My husband's sister, Amber Smart, and her family began the journey of fostering over two years ago. I had never been around anyone who had fostered a child. My family watched, learned, and admired their commitment to love a child that was not their own and after what seemed like a long period of time they were given the choice to adopt Dylan, and their family said, "Yes!"
As an observer, I realize this journey to adopt is NOT easy. The waiting, hopelessness, sleepless nights, doubt, frustrations, refining and questioning yourself as a parent, I got to take a few photos of Dylan's final adoption at the court house. The stale courtroom, which had no air conditioning, was slightly suffocating. The waiting, the paperwork, the waiting, another case... the Judge finally gets to Dylan. His name is called and we all come up, together as a family. The Judge smiles when he sees Dylan is surrounded by people that love him and suddenly I could take a full, real breath. I was fully reminded that when I get afraid or feel alone, I can ALWAYS come before God, He calls me His own even when I was lost, sinful and alone, He adopted me. His love is always working, redeeming us and turning the brokenness of this world into a beautiful reflection of Himself. Its hard to walk and commit to the brokenness of this world but how awesome to share in His ending of the story.
Here are a few images I want to share.
Here are a few images that I have recently pulled out of the Izzy "Archive." In my years of being a Mom, I have developed the bad habit of taking lots and lost of photographs of my children and downloading them to my hard drive for storage.... yes, I guess they go to storage, right? I am sure there are Moms out there who would give me an "Amen!" So with much determination I have started going through my storage, sorting, throwing away and remembering my crazy girl! Here are a few from this last year. 
