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My Lovely Crazy Life

A glimpse inside the world of adoption, foster care, social work and parenting!

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The Importance of Support in Adoption and Foster Care

January 22, 2019 by Amanda Preston 1 Comment

  As many of us travel along this journey of adoption and foster care, few of us will make it without finding ourselves knee deep in the trenches. It is while in those trenches that we truly realize the importance of support in adoption and foster care. Rose Colored Glasses   Daniel and I first started the adoption process quite young. He was only 19 and I ... Read More

Meeting My Child’s Mother

January 7, 2018 by Amanda Preston 9 Comments

Several weeks ago we had a momentous event in our family. We met my son's birth mom. It was amazing, wonderful and filled with more emotions than I could have ever imagined. Rewind to almost 14 years ago when we first began our adoption journey. We were only 19 and 20 years old at the time and just babies ourselves. In our adoption training session they had originally asked ... Read More

How Cats Help with ADHD and FASD

August 15, 2017 by Amanda Preston 7 Comments

I want to start out this post by saying it is from a completely unbiased viewpoint. That I am in no way trying to promote the love of cats over dogs. I do not love cats more than dogs...I do not secretly watch cat videos in my spare time, and I have no sentimental feelings towards cats. Ok....well...maybe I love cats. So I guess it is only fair to say I have heard of similar ... Read More

Concurrent Adoption

August 12, 2017 by Amanda Preston 1 Comment

Daniel and I had been adoptive and foster parents for roughly 3 years before we decided to expand our family once again. Mathieu was 3, Robby was 2 and Alaina had just turned 1 years old. We didn't have any other foster placements at the time so we figured it was a good time to begin. We pondered between a regular Ministry adoption, like the one we did with Mathieu, or a ... Read More

Achieving Your Dreams As a Mom

August 12, 2017 by Amanda Preston 4 Comments

Several years ago I wrote the following except in an old blog: Recently I was watching the movie Conviction, detailing the real life story of Betty Anne Waters. Waters, who had a brother wrongfully convicted of murder, spent 18 years putting herself through law school in order to prove her brother’s innocence. She was a waitress, had 2 children, and had limited time and ... Read More

Foster-to-Adopt – Part 2

August 11, 2017 by Amanda Preston 10 Comments

A few days after our son Robby turned CCO in June, we got a phone call that his birth mother was pregnant again and due in January. Due to her unique circumstances the baby would be apprehended at birth and we were asked if we wanted to take the new baby. We of course said yes and went on with our lives while we waited. (I later discovered I had a fluky blue camera...hence the ... Read More

Foster-to-Adopt – Part 1

August 8, 2017 by Amanda Preston 3 Comments

Enter Robby. We had been fostering for a little over 3 months when we got the call for our very first newborn. We had never parented a newborn before, and despite already parenting Mathieu and a few other children through fostering, I was nervous! ... Read More

Big Family Renovations – Part 3

August 7, 2017 by Amanda Preston 2 Comments

Last post I was sharing the similarities between our renovation and what happened in The Money Pit. We had finally come to the end of the boring (when I say boring I really mean traumatic, expensive, horrible, yet not decorative) stage. ... Read More

Becoming a Foster Parent

August 6, 2017 by Amanda Preston 4 Comments

Daniel and I had just adopted our first son, Mathieu, in June of 2005. We were loving being parents and were soaking up every moment with our precious new blessing. During that process, however, we had met a wonderful foster parent who had been caring for Mathieu. Listening to her journey and finding out about fostering, Daniel and I immediately knew we wanted to become ... Read More

When Teenager’s Adopt – Part 2

August 6, 2017 by Amanda Preston 5 Comments

In my previous post, When Teenager's Adopt - Part 1, we had just walked into our last home study visit. Our social worker had on a very concerned look and I was worried we had done something wrong. Instead she proceed to tell us she had a proposal for us. Jaw drop. For those of you who don't know much about the adoption process, a proposal is when social workers propose a ... Read More

When Teenager’s Adopt – Part 1

August 6, 2017 by Amanda Preston 4 Comments

Last post I introduced you to A Teenager's Wedding; a look at our wedding day at the ripe age of 18 and 19 years old. For this post, I actually squeezed myself out of the teenager category (fewf), but my husband sure didn't (I still had my strange collection of stuffed pigs on top of my kitchen cabinets, so I suppose my exit from childhood isn't 100% conclusive)! Our first ... Read More

A Teenager’s Wedding

August 5, 2017 by Amanda Preston 4 Comments

If you read my very first entry, How It All Began, you likely know the crazy start Daniel and I had to our relationship. It is no surprise then, to find out that our wedding day followed suit perfectly. Our wedding day, as mentioned in my previous post, was January 2nd. Daniel was 18 years old and I was 19 years old. It was a cold snowy Thursday, yet we were both so excited! ... Read More

Big Family Renovations! – Part 2

August 3, 2017 by Amanda Preston 9 Comments

So there we were. A week away from our rental ending and no where else to go. Our reno, which was supposed to have taken only 6-8 weeks (that was my schedule...to be fair Daniel DID say Christmas and I kept saying never), was no where near where it should be. ... Read More

Big Family Renovations! – Part 1

August 3, 2017 by Amanda Preston 7 Comments

My husband and I have been married for 14 years. We have owned many homes, and done a few renovations here and there. Mostly small scale, and with my husband being a carpenter, it was all manageable (That is what I am saying...if you asked my husband he might interpret it all very differently haha). ... Read More

Good Bye My Daughter

August 3, 2017 by Amanda Preston 1 Comment

This is an excerpt from an article I wrote the day before my foster daughter left to return home. The emotions were raw and I still miss her to this day, but not much has changed in how I feel when a child leaves my home. ... Read More

How It All Began

August 1, 2017 by Amanda Preston 28 Comments

If you had asked me how my life would have looked during high school, I would have told you I was going to be an actress...or a psychologist making loads of money. ... Read More

Author: Amanda Preston

Author: Amanda Preston

I'm Amanda! Mom of 8, adoptive parent, foster parent, social worker, and leader of the nut house. I hope you find some valuable resources here and enjoy my ramblings!

Also find me over at Scary Mommy!

Scary Mommy

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Top Posts

  • How Cats Help with ADHD and FASD
  • Local Adoption or International Adoption: Which One is Right?
  • Top 10 Sensory Toys You Need for ADHD and FASD!
  • The #1 Thing You're Messing Up During Your Child's Meltdown
  • Why You Should Reward Your Child for Bad Behavior
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