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I have been off work for 5 days now and it is just the most wonderful thing ever!!! I have SO much time to do everything and I am loving it. I love cooking. I love cleaning. I love doing the dishes and washing sheets. I love checking things off our to do list. I love doing jobs that Lance would typically have to do. I love sleeping in. I love drinking coffee out of a non disposable mug. I love having breakfast with family. I love love love being home. I love having time to read. I love opening up all my blinds and having the sun shine in while I write much overdue thank you notes. I love that im not sitting at my desk doing paperwork or wrist deep in anyone's mouth trying to figure out just why they can't swallow or move their tongue. I even love the fact that I am on a strict budget right now and have accepted the simplicity that this "vacation" will bring. I love that I am back in a bible study. I love that I have been able to get outside of myself more and think about others. I love that I have been given time to do things I want/need to do. I hope that doesn't sound selfish. But it is just downright amazing! The past couple nights I have gone to bed with a smile on my face, looking forward the the next new day. I had lunch with a friend today that encouraged me a lot. I was explaining my desires for my family. My wishes for Jane and my future children. My hopes for orphans. All of these things I want to do and to be. However, I have felt like my responsibility has been to work and make money(which is ok too)and I think that will continue to be my responsibility for a while longer. She encouraged me that God always puts people through a period of refinement and gets them ready for whats to come ahead. I am so excited to see what's ahead. But for now, for the next 5 weeks, I am just soaking up the wonderfulness of my responsibilities as a wife and friend!!! :) Ok off to make dinner and clean the house while listening to music! Heaven! :)

Stay at home wife.....well, for a minute! ;)

So today marks the beginning of my summer as a "stay at home wife". After MUCH consideration, we have decided that working until 7pm is just not for me. I am extremely extremely blessed to have the career that I do. The flexibility in settings, work hours, and client base is perfection for a person like me. When we moved to Sugar Land the commute into Houston was what drove me to initially change to the job that I am at now. However, I just could not get into the groove of working until 7pm, getting home at 7:30, cooking until 8:30, eating, cleaning up the kitchen and then hopping into bed. I know some people have no choice (my husband) and have to work those hours. I am aware that I need to be very thankful that I can simply say "I'm done!". But I think I will be happier to have the opportunity to be home earlier than Lance, work out, fix dinner and actually be able to get back into my weekly girls bible study and go to church on Wednesday. I have really missed my evenings and am so excited to have them back!!

I will be moving into the schools in the fall. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!!!! We have been very financially focused these past few years since our "baby making" has dealt us a bit of an expensive curve! However, I finally decided that I am willing to make the sacrifice for a career that better fits my personality. Going into an elementary school and working with kiddos, and then packing up at 3:30 to come home sounds like pure heaven! My happiest year of work was when I was a preschool teacher and I have been itching to get back into an academic setting. Not to mention the bazillions of school holidays and summers off. This company is also aware of our adoption and we have already talked about a post adoption "work plan" that is also perfect. I think this will be such a blessing. :)

So today when I get into my car it will mark the last day that I ever work until 7pm. I feel like someone just handed me my life back! :)

Our only real "label"

I got so excited last night to hop into bed, freshly washed hair and all cozy in my pjs fresh from the wash! One of the best feelings in the world I think. I opened up my bible (app) and was just so overcome with the treasure we have in having Gods word in our hands. I was more jumping around different books, ranging from Lamentations to Hosea, than really delving into a specific area this night. But when I was finished reading and laid my head on my pillow I felt so full of peace and a general excitement about my purpose here on this earth! However, I also felt a deep sense of overwhelming responsibility. My purpose is to be filled with Christ and to make sure I fit my life into the mold that he has created for me. I have been waiting and waiting for my "reward". Any mother who is childless knows this feeling of waiting on this reward that we all feel we deserve. The reward of being a mommy. But I was reminded last night that I can push and pull and beg for God to squeeze me into this mold of "mommy" (insert a number of labels for your own situation) that I so desperaely want to to fit into, but he won't. At least not right now. God knows the mold that was made perfect for me and I will only be in my perfect element and fit into the perfect mold for my own life when I resign to the wonderful fact that God knows where I fit. He knows what my life should look like. The answer is simple. It should look like Him and when my life looks like him THAT is my reward. That is what I am waiting for and striving towards, because no greater joy can be experienced than the joy that comes from taking on the mold of Jesus and trusting him to lead our steps. I'm thankful for God allowing this to spread through my mind last night as I fell asleep. Today I feel peaceful. I am thankful for my wonderful life and very aware of the warfare here and around the world. We are here to BE Jesus to those around us. To be a light in the darkness. This is our identity, our "mold". Yes, he blesses us with lots of other titles along the way; wife, mother, friend, sister...." But these words are not our identity or our calling. Our calling is simple. To wear Jesus everyday. To identify ourselves with Him and only Him and consider these other things " extra". I think God delights in blessing us with full lives that allow us to take on these other titles. He wants us to have good things. But I don't every want to forget that my identify and purpose lies in one thing and one thing alone and that is Jesus. Ony here is where I will find true purpose. :) Thanks Jesus for once again making things so simple when I try to make them difficult! :)

#26

Say what!? We moved three spots! There is a little movement back in the adoption world! Praise Jesus! I posted on facebook today that I am 39 weeks "paper pregnant". It's hard to believe that if this were a "normal" pregnancy I would be waddling around, expecting to have a baby any minute! After I posted this a friend said that a lot of her friends consider adoption like an elephant pregnancy. I googled this and learned that elephants are pregnant for 22 months. I think that's about right! My sister then said that if we don't have lots of friends who know how this feels (which luckily I know more and more each day) that I can commisurate with the elephants. Made me laugh hard!!

