Wichita ? Not long after Mike and Maylene Fletcher were married eight years ago, they started talking about how they could give back to the community. They talked a lot about becoming foster parents.

In this Nov. 19, 2010 photo, Mike and Maylene Fletcher, top left and top center, stand with their three adopted daughters Brittany, 17, Ashley, 17, and Brenda 15, left to right, on the back porch of their Kechi home. The Fletchers have had six foster children in their home at different times over the past three years. Recently, they took another big step and finalized the adoption of their two current foster children — sisters Ashley, 17, and Brenda, 15 — as part of a National Adoption Day celebration at Exploration Place. In June, they adopted Brittany, 17, after she was in their foster care for about a year.

Maylene’s son was grown and Mike never had kids. They also had a large house on five acres just north of Wichita and knew the need was great.

Mike finally said, “Let’s either stop talking about it or go do it.”

They did it, and have had six foster children in their home at different times over the past three years. Recently, they took another big step.

The Fletchers recently finalized the adoption of their two current foster children — sisters Ashley, 17, and Brenda, 15 — as part of a National Adoption Day celebration at Exploration Place. In June, they adopted Brittany, 17, after she was in their foster care for about a year.

“There’s no shortage of teenage drama in our house,” Maylene said.

The Fletchers will stop being foster parents, but not because they don’t want any more foster children.

“We’re out of bedrooms,” Mike said. “If I had enough money, I’d put an extension on the house and have a couple more kids.”

There will be plenty of children at Exploration Place.

The Fletchers join 24 other families in adopting 36 children through Youthville, a child welfare organization that is putting on the celebration for the fifth consecutive year. Twenty-two of the children are being adopted by foster parents.

The average age of the children being adopted today is almost 8.

“It’s pretty tough to find families who will adopt older kids,” said Donna Rozell, who oversees adoptions for Youthville.

That’s why she was particularly excited to see the Fletchers adopt two more teenagers — and keep the siblings together.

But not nearly as excited as Ashley and Brenda are to know they will remain together in a permanent home.

They’ve been through three foster homes since entering the system about three years ago, but they’d never been separated until the first five months of this year.

“It was hard, really hard, when Ashley wasn’t around,” Brenda said. “But now I’m excited and so happy.”

It was determined by case workers that Brittany and Ashley, who are juniors at Valley Center High School, needed to be in a foster home designed to provide a nine-month behavioral change program. The Fletchers’ home was part of that program.

Brittany had been in multiple foster homes and needed to make some changes when she arrived at the Fletchers’ house in May 2009, Maylene said.

“I think whenever you are in foster care long enough and don’t have a role model, go from home to home, they start to act out,” Maylene said. “Brittany doesn’t have those problems now.”

Ashley arrived at the Fletchers’ two days after last Christmas. She wasn’t smiling.

“She never had the bad behavior,” Maylene said. “She and Brenda were just in the wrong place. Neither one of them liked their last home.”

Brenda, a Valley Center High sophomore, came to the Fletchers’ in May.

When the Fletchers started foster care, they made it clear they wanted teenagers.

“Just so we could give them a little bit of life experience before they’re shoved out of the system,” Mike said. “We wanted to give them a shot at learning what the real world will expect of them.”

All three girls make it clear what they think of the Fletchers. Maybe it’s just a teenage thing, but they each gave the same description: “They’re awesome.”

The girls help out with chores, including laundry and cleaning the house.

“This feels like a family, oh, yeah, definitely,” Brittany said.

“People think I’m crazy for adopting three teenage girls,” Maylene said, “but we have a lot of fun in our house, a lot of laughter.”

And do a lot of skipping.

“When Ashley first came to live with us, she was very serious,” Maylene said. “We were in Walmart one day and she was very quiet. So Michael and I grabbed her by the arm and started skipping through the store.”

Now, said Ashley, “When someone is in a bad mood, we just skip. Mom and Dad are fun.”

Youthville’s Rozell only wishes there were more Fletchers. The organization has 970 youths in its care around the state, including some as far away as Dodge City and Kansas City.

“We need more foster parents in Sedgwick County,” she said, “so we can quit sending kids outside the county.”

Rozell said it hurts the children to be uprooted from their schools and friends.

“It just moves them backward in school,” she said.

At least Brittany, Ashley and Brenda are moving forward.

“We had no intention of adopting anybody,” Mike said. “But the more we worked with the kids, we couldn’t let them go.”