Fostering Questions–Lifebooks.

I’m a little bit (oooorrrr, a lot) behind on questions I’ve gotten about fostering.  Life has been crazy, and has no signs of slowing down, but I will try to answer what I can!

 

  I got a question about lifebooks recently:

 

Are you required to make life books for your foster kids? (It's expected of all foster parents in my state.) If so, any tips for keeping them up to date and efficient?

 

I’m not sure I’m the person to ask as far as keeping lifebooks ‘up to date’ as little in my life stays that way!  BUT, yes we are required to make lifebooks, and I think they are vital for kids who spend time in foster care.

Our very first placement called me on the phone and went through her lifebook page by page with me for at least a year after they left.  It meant so much to her to be able to go back and confirm those memories with me. 

 

With that said, we do lifebooks a little bit differently than most people do.  If I scrapbooked our lifebooks, they would never happen.  I don’t get much time to sit down and do anything – and if there are craft supplies involved my kids quickly make sure it becomes pure chaos.

 

So, I actually choose to make our lifebooks on shutterfly.com.  That way I can upload pictures and quickly make pages for different events, save it, and come back to it later.  It’s easy for me to upload the pictures, and putting it together happens pretty quickly.  Then, when kids leave, I just order a copy – if they leave quickly, I have it shipped to wherever they are going.  It also makes it easy for me to order a second copy for our family so that we have the memories also.  It’s possible that it’s a little more expensive that putting it together other ways, but I think they will last well, and it’s worth the ease and actually getting them done.

For anything that I want to stick in the lifebook that can’t be photographed or scanned in, I just get one of those big plastic envelopes that they sell with scrapbooking supplies and put it in the back of the book to stick it all in.

 

 

So….that’s how I do lifebooks!  Anyone else have any tips?

Apple Picking.

 

I always went apple picking growing up.  Then we’d come home and make apple pies and cinnamon rolls with the leftover pie crust.  I love it, and it seems like great kick off to fall – and one of my favorite parts of having a family is building our own traditions and memories.

After the drought this year, there weren’t tons of apples, but we went and picked our peck.

 

 

A belly pic, since I have been so painfully negligent at documenting this pregnancy.  25 weeks this week!

 

This is the part during apple picking where the girls were so ridiculously cute with this cat that I instantly became sure that our family was in need of another feline.

This is why it’s good that these are the kinds of decisions that we let sit for a while.

 

The girls looooved the chickens (although I didn’t walk away thinking we needed a chicken.)  Especially Tootaw.  She said the chickens were her favorite part of apple picking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So proud that she picked her own apple!

 

 

Sylvia: These apples are so heavy!  Let’s do teamwork!

 

 

 

In our family, no trip anywhere would be complete without doing some swinging.

 

My (very small) daredevil.

 

Our loot.  Which turned into a very tasty pie.

Making Memories

When we started fostering, Brian and I decided that we wanted to start some kind of tradition with the kids placed with us that would be a way for both of us to always remember our time together.  We decided that we would take any kids that were with us long term to a ceramics studio (similar to this) to paint something to keep.

When we go, our kids get to pick something fun for them to paint that they can keep, and we also have them paint a light switch cover or receptacle cover that we can put in our house.  Our house is slowly becoming decorated with memories, bittersweet.  Everytime I notice one of the covers it reminds me of our time with one of our kids, and reminds me to pray for them as well.

By luck, we happened to take Jae to the ceramics studio the night before he left.

 

He chose to paint a box shaped like a tank.

 

And he chose the colors and the design of the light switch cover that he painted.

 

Which now decorates our hallway.

 

Miss you Jae.  Miss you Zee.  Love you.