I'm turning 25 tomorrow...

I don't feel 25..I seriously still feel like I'm 17..Hoping this is a normal feeling. haha..I mean I don't feel 17 in terms of maturity. I'm far more capable of handling life and situations now then at 17 but just in general. I'm no longer in my early 20's...and the idea of having to comes to grasp with the idea of being an official adult puts me in awe at how wonderful my life has been up to this point. This isn't to say I haven't had my fair share of crummy situations where I wondered why me, but my life has literally had the hand of God all over it. I'm so thankful for my 25 years and all that He has given me.

Today my sweet friend Kelly told me to show up at a location and then surprised me with a manicure(my first!) and some awesome yummy yogurt at The Yogurt Tap. It was a lot of fun..I was also given some money this week by Luke's Mom and decided to buy myself a new purse..I've had my other one for over 2 years now and figured it was time to get something different..Mine's a messenger bag and great for traveling, not so much for every day use.

Tomorrow evening I have an appointment with a tattoo shop in Decatur to get my first tattoo. I'm quite surprised at the amount of people willing to chime in on why I shouldn't be getting one, but just like every other choice in life we make, this is mine. I'm happy and at peace and though I'm not looking forward to the pain, I'm excited that I've finally worked up enough nerve to do it..haha..I didn't realize till recently that there is a good deal of aftercare that has to take place, so I'm probably more intimidated by that then anything else! I'll be sure to post picture(s) later tomorrow.

Also my brother in law is coming back to the States this week after being gone to Afghanistan for a year. We are all soo thankful for his safety while there and believing for a safe return this week.

My man has cleaned my kitchen and has gone out to get me a cookie cake for my birthday and said he wanted to stay up till midnight when he could have me blow it out then. Such a sweet guy I have!

Some things I love.

When I went through the crazy milk depletion issue, I dreaded switching to bottles because Kate was never a fan of bottles. Like have to hold her down while screaming almost to try and give her one. You had to wait till she was just hungry enough and have someone with lots of patience to try and give it to her..which resulted in very few bottles given. But when we needed to switch to donated milk, I knew we'd have to find a bottle Kate would take.

Tommy Tippee please step in! Well hello bottles that my child loves so much.


Kate took to them very quick and made us giving her a bottle pretty easy. (Just a side note, she also really likes and so did my other kids, the Playtex nurser bottles with the Latex nipples not the Silicon ones.) I love that these particular nipples are much more natural looking and are nice and wide for any mama's who like switching from breast to bottle sometimes.

Kate still gets a bottle(I don't care that she's over 1...!) and we still use these all the time. However now that she's big enough to use a sippy cup, we use these for the occasional juice and water.


Level 2 Tommy Tippee cups. They are seriously the only sippy cup I've ever owned in my 5 1/2 years of parenting that ACTUALLY don't leak. Plus it has a nifty little top that keeps the spout clean while not in use. Kate knows how to flip the top to use the cup if she wants.

Just thought I'd tell ya about a couple things I like in the parenting world today.
(FYI, I was not paid or told to leave this review..just doing it cause its nice to know what worked for other parents.)

Giving credit where credit is due.

I have been praying for healing and restoration of my teeth forever it seems. Its been a source of discouragement for a long time in the face of nothing happening and to have to almost admit defeat and put large sums of money down on my teeth. I seriously think my mouth is worth over 10,000 dollars. NO JOKE. Through it all though God's really brought me around and has given me the grace to deal with it.

When I went in today for fillings #1+2 out of 4, he got in there and said "Oh, there isn't a cavity in this tooth..We must have just seen wrong". Call it what you want, a glinch on the screen, a smudge on an x-ray. I choose to give glory to the One who made my teeth. Who is THE Restorer. I will give Him praise because He deserves it(in the good and the bad!). It may not seem like much, but I will take every victory I can get. Now if the other 2 would just close up, that'd be nice! :)

We have a need..

Would those of you who read this blog join with us in believing for a need to be met? Because of us doing our online schooling, we really need a laptop. Specifically one with a mic so we can use it during our online conferences with her assigned teacher. We haven't felt the need for a laptop till this year, but we know that part of the joy of homeschooling is being able to go and do and thats hard to do when you can't bring your computer along with you. Anyways...if you guys think of it and would just believe with us, we would really appreciate it! Thanks!

Today...

I can probably count on my hand the number of times I really and truly felt the Lord correct me...I mean I know He probably has lots of times but I've never made a real note of it. This past week has been one of lots of them.

Luke and I have over the course of him being "unemployed" talked earnestly about living in the day to day with the Lord in terms of provision. This month is the first time we've ever had to pay our mortgage "late"..meaning after it was due even if it was only a few days. It pushed us further into the trusting Him realm then we have ever been. I am SO thankful that its been over a year and a half before its happened and its only been by His hand that we've made it this far without a steady income.