So, 3 more home.....26 more to go!! :)

Say "Yes" to fun things

 I have been a little stressed and really busy and I guess subconsciously decided I was done doing fun things because I was "a little stressed and really busy". I have been saying "no" to lots of things b/c of this. I decided last week that I would stop being "so busy and stressed" and just do fun stuff and simply be "un" busy and stressed. Genius I know!
So that is what I did. I got a last minute call from a friend to go to a Coldplay concert last week. On a weeknight. At 9pm. In downtown Houston. I started to do my typical "It's too late.....we will fight traffic out of Houston....I will be exhausted at work....it's too expensive....blah blah blah." Then I told myself, "Kayla, say YES to fun things!" Somewhere along the way of this adoption, and working and just life in general I think I have gotten a little "un"fun! I have been too tired, or too stressed to go out and do fun things with my friends. This is not like me. I will just go right out and say it, I am a naturally fun person! hehe! :)

Anyway, I had SO much fun! It was worth every yawn the next day at work. It was carefree and just so great. Life doesn't always have to be so serious! I have decided that life is hard sometimes but it still needs to be fun, and carefree too, and you still need to stay out way too late with friends at concerts every now and then!

I am not planning of reverting back to the Kayla that liked to stay up until 1am doing who knows what every night, but I am planning on trying to remember that life is supposed to be fun and carefree sometimes with the occasional late night out with friends!

Waiting for them to come on! We were on the floor on the 7th row!! :)

Happy weekend. I will post soon on what all we have been up to lately! :)

Dear God, thank you for food.

I was unloading my groceries today and while I was putting them away it just struck me how blessed I am to have food. I stopped and stood at the open door of my fridge and thanked God for allowing us to have food. I then wondered why I have a fridge that is too full while millions can't find enough food to even sustain life. I prayed for these people and just felt so overwhelmed with how blessed our family is. I fear my little Jane will be a part of this statistic and while it is such a painful thought, I am so glad God has made me so aware that something as simple as an apple is something to be extremely thankful for. When you really stop and take time to thank God for things that we consider "little" it is really overwhelming and humbling. Thank you God for food.
P.S....the ice cream and waffles are totally Lances hehe! :) 

Check this out and pray for these people.

• 925 million people do not have enough to eat — more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union combined.

• 98% of the world's undernourished people live in developing countries.

• Two-thirds of the world's hungry live in just 7 countries: Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan.²
• Where is hunger the worst?
  • Asia and the Pacific: 578 million
  • Sub-Saharan Africa: 239 million
  • Latin America and the Caribbean: 53 million
  • Near East and North Africa: 37 million
  • Developed countries: 19 million
  • 60 percent of the world's hungry are women.
  • 50 percent of pregnant women in developing countries lack proper maternal care, resulting in over 300,000 maternal deaths annually from childbirth.
  • 1 out of 6 infants are born with a low birth weight in developing countries.
  • Malnutrition is the key factor contributing to more than one-third of all global child deaths resulting in 2.6 million deaths per year.
  • A third of all childhood death in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by hunger.
  • Every five seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases.

Should we be asking "why" or "what"

This has been my question lately. I have been asking "why....why....why" about 100x a day over the past month or so. The adoption world has been very very quiet. Like kind of freaking me out quiet. I have found myself just getting so annoyed at the process. Why does it take so long? Why have so many orphanages closed down in Ethiopia causing programs to shut down. Why did we feel led to change from Uganda to Ethiopia and now Uganda seems to be moving quickly (however, we have learned that can change in a second), why did God place this life long desire on my heart and then just leave us waiting for something that seems like it will never come.

Then the pregnancy thing comes into play. With each passing day I become aware of another friend who is pregnant. And at this point it is more often than not their second baby. Its a great thing. God made woman to have babies. It is normal. Even mundane when you look at it from the standpoint of how often it happens every day. But why not us? Why can't any doctors figure out why we can't have a baby? Why can't someone just give us a teeny, tiny little diagnosis instead of this horrible term "unexplained infertility"! I have come to kind of hate the word. In one way I am thankful that no one is looking at us and thinking our hope of a child is small. But on the other hand, no one can tell us why. I mean doctors perform heart transpants and brain surgery and do crazy things that take SO much skill. Why can't they figure out why we can't have a baby!? So to say the least the baby thing is another huge "WHY" in my life!

I met a friend at a conference that said she prayed and asked God to take away her desire to have a baby is it was not in God's plan for her. And he did. He totally took it away and their family is growing 100% through adoption. Awesome! And I think I could be 100% ok with growing our family through adoption only. However, here is the thing. I pray and pray this prayer and with each day I feel like my desire to have a biological child grows larger and larger. God is NOT taking away this desire, He is growing it. Why!?

So here is where I have landed. I NEED TO STOP ASKING "WHY" AND START ASKING "WHAT".

The fact of the matter is that we are not anywhere near having our little Jane home and we are not pregnant. Instead of asking God 1,000 times a day "why" this is happening I need to start asking "what" I am supposed to be doing in this season! I do know for a fact that God is not calling me to get up, mope around, google "unexplained infertility" for hours and then obsess over our adoption timeline. He is not calling me to feel "less than" because I don't have a baby.

I have felt it before and am constantly convicted that blending in and being just like everyone else is not how Jesus lived. I am different than almost ALL of my married friends in the fact that we are childless. My day in and day out looks very different than everyone in my family due to the fact that I work outside the home. But it's ok. I am setting a personal goal for myself and every time I want to ask "why" I am going to switch it and ask God "what"!

I am excited to see what He reveals and tells me to do!!