Room for Four

Saturday, February 21, 2015

God has cleared our calendar!

SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!

God is so good! After Derek and I went to our first appointment with the case worker for our homestudy, we left the office with an entire folder of paperwork to be filled out. Hallie, our caseworker, bascially told us that the timing of this homestudy is up to us. Some couples finish in a week whereas, others take months. Well, being that God has spoken loudly and clearly, we both knew we had to get started. The only issue was our booked calendars. Both Derek and I teach and have after school obligations along with Ava's nightly homework so we felt a bit overwhelmed with finding the time to complete all the detailed paperwork.

This week we were abundantly blessed with a major snow storm in Tennessee. School was cancelled all week for us, so we got right to business. The minute Ava went to bed, we got to business and completed all our paperwork in three days. Not only did we have time to work on our adoption homestudy, we found time to be a family and rest which is also a blessing.

I know this is God's work at hand and it is such a comforting feeling. He is looking out for us and has totally given us answers to any challenges or obstacles we have faced so far. We are taking one step at a time and trusting in HIM.

Right now, our prayer is that this birthmother gets our profile in time and considers our family.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Siblings are a blessing!

Here are my siblings with our father on Father's Day. My parents were married very young and started their family right away. My brother, Josh, is 41 and has paved the way for my sister and I even though we are all very different. He is super organized like my father, but also athletic/ and GQ I might add. He taught me how to drive stick shift, how to run quickly in track, and took me to and from my job in college. I totally leaned on him for many things growing up. My sister, Wendy, is 4 years younger than me and is the musician/artist. All of us grew up on top of a Swiss style restaurant. My parents ran the restaurant and we all started working at a young age. Wendy was probably the youngest at 3 years old. She would go from table to table offering the customers pudding pops from our family freezer upstairs. I often watched her and made her play school with me for many years. Us kids sure did learn the majority of our work ethic from these 5 years at the Chateau Dining and Cocktails. Of course we had our sibling fights, but we are such a tight family and always have been. Josh now works for the Rutherford school county as their TCAP/Safety Coordinator and married a sweet girl over 20 years ago named Cindy and they have two boys. Wendy is still the artist helping musicians become famous, as Ava would say. She just opened her own Music licensing company with my brother and his close friend. She is married to a Texan, Drew and they have two boys as well. Wendy and Drew convinced my family to all move to Nashville 7 years ago. They were down here living the dream and we loved it. My entire family picked up and moved the same month in 2007 from Wisconsin. The unique characteristic about our family is we love to DO life together. We help each other out. We are cheerleaders for each other. We are very blessed and truly love being around each other.

Every day I thank God for them.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Meet Mona and Boppa Folven

Mona and Boppa Folven

Meet the best in-laws I could ever ask for. Mona's name is really Marcia but when Ian was little, he could not say Marcia so he called her Mona and it just stuck. Boppa is Boppa....well, it just fits him.

One word to describe this set of grandparents is JOYFUL.

I have known this family since 1996 and truly feel blessed to be a Folven. Marcia is a great listener and truly just loves when the family is all together, so much that they moved south to be closer to everyone. Boppa loves to travel and help others. He keeps very busy. He goes fishing each year in Alaska where he has another home. He sends us 50lbs of fish which is truly a blessing. They both travel often with my parents which is rare to see in-laws that are so close and truly love each other. Angella and Mike are so much fun to be around and filled with giving hearts. They have helped us so many times in our life. Jeffrey is newly married and we love seeing them when they come north from Florida.

Derek with his sister, Angella and his little brother, Jeff

Ian is the oldest grandchild and Angella's first.

Meet the new Nicky Folven. Both Derek and Jeff married a girl with the same name and both are teachers.

Meet Aunt Angella, Uncle Mike, Ian and Garrett

Garrett is like Ava's twin. He was born 20 days after Ava and they are the closest to siblings as you can get. She loves when Mona brings him to TN to visit during the summer.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Meet the Mr. and Mrs.

Derek 39, High school English teacher

Niki 40, 7th grade science teacher

Married for 10 years; August 14th 2004

Met in Scotland on a study abroad program

We know the Lord brought us together that year in 1996. We both traveled to Scotland to travel abroad. We lived and went to school in a castle called the Dalkeith House right outside of Edinburgh. We both were born and raised in Wisconsin, our home towns 17miles apart. I guess we had to travel across the country to meet. Our relationship began as great friends and blossomed into a love that has bonded us together forever. We took God as our partner and let him guide us each and every day.