plus 1

We are adding another teen to our family . She is 13 and waiting for someplace to call home. Her blog name will be Sunday. Sunday is currently living in a group home in the city. We had a family sit down to talk about the pros and cons last night and to my surprise even our 16 year old is on board. She spent two weeks at the same group home and wants to help out another child wanting to get away from that environment. She did not want me to pick up her bio sister from the same place when she disrupted from her foster home because of false allegations. She said it would be to much drama.
So the deal is we already committed to providing respite for our friends two toddlers for the weekend bumping us up to six children so we can not formally accept her as a full time placement until the boys go home on Sunday. Our caseworker is going to fax a release form to the group home so I can host her during daytime hours until Monday morning when she can formally be released to me. Our wonderful charter school has two eighth grade spots available so we will head over to the school on Monday for a tour and to get her enrolled.
The weekend should be interesting with seven children. I plan on only leaving the house for Soccer and Church.

TPR Hearing in the morning

Life has flown by since I last posted. We have had six placements since becoming foster parents. Growing so fast was a huge undertaking. I am proud of how we as a family handled all of the changes.
Currently we have four children at home. Our girls ages 6 and 2. Along with two children that joined our family through fostering. We where blessed with our first teen at the end on June a 16 year old girl. River is still with us his goal is now adoption and we are going to our second hearing in the morning.
His first hearing was postponed for a month because after being in care for 16 months his mom decided to try to get sober and work her case plan. Her efforts only lasted two weeks. In the seven months River has been with us she has only been able to attend two visits those where during the time she was sober. The last time we where in court her plan was to try to retain private council.
I have let the powers that be know that we are still willing to participate in an open adoption on some level. What I have come up with is to send photos to a P.O. Box quarterly. I'm not sure if that is something she can even maintain given her current situation.
I worry about her. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day. I hope that she shows up. I pray that she is safe.