I'm a planner, I like things in control..I hate change for the most part. So trusting Him...and I mean TRULY trusting Him is crazy hard. This past week, I have felt the Lord gently correcting me. I can't even begin to tell you how many times my mind has wandered to "how will be pay this?", "what about this coming trip we are taking", "where are the groceries coming from this week?"..and EACH and EVERY time, the Lord speaks softly but sternly. "Today, Kayla. You have what you need today.". Its so easy for me to get ahead of myself and forget to thank Him for what He did TODAY!

Today I have a roof over my head.
Today my stomach has food in it and my family is full as well.
Today my power and water are on.
Today I still have satalite and internet.
Today my oven still works(gas).
Today there is gas in my car.
Today my husband worked and earned money.

It seems God was wanting me to practice what I was preaching.

Thank You Lord for today..thank You for all the provisions You have given us for today. Thank You that I don't know how You'll take care of tomorrow, but that I can trust that You will. Thank You that I can rest and be at peace because You are good..Always.

Homeschooling day 1..

Epic fail. I had another dentist appointment this morning..which went fine and managed to make it back in time for an online schoolwide orientation that was live...tried to sign on several times and it kept freezing up my computer due to how many people were trying to attend...so they ended up recording it and sending it out later, but since my Mom was in town we all decided to go swimming. While I'm still super happy and glad to have spent time with my sister and my Mom, it definitely through a wrench in schooling plans. Came back and thought it would go smoother since Noah and Kate were both sleeping...but at this point Olivia was tired and cranky and wasn't retaining anything I was teaching her....Some lessons have online assesments that they have to pass before being able to move on to the next lesson...she failed 2 today. It made me feel horrible..As if I didn't have enough insecurities about how to teach her as it was. I was reminded by my loving husband that it was her first "full" day of schooling and only the first week of school, so he reminded me to give both her and myself some slack..

I really need to try and figure out what to do with Kate(Noah will obey and sit and watch a movie in the morning but keeping Kate out of our schooling room is hard to do and quite the distraction to Olivia)...and also try and figure out what learning style Olivia is and try and meet her where she's at. This may take trial and error so I'm trying to be forgiving of myself..but its hard. I hate failing and part of me has felt like a failure a good bit of my life so it hurts when I can't immediately see this shiny perfect image of a homeschool mother.

So thankful my husband took over kid care when he came home and even went as far as to make dinner for us. Gah I love him..:)

Green Toys Feeding set giveaway!

This is the sweet mama who lovingly donated lots of her liquid breastmilk gold to Kate for a few months...she's doing a giveaway! Go check it out and enter..! :) Or don't..cause that gives me better chances. haha..:)

http://tinyurl.com/24t5dv6

A night out..

Last night my Dad came and ate dinner with us, and then Luke and I headed out for our free date night. Luke's parents had given him a GC to Applebees for his birthday..we used it on his actual birthday night for all of us to go eat dinner, but there was enough left on the card for he and I to go and get dessert....but we decided to take an idea from our friends(Kelly and Tyler) and go to the book store to let our dinner settle before ingesting more..:) We ended up sitting and flipping through the "Awkward Family Photo's" book. They have a website so we'd seen some of them but we sat there and laughed soo hard that people were looking at us...haha..Then we went and got dessert...it was nice and also awesome that we didn't pay a penny for our night out. We rarely have the funds to splurge on dates and we're trying to learn to be more creative when it comes to time as a couple and special things.



Isn't she just the cutest??


Him too!


The kids all trying to play the Wii...Noah and Kate haven't fully figured it out yet. :)

Something that stood out.

Not this past Sunday but the Sunday before that when we met with some Brother and Sister's in Gainsville, one of our new sweet friends was sharing about some of her frustrations with her attitude and a friend of her's had led her to the passage about what love was(1st Corinthiants 12:4-8a)..God is love and Jesus is God(still have a hard time wrapping my brain around how that works! haha), and so she was instructed to read it as though it was talking about Jesus.

Jesus is patient and kind. He is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Jesus does not demand His own way. He is not irritable, and keeps no record of when He has been wronged. He is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Jesus never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance. Jesus lasts forever...

If we are dwelling and living IN Christ all we have to do is allow Him to have expression in our lives and step aside to make room for Him. We are Christ's expression on the earth(Gen. 1:6,7) and I know I do a pretty bad job of representing Him sometimes. I'm trying to learn to set aside Kayla and welcome Him to talk instead of me..To love unconditionally instead of my conditional love..

