invisible children

For those who don't know we are a foster family.  Patience is our Bio daughter and Zachary is adopted but we also have two more little faces here with us. Now they are not legally our children. I am not allowed to post pictures of them or tell much at all about them. This can be very challenging because they are REAL children and they REALLY live here with us and are very much a part of our family. They do cute stuff all the time that I would love to post but can't.  We have birthday parties and they are in almost all of our pictures. It is hard to find pics of just Patience and Zack. They go everywhere with us and we are their Mommy and Daddy just the same. Right now they are not officially ours and some legal things have to happen for them to become legally ours but we plan to adopt them if we are asked. 
Foster care is not always easy. Sometimes it can be very challenging. I don't share negative things. I just don't. If I can't spin it toward the positive, I keep my mouth shut.  So I have been staying very quiet for the past few months.  I want this blog to be 'real'. And I want to share our lives in a small way but it is not in me to put my personal issues out there for scrutiny.  That said Mike and I are in agreement that for now and maybe forever we will not be taking any new foster children.  It is a prayerfully considered decision and we KNOW that we have helped many children in difficult situations.  We KNOW we have made a difference in many families and children's lives.  We know what foster care means. We know it is supposed to be temporary.  God led us to foster care and we did it with gusto!  We feel now that Tobias and Talia are coming home in a few months it is time to just let us be us for a while.  I actually turned down a placement recently for a newborn baby boy.  I love babies and it was hard but after I did it...  I knew I had made the right call.  We will still do our training. We will still do childcare and respite.  We will still do what we can to be part of the solution to a huge problem.  I actually like doing foster care for the most part. It does have its drawbacks though.  We will still have our two here though this is only about us not taking any additional children.  I do want to say though that if you are interested in doing foster care to go for it! Homes are desperately needed for children in need.