oh how I love thee,,,,

Due to the picture below you might assume my title means that I love my beautiful foster children and I do! But this post is for the Man....the one who has turned his life upside down to be a good Daddy. When I started dating Scott we talked a lot about our passions and desires for the future. He was the only man I know that wanted to adopt without a woman influencing his heart. I knew we would one day adopt or something like it (fostering).

We took all the classes and prepared best we could. But NOTHING,,, hear me say NOTHING could have prepared us for what was about to happen. I've heard people discuss how parenting is tough and how you are never ready. Add in that a 3 yr old that misses his mommy and is learning a whole new set of boundaries or a busy 1 year old that you feel victorious with if she is safe at the end of the day. Add in those two things on top of normal first time parenting woes and life gets pretty sticky all of a sudden.

Well, the first few weeks were the most exhausting and challenging weeks of our lives. Scott and I were just talking about how we've never felt the need of the Lord in our lives than now. We've gone through much sickness, discipline struggles, dealing with our own sinfulness, and missing all the time we had alone together before kids. We've been frustrated with ourselves on how we aren't as patient as we'd hoped and how this has been much harder than we ever imagined. But there is good news. We are making HEADWAY!!!

We are all learning more about each other and God is molding all our hearts to be more like His. We are seeing children obey (sometimes) and having loving moments where we are all soo happy to be in the same family!

Scott has dealt with all this very well even though the transition been harder on him than me. I was worried for the first few weeks how he would survive or if our marriage would be negatively effected by this choice. I am such a woman of little faith. He of course has survived and is doing a great job in his new position as "right now" Daddy (that is what we tell the kids about us). He is more and more patient everyday! He helps me be patient and loving when I'm disciplining too. He wipes noses, bottoms and scratches heads at night so everyone can go to sleep peacefully.

Last night I got home from working a very long day. He had them all evening and everyone was asleep when I got home. "N" had been vomiting all night and he had given her two baths. He'd rocked her back to sleep again and put her in our bed so we could change the sheets. I couldn't believe he'd dealt with all of that on his own with such grace and love.

What a husband and what a Daddy.

oh how i love thee....

and this little one is feeling much better this morning.

Praising God for all these blessings.