In other news...

This past weekend was fun. We were fighting off a cold of some sort but we all seem to be on the mend now thankfully...just a little congestion and one little runny nose left. Saturday we went to get the boy's hair cut, went by and got me a few things of clothes and went to the park for a little bit.

Sunday we decided that since our kids would be in close contact with other small children that going to meet with the Body of Christ wasn't the best idea..so we stayed home and just lazied around all day...Then went and enjoyed Rita's with Erin/Wesley/Dad...thankfully I haven't heard of anyone getting sick over there...yay! :)

Monday morning started out early for me. I'm NOT a morning person..I've said it before but its totally true. But I needed to go to the dentist and I needed to get up and go as early as I could so that Luke only had to miss out on some of the morning work while watching the kids. Went for my first cleaning in like I can't even remember when. I'm almost always in for some sort of work so just doing a cleaning is usually pushed aside. I don't remember cleanings being that painful! Maybe its cause I haven't had one in forever but it hurt SO bad and it was a bloody site to say the least. They thought I had gingivitis it was so bad..but thankfully I didn't. They did find 4 cavities which they basically already knew about since my last visit. They went ahead and filled two yesterday and was thankful when they mentioned that one of them was super close to the nerve but they had put some stuff in there to help it reminerilize instead of just doing a root canal. They said I'd had cold sensitivity because it was so close but honestly I have only had it be uncomfortable like twice...so I'm hopeful that I won't need another root canal. I got back next Monday to get the other two filled and then its just deciding which next big thing needs to be addressed, like one of my molars needs a crown cause its got a tiny little crack in it..but they weren't concerned about it because the tooth and the filling itself looked so good. :)

Threw myself a pity party yesterday when I was watching everyone post pictures of their children going off to school. Part of me wishes I was in on that experience but thankfully one of my friends encouraged me and now I'm ok. There is a lot of fear of the unknown when it comes to schooling Olivia..I think once I start I'll be ok. :) It also helped that all Olivia's curriculum came in yesterday. I was AMAZED at the amount of stuff they sent. I mean I literally have everything I need outside of regular paper and maybe some crayons..they sent magnets, rain gauges, safety goggles..more books(regular reading type) then I could imagine, dry erase boards(with everything that goes with it), a magnet board and lots of little magnets with numbers and letters on them, blow up globes of the continents and of constellations, and lots of actual school work books. It made me so happy and I can't wait to be able to get a book shelf hopefully this week that I can put everything on and have it all organized.

Bzzz....

So I'm this member of a thing called BzzAgent..you sign up, take a couple survey's and then they pick Campaigns for you. They send you a whole kit full of coupons and products to try, review and give out to other people. I love it..its fun getting to try products and get to leave feedback and tell people about them.

This past week I got sent 5 packs of Orbit Gum(in different flavors) and a whole bunch of B1G1 free coupons for them. We've really enjoyed testing out the flavors and sharing the stuff with friends. My favorite is their BubbleMint. It taste almost exactly like Double Bubble but with a minty flavor too. Its hard to describe..haha..

There is no benefit to me in terms of getting paid or "I get points if you join" type thing..its just for fun and getting to try out stuff...so no worries. I'm not trying to hit anyone up..haha...but if anyone wants a B1G1 coupon for their gum let me know and I'd be happy to mail you one! :)

Don't take things so personally..

I'm learning how to be better about not taking things personally. Its so easy to tell people when I've said them that it wasn't a personal comment, but I know other people have said things for the general public that I've taken quite personally. I have to remind myself that everything that gets said in life isn't an attack on me as a person.

Though it has made me more careful about what I say because I realize how things can be misconstrued now. I think this is especially easy when it has something to do with spirituality. When you believe something so wholeheartedly, and someone makes an opposed view it shakes you to the core of your beliefs and doesn't make you doubt those beliefs so much as just offend what you believe.

God has stripped away everything I thought I knew about Him, church, family...and is rebuilding this beautiful picture that HE wants me to know, and not just know, but LIVE. Its so humbling. Almost painful...and yet in the midst of it all the purging and the Refiner's fire, I want nothing more but Him.

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
Philippians 3:8

Birthday's!

This week is my Dad's and Luke's...so Wednesday Erin and I are doing a nice big dinner for them all. Basil Lemon chicken and pasta, salad, and 2 different kinds of cake! :) Super excited about celebrating..! My brother is also coming in to work with the fella's for a while so almost my entire family will be here!(Sans Mom....we'll miss you!)..

However I have much to do today in preperation. LOTS of general house cleaning, bed sheet changing and setting up a place for Ms. Kate to sleep..and some baking to do.

Thankful that His grace is sufficiant for me. :)