A New Chapter

Isaac and I, as some of you already know have decided to begin the journey of becoming foster parents. We have pondered and prayed about this for some time and realized that this is exactly what we want to do. We are VERY excited and learning a lot about what it takes to become licensed and how much we can impact the lives of children in need and most importantly keep them safe.

So you ask... What is Foster Care?

Foster care is temporary out-of-home care for children, who have been removed from their homes by County Social Services or CPS due to physical and emotional safety concerns. The goal of foster care is to reunite a child with his or her birth parents/family whenever possible. The court decides when or if a child is safe to return to his birth family. When a foster child is not reunified with his birth family, then the child/foster home can start the adoption process.The process of becoming a foster parent takes approximately 4-6 months, involving everything from being fingerprinted, filling out a ton of paperwork, and attending a 30 hour certification training. Because I work with a lot of children with state needs, I know how desperate this kids are for normalcy, safety, and parents that care about them. We are excited to help our community and help these kids in such dire need and hoping to change their lives in any way we can. 

To learn more visit

www.olivecrest.org or http://www.dshs.wa.gov/ca/fosterparents


Where are we at now with the licensing process?

We have attended a two hour orientation, have submitted partial paper work, been fingerprinted, done our background checks, and have our 30 hour training scheduled for May.

In the meantime.....

We have started to collect items for our future foster kids. Since we have our house now that has MORE then enough room we have dedicated a room to the foster children. Since we dont have any children of our own we are starting from the basis.

So what can you do to help?

Not everyone can be a foster parent but there are MANY ways you can help. What we are graciously asking of friends and family, or anyone who can help us is to donate any clothes, toys, etc that you have that your children don't use or have grown out of. These kids will come into foster care sometimes with just the clothes on their back. If they have things with them they usually dont fit, have holes in them, and have never really had toys that are age appropriate. These children have been in homes where things like clean clothes and toys are not a priority. What we want for our foster kids is to have clean clothes, toys to place with, and a safe home to play in. So please contact Isaac or I if you would like to donate anything to our growing family, we appreciate it in advance! We need items from 0-12 boy or girl. Thanks so much to everyone who has already donated as well! We feel very blessed to have this

I will keep everyone update through this blog as much as possible.

Have a great week!

Many blessings,

The Bells

Our new home

We moved into our new home last weekend!

We had lots of help from family and friends and were all unpacked by Sunday afternoon. A lot of work but totally worth it to finally be able to call a house our OWN. Many thanks to all that helped us!

This week we have been settling in getting used to new routes to work, trying to find where we put everything, and just enjoying how great it is to have more space!

Next week we are going to tackle a plan for building a fence in the backyard, hopefully we can get that done by the end of summer. There are going to be lots of BBQ's and entertaining here this year!

Isaac is off playing Army this weekend so I got stuck at home with laundry, cleaning, and shopping. I cant wait for him to get home, I really miss him on the weekends he is gone.

Ella and I discovered a hiking trail this morning, she loved it. Now she is trying to recover...

Yesterday I signed up for Bloomsday, training starts tomorrow! Isaac and I are doing it together and should be alot of fun! Come join us!