Long story short: I haven't quilted much since we finally moved into our new house. I've made two quilts: both toddler sized and to be donated to specific foster children where the quilts had one side with their name and the other side with their favorite thing (space for one, princesses for the other). I haven't really made anything with the intent to sell and honestly find it hard to make the time to quilt just for fun.
Regarding the adoption process...We'd chosen to apply to become a foster family. There have been so.many.issues with this. Our application is in and in theory should be approved shortly (although in theory it should've been sent in almost six months ago and things keep getting delayed). I keep trying to focus on the fact that it took us 2.5 years to get pregnant with Gabe...and his timing ended up being perfect...and/or how Hux happened in our last month of trying and his timing was perfect too. I wasn't expecting it to be easy, but the issues (specifically with our agency) have been beyond frustrating. That said, I'm trying to focus on other things for now. No more (or at least very little) energy will be spent on fostering or adopting in the future until we're actually licensed. When we turned in our first set of paperwork to become a foster family, I knew I wasn't ready to adopt yet (but that was eight months ago now). Hux is now over a year old and Gabriel just started preschool outside of the home (he wasn't doing well after we moved here and were unable to find friends his age that we could routinely meet up with) and will be going to school three full days at the beginning of the schoolyear. My theory on full days instead of his current three hour days is that I will be able to schedule foster or Hux appts during that time, volunteer during that time, maybe get a part time job if I find something that works well with us in the field I'm wanting to go into at some point. Gabe has really been loving preschool and we haven't had a lot of problems (there have been issues with him being upset that it's time to leave and some issues with other kids bullying him which is insane to me because they're all 3-5 years old!). He's loving it and with his scholarship, it shouldn't cost *that* much more for full days but will make things way easier once we actually have a foster.
Financially, we're pretty okay. We stick to our strict budget, but have it in the budget that we can do fun things every once in a while. I love that we have a long-term savings for both boys and that we have money set aside each month for a minivan fund (we'd like to be able to foster and at some point adopt a sibling set if possible, but we won't be able to do that until we have more car space; I'm feeling kinda dumb for having purchased the Jeep slightly over a year ago; it *does* more easily fit three carseats/booster seats, but when our goal was always to have 3-5 kids I don't know why I thought a Jeep was a good idea). I have a goal amount and we're trying to throw as much as possible into that fund while still being able to have fun with the boys (go out to eat once a month, Gabe had swim lessons last month, etc). It will take quite a while to save up the money, but as of now that's our main goal.
I'll be honest: we still haven't 100% cut out the idea of adopting internationally. I still kinda love the idea of it. However, on our current income, that just won't be possible. So until then, our goal is to help families who are going through the difficult transition of foster care. I've read a LOT about it and know it'll be crazy hard for the kiddos...and crazy hard for the parents...and crazy hard for us. But ever since I got pregnant with Hux, this has been on our hearts. I'm unsure if we're meant to help reunite one family or several. I'm unsure if this will lead us to adopt from foster care or if we're simply meant to foster. I'm trying to keep an open mind and heart about it and we'll just see how it goes. But I can't help being extremely terrified/nervous while also being crazy excited.
