changes in landscape

ryan came into paige's life (well, mine too) when she was 3. we married when she was 4...she would ask, 'is my friend ryan coming to play tonight?'...when we got engaged, she said, 'i wanted to marry him, but i think it's okay that you do. i'll just marry papa.'

so that's the story for p...and you can see that love has been there for quite a while...

and there's a few more with us these days...

next came the b-ster...

(and the b-ster now...)

then along came little jk...

(and then there's now...)

finally, little miss was added (not so long ago)...

(and now...)

so you can see why ryan is the THORN among the roses...

(ok...i noticed that since #1 has been a teen, we have tons of fam pics and tons of single pics of her, but only a few with just r or me. i know this is part of the teen thing, but i am giong to make it a mission to get more pics of her alone with us...don't tell her!)

so there are a lot more of us in this fam...the other girls have come and gone, but they forever are part of the clan here.

brit, b's bmom and krystal, added; sofie is in my jelly belly

and before that...this is how the landscape looked (almost)

(marissa, our foster daughter is with us...and kayla, one of our high school students we adore and take on vacation with us)

and before that, there was erika...and the landscape changed again...

so for what it's worth...landscape changes are just fine around these parts. there are many more than i listed here...we have fostered 11 kiddos to date, this is only 3 of them. and well, we define family and "daddy's girls" as those who daddy gives his ears to listen, his heart to love, his eyes to watch and adore...and his bear hug arms to, well, bear hug.

"ohana" is what it's called in hawaii...

ʻohana means family in an extended sense of the term including blood-related, adoptive or intentional. It emphasizes that family and friends are bound together and members must cooperate and remember one another.

so remember, family isn't defined by blood...it's defined by those you do life with...and being an adoptive and foster family has just broadened that "family" for us. learn more about fostering a child here.

some very staggering stats to consider...

here are the states with the most children in foster care...

you can make a difference in a child's life:

Ranking	State	# of Children	% of US Foster Children
1	California	107,168	20%
2	New York	43,365	8%
3	Florida	32,477	6%
4	Illinois	28,460	5%
5	Ohio	21,584	4%
6	Pennsylanvia	21,237	4%
7	Michigan	20,896	4%
8	Texas	19,739	4%
Totals		294,926	55%