Back in the saddle again...

Hi Everyone!

I've been out of touch for a while, I am not sure how long, lol... But, I am going pretty stir crazy in the house right now, and had an excuse or two to get back into some scrapbooking! When last we spoke, I was probably parenting, grandparenting and foster parenting, all of which I am still doing!

I was in a documentary about a program we have here in Los Angeles where they followed our journey as a perspective adoptive family for a young girl we had met in a program called Kidsave. Everything was going beautifully when she decided overnight that she didn't want to be adopted and didn't want to have anything to do with us or Kidsave anymore. Broken hearted, we soldiered on... We kept fostering and kept going to Kidsave events!

I don't know that we thought we would actually meet any kiddos who would be as great a fit as she had been but we kept going, mostly because we are eternal optimists. Our newly cautious hearts were lukewarm at best... BUT, the universe being what it is... One of the kiddos we have been driving to events for almost this whole time (we've picked him up from 3 different placements in the time we've known him) put his foot down and told the lady in charge of Kidsave that we were his people, and if we didn't want him then there was just no hope or reason for him to keep coming to Kidsave.

He's such a great kid, and by the end of January, we were ALL IN! But, in March, well... lockdown happened. So, here we are, in an official match with a kid we adore, who we can't visit, but at least get to have zoom calls with. One of our jobs as his official Kidsave Host Family is to create a scrapbook for him. And, THAT is the very long story that led me back here to you all! It's a little scary knowing he could break our hearts but also one of the most beautiful and hopeful relationships I've ever been a part of.

During one of our zoom calls, I showed him the first 2 pages of his scrapbook that I have created with my years old stash and a Scrapping With Liz blog challenge template. He was so excited and just shocked that I would make that for him, that I had taken that picture (of a bowling score board), or that I had written the start of our story in this way. It was/is inspiring me to keep going making his book spectacular! My son Curtis is also old enough to see the pages that I have made for Eugene and ask about pages for him, of which I have many. So, the enthusiasm my boys have shown has brought me back into this world of digiscrapping art, and I am so glad!!

Sorry for the novel, but I am happy to be back!
Huggles!!
~Sarah~

 

Thanks, everyone!! Here's Eugene's Bowling page. Looking at it now, and remembering how excited he was about it, it is kind of amazing how something so simple made him so happy. Some of his other pages are more beautiful than this one, but I can't bring myself to put a sticker over his face, so we'll just have to wait to see them, I guess!!



Huggles!!
~Sarah~

 

Here's the story of Eugene's Room:


And photos of the room:


I will put these pages side by side in his album!

Huggles!
~Sarah~