Foster Shower Pt 3 (The Last, I Promise)

So I know you are so sad, but this is the last and final installment of the foster shower! Yes I know I dragged this out for a ridiculous amount of time, but really don't rain on my parade! 

So this is all about the items that we bought using our gift cards from the shower. It was items we didn't get, but still needed/ wanted. Luckily we had a lot of people give us gift cards and so we were really able to get a lot of items and saved ourselves a TON of money. 

So after my big post about the car seat we had registered for, I ended up getting a totally different seat. You see this one was awesome and on clearance and yea...

See how nice and gender neutral the pattern is.

Here is the pack and play. Again, not what we originally registered for. Really I cannot resist a Target clearance section.

Fun little lion on the pack and play.

This little item is again one of my favorites for the baby room. Honestly, I kind of want one for our room. It is a sound machine and projector in one. It has 3 different discs for projecting on the wall and 6 different sounds! Until the kids arrive, it may find itself in our room.

Now I know that pacifiers are really an item that varies from baby to baby, but I couldn't pass these babies up. Too cute. Plus whether our child is a boy or girl, they will like football...

Well there you go. A summary of everything. Now clearly I didn't include every item we got or every gift we received in this post, but you can get a good idea of what we got. This was just intended to share with those of you who couldn't be there. 

If you saw anything you want a review on or opinions on, please let me know. 

Waiting Game

So at this point, Mark and I have been assigned a licensing worker. What this means is that we have completed everything with our agency. Being assigned a licensing worker is the final step before being officially licensed and ready to accept a placement.

The bad news is that we are now just waiting on the system which is at best unpredictable. We could be looking at days or weeks. We just don't know. This is frustrating because I am a total planner. I am climbing up the walls in anticipation!

To help pass the time, my amazing friends Lauren and Erin have thrown me a foster shower! The shower will be this Saturday and I am unbelievably excited. Once we found out that we would likely not ever have our own biological children, I thought I lost the chance to ever have a baby shower. Thanks to my amazing friends, I still get to have one.

We have registered for gifts here, but we decided to also do something different. We encouraged our friends and family to use this registry as just a guide for finding gently used items as well. This way they have options for both new or used items. The response thus far has been positive. I still realize that because we are going to be licensed for such a range (newborn-2), gift giving is difficult, so gift cards will likely be the gift of choice for most. I think this is great because once we do have a need for an item, we will have gift cards to help us with those purchases.

This is one item we have an immediate need for. Like, I will run out and purchase the day of the shower if I don't get it. We have had two friends either sell or donate old infant car seats to us, but this would be much more versatile. Plus, the price is right. Anyone used this model? Thoughts?

What are we going to do with all of this stuff if we can't or don't end up using it (wrong size, too old and/or young)? I am so glad you asked... even if you didn't really. Well if it is new and we have gift receipts, obviously return it for something we can use, but if it used, we plan to donate it. There are several organizations for foster children that would benefit greatly from these donations! We foster families gotta stick together!