommodate three people with a double bed and crib, night stand, dresser, bookshelf, rocking chair and standard size closet.

RELATED POSTS:

A Room for Baby… or Whoever Arrives Next (my current mood board and floor plan for this room)

A Room for Baby… or Whoever Arrives Next – Part 2 (progress photos)

Room to Grow: Making a Bedroom for Foster Kids (this room a year and a half ago before it was occupied by Buzz and then later Bee, Firefly and Pumpkin.)

Preparing a Bedroom for Foster Kids: Furniture & Decor (planning our first bedroom for foster children at our last house)

Preparing for Foster Kids: Bedroom Tour (photos of the above mentioned room that ended up generating a lot of interest on Apartment Therapy)

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Dropping Anchors

11/03/2014

 

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I’m excited and honored to be part of a new blog written by a group of foster moms (and hopefully some other perspectives, too) called Dropping Anchors. I wrote the first post which went live on Saturday, called These Weirdos Are My Tribe. Today there’s an excellent post written by my friend Kate which explains What It Means to Drop Anchors. I’d love for you to check it out and let me know what you think!

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