2025 in review
MSW, LSW
Pabst-a-palooza made a come back
Another fantastic summer in the Strader history books: summer baseball, swim team, golf, friends, family
Celebrated Nora’s baptism
1st school golf team athlete
1st HoCo experience
ISU StraderGate
Celebrated new loves
Welcomed 7th + 9th grades
Celebrated baby Breen
said goodbye to Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal
said hello to DCFS Division of Child Protection
xox
Abbi
March 2025
🧡 …and just like that one chapter closes and another opens. For the past 2.5 weeks I’ve slowly said good bye to my career in education. 7.5 years ago I found a job in our local school district that both filled my bucket as a professional and left fringe hours for my family. The exact combination my heart needed.
Now, I am looking at a new chapter. Change is challenging, but oh, so worth it. I am excited and terrified. There are so many possibilities lying in front of me. I hope and pray I listen to what God has in store and move mountains so those after me can make even more impact.
xox
Abbi
October 2022
🧡 …and just like that summer is over. Carter is in 7th grade and Nora in 5th. This time next year we will find ourselves sending 2 kids on the junior high bus. In the mean time, Nora is waking up ⏰ at the same time as me while Carter gets a few extra 💤 .
💔 My heart still hurts that Carter isn’t able to be a part of the Evans baseball team. We are following his lead and by all appearances he his happy 😃 so we are too. At Evans open house he showed us his favorite classrooms and introduced us to a few of his teachers. This is big for him because historically he’s very shy in school situations.
🎸 Nora is entering 5th grade with the most confidence I’ve seen in all of her elementary years. After 2 days she is loving her classroom teacher 👩🏫 who has a student teacher and a retired teacher helping! It takes a community! She’ll start band at Evans in just a few weeks 🚌 .
💭 Carter said, “Can we just go back to when summer first started?” While I’m with him in spirit, there is renewed sense of purpose that comes with the beginning of a school year.
xox
Abbi
August 2022
Christmas 2021
Between Carter and Jake, the vote was to hangout on Christmas 🎄 Eve, allowing all families to enjoy Christmas Day without travel 🧭 . We headed to our hometown early in the day to spend time with both my husband’s side of the family as well as mine. After lunch and afternoon snacks with each family, we ventured to my childhood church for Christmas Eve service. Wrapping up the evening with a gift exchange between my immediate family we went home with a full truck and most importantly full hearts 💕.
xo
Abbi
Thanksgiving 2021
This year we were extremely blessed to spend an entire day with each side of our family. My in-laws celebrated Thanksgiving 🦃 on Thursday while my side honored the holiday on Friday. Long hours 🕰 held space for conversations, games 🎴, movie 🎥 watching and grazing through all of the delicious eats 🥧.
xo
Abbi
Halloween 2021
Happy 😃 Halloween 🎃 Ghouls 👻 + Goblins 🧛
We celebrated all weekend long with a neighborhood costume parade party then a chili cook off then trick or treating 🍭 .
Whew 😅
xo,
Your friendly Dino 🦖 + Biker Chick 🏍
Foster Care Resources
Family Support
Adding to your family
Ongoing support
For Me:
podcasts: The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey; The Jen Hatmaker podcast
books: Ages & Stages; Parenting with Love & Logic; No-Drama Discipline; The 5 Love Languages
me time: yoga, running, walking, errands by myself
Foster Care
One of the biggest impacts to our family has been our foster care journey.
Not long after Justin and I married, I distinctly remember bringing up the idea of adoption. To Justin’s credit I’m sure he was completely thrown off, to me the idea of a vulnerable kiddo needing a loving home was something we could handle.
Fast forward approximately ten years …. Justin and I were experiencing Sunday morning Worship when the sermon revolved around serving the foster care system. We were sitting in back of the sanctuary, Justin’s arm draped over my shoulder, when the tears started flowing with no end in sight. That day, I knew, without a doubt, we were to become foster parents.
God set it up in his perfect timing. The first step in becoming licensed foster parents it to attend foster parent training through DCFS. It is an eight week class that meets two nights per week for two hours each. At the time, our biological children were five and seven. My momma heart had to stretch a lot to leave them two evenings a week.
The fall classes didn’t work out. In God’ perfect timing, the late winter classes did. Our cousin was attending ISU and her schedule matched perfectly to be able to babysit the kiddos while we attended the mandatory classes. In February, 2017 we started our journey. After completing the classes came the home study and mountains of submitted documentation. September 2017 we received our official foster care license in the mail.
Momma Livin’
To me, the phrase “Momma Livin” is the intentionality Justin and I put into our family: dinners together, camping, foster care, and adventures.