Last Wednesday our family doubled in size as we took in a sibling group of 4.  Tonight, as a couple, we sat down and discussed what we have learned in these few short days.

1. Simple things to us, may be completely unknown to foster children in our home.  Examples from the past 7 days, sewing, ironing, smoking a rack of ribs, homemade cooking for most meals, and going to Chick-fil-A to eat.  All of which our new kiddos had never seen nor experienced….Yes, we said they had never experienced Chick-fil-A!
2. You can get all the training in the world on how to serve ‘foster children’, but what about the training for challenging ‘biological children’ who clearly outshine any foster child in the behavioral category?!?
3. Professionals will schedule appointments at the last moment, seriously, phone call at 4:00 PM needing to come by ‘today or tomorrow’.  Appointment occurred at 5:30 PM.
4. We as parents are way more efficient parenting 6 then we ever were only parenting 2.  We believe this boils down to survival of the fittest, if you are not efficient, you will be overrun by legions of small children, piles of laundry, toys in abundance, and much, much more, in short you will dieeeeeeee!!
5. Doing homework with four children turns our dining room into a small Sylvan Learning Center, seriously, maybe we should franchise one into our home?  (**sidenote** Keith thinks it is extremely hot watching his wife operate in her professional skill set as a teacher, dang that woman is smart and patient!)
6. Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart, Braum’s and other local grocery stores now own all of our money.  If only stock options came with each purchase–we would own a majority share within months!  Seriously, 6 kids can destroy a lottttttttttt of food.
7. As a parent of 6, it is perfectly okay to not only be ready for bed at 9:00 PM, but to go to bed at 9:00 PM.

Bonus:  We have been incredibly blessed and our hearts are full, more so, than we could have ever imagined!

– Howard Party of 8