Lifesong: The Forgotten Initiative

Listen in as Jen Young, Forgotten Advocate, shares the impact one 'journey bag' had on a
precious foster care child,

"A caseworker called to say thank you for the journey bags
we delivered. She described one story of a child that came
into care with a sibling from a horrible situation that involved
a death of a parent. Caseworkers tried to keep the two brothers
together, but could not, which was very difficult for the boys.
 The caseworker said that when she gave them a journey
bag, their eyes lit up. She expressed how excited they were
to have their own bag and the joy it brought the kids really
touched the caseworker as well. 

I couldn't help but tell this caseworker about the 500 bags we received
from a church that put each of these bags together.  I told her that while
we're glad the bags are appreciated, needed and useful, God cares about
this child and took care of the details. His hand was upon this situation and
He knew just what this child needed!"

The "Journey Bag Project" is just one way The Forgotten Initiative, partnering
with Lifesong  for Orphans, seeks to bring joy and purpose to the foster care
community. 

To see how you can be involved or to learn more, please visit their website.

a quick word on cloth diapering

It is hard to believe that I have been cloth diapering my son for almost TWO YEARS now. There were times in the early days of cloth diapering that I thought maybe, just maybe, I had lost my mind & gotten in way over my head. But let me tell you, I have actually loved cloth diapering our son and I wouldn't have it any other way. We got into our diapering routine, washing routine, figured out which diapers work best for different things (nap, play, car, etc) and it's all just a part of normal life around here.

Now, I have a confession: for the first 9 months that we cloth diapered I used disposable wipes! My sweet hubby wasn't too sure about the whole cloth diapering thing and the thought of cloth wipes were just too much. So I obliged him and bought disposable wipes. {I mean, we were still saving TONS of money by not having to buy diapers.} The only problem was that I always ended up WASHING the disposable wipes because it was just easier to stick them in the diaper after each wipe. So after 9 months of this insanity I talked to Jon again and he finally said we could try cloth wipes.

Thirsties Wipes 6 pk source

Well I absolutely LOVE them!!! No more picking out washed disposable wipes from the washing machine! I have three 6-packs of Thirsties Fab Cloth Wipes (which were only like $12/each) and they are so soft and clean that lil bum so well! And it's plenty to get us to laundry day. One side is like velour and is the side I use like 90% of the time, the other side is a soft flannel. I just spray a lil bum cleaning solution on his backside, wipe, and it's all clean. Then I throw the wipe and diaper in our diaper pail and DONE.

To save even more money, I opted to make my own cloth wipes solution using these little squares you dissolve in boiling water rather than buying a bottle of solution for $10. A whole pack of solution cubes like "Baby Bum Drops" is only $13 for around 50 cubes and so far I've averaged only having to make new solution every 3 months (1 cube each time). So you can see it's incredibly cheap and the solution has natural anti-bacterial ingredients to clean that lil booty and leaves it smelling fresh and fruity!

I re-purposed some old disposable wipes containers to hold my cloth wipes and folded in half they fit perfectly in 2 containers.

I only wish we had started using cloth wipes from the start!!

Jonah would like to introduce you to...

his baby sister and baby brother!

{Ok, well we can't show you pictures of his REAL soon-to-be-siblings, but these 2 dolls have been "standing in" for them for months now. Jonah calls the girl "baby sisers" and the boy "baby bruder."}

Here's a typical day in our home:

just hanging out with baby sister and baby brother in the play room,

playing with "sisers" in her (soon-to-be) crib,

practicing giving his siblings lots of hugs,

and of course a little musical jam session with his siblings:

If you haven't been on our blog in a while you may be confused... no, I am not pregnant. We are expecting though! We're matched with a 1 year old boy and 2 1/2 month old baby girl who currently live in the Congo, but we hope will be joining our forever family this spring!!!

{You can get more details if you're still curious over @ our adoption blog: www.wewillcometoyou.blogspot.com}

Excited to be a Mom of 3 soon,