Some Pictures for YOU!

Here are some recent pictures that I have of Ky-guy playing out side!

These ones are from the Minnesota Zoo!

We are on THE List!

Our Home Study was finalized today and we are OFFICIALLY on the waiting list!

We decided to go on the GIRL waiting list this time. We were told that the wait time for a girl referral is 12-15 months and that wait time to travel {after receiving our referral} is 11 months. (You read that right 11 months.) Total predicted wait time: 23 - 26 months. That is MUCH longer than when we adopted Kyan.

For some comparison, here are the wait times for when we adopted Kyan:
Wait time for referral: 5 months
Wait time for travel {After receiving a referral}: 11 weeks
Total wait time until Kyan came home: 8 months

We are SUPER excited to be on the waiting list and we have to trust that God is in control of the timing!

Some other good news! We were able to update our home study with the same Social Worker that we had with Kyan's adoption. This was so great because we really like our social worker and it is great to continue working with her!

Question: How do you wait for 23 - 26 months for your baby girl?

Answer: One day at a time!

Where did my baby go?

It seems as if Kyan has grown into a little boy over night  It is CRAZY how fast kids grow up!

Here are some pictures taken today of my little boy playing out side!

I Hope that you are enjoying your day as much as we are! :)

My Monkey, Some Funnies and FaveCrafts Radio

My Monkey

Kyan has started to climb. I know that I am lucky that he has waited until now to start to climb, but I was kind of hoping that he would skip climbing altogether! He can get up on chairs, tables, stairs.... pretty much anything that he wants.
Here are some funnies from Ky-guy
Ky loves to pretend to drive. He will make any flat circle into a steering wheel. He also likes to sit in the driver's seat of my car {when it is turned off, parked in the garage} and pretend to drive. Yesterday as we were getting ready to get in car to go to church Kyan said to me: "Ky-guy Drives?" I did not think we would be having that conversation until he was 16!!

In the morning when Ky wakes up he yells "Mommy! Where are you?!" and he keeps yelling it a little louder until I go and get him.

Kyan has been getting more and more interested in Bathroom functions {pooping and peeing} He is starting to let me know after he as gone #2 {and sometimes #1} and will tell me when he wants a new diaper {he will say "Biapers Mommy?"}. I will often time check his booty just to make sure he is really poopy (because some times he is wrong). So yesterday, we hosted a couple of college girls for Sunday lunch after church. Ky-guy decided to "check" Jason's booty to see if he was "poopy?" "No sweetie, Daddy is not poopy." He then moved on to one of the college girls... "poopy?" She was sitting down so he was not able to really check {Thank goodness!} But we all got a good laugh about it!

Fave Crafts Radio
Yesterday I was interviewed on FaveCrafts Radio about my Fireflies and Jellybeans blog.
If you want to listen to the interview you can go to FaveCrafts Radio and click on the "on Demand" episodes on the player on the right side of the screen. I am the first person interviewed!

Happy Easter!

We did it! Finally!

We finished our paper work for the Reapplication for adoption! I dropped it off at our agency this morning! It feels good to have this part done!

Now we wait for them to match us with a social worker and they will call us to start our home study!

The Red Zone

I have to admit that I've let Fawnda run with our blog for a very long time, and this is mostly because she does such a great job at it. I thought that I would put together another post to give you some insight into the some of the things that bounce around inside my head (beside the mothballs, of course).

As of late, my life is being lived like I'm in the Red Zone. For those of you that don't follow football, the term "red zone" refers to the area on the football field that is within the opponent's 20-yard line. The Red Zone is certainly within field goal range, but the end zone is within sight, and a 7-point touchdown is always better than a 3-point field goal. NFL statisticians pay particular attention to any and all actions within the Red Zone, and I believe records are kept for it all. Most players on the offensive side of the ball get jittery once they pass the 20 yard line, because games are often decided by what happens within those 60 feet of the football field.

Maybe I should pause here. I should probably clarify that I do not feel that I have been put out to pasture, and that my respective share of the turf happens to be within the 20-yard line on some football field. When I say that I feel that life is being lived within the Red Zone, I am referring to a particular state of mind.

In regard to being the father of a two year-old, I feel that every decision and move I make counts. Do I plop down in front of the TV when I get home, or do I run around the house with a screaming boy on my back? Do I take a nap because I'm tired, or do I dress down to give a boy (who loves the water) a bath? Like I said, every decision counts. There are no do-overs, and whether you realize it or not, someone, somewhere is keeping track.

In regard to my Christian faith, I continue to press on toward the goal (Philippians 3:14). I really like this passage of scripture, because it refers to the energy that we must exert to keep a certain momentum going. It says, "forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead. . .". Don't you just love that? If we coast, we will certainly fall short when it counts. The decisions to exert a little energy could include such things like, doing devotions early in the morning or late at night (either way, it's not easy because you're tired); turning off the radio in the car and spending that time in prayer (I know, sometimes the quiet can be scary); or picking up a good Christian book that will certainly stretch your faith. Once again, it's like being in the red zone. I press on toward the goal, but every decision and move I make counts.

Anyway, I have been thinking lately about how life often requires the same mentality that it takes to be effective within the Red Zone, and I thought that I would post some of my random thoughts. Maybe it's because the Super Bowl was over a month ago, and I needed a good football fix, but I do believe there's some merit in living life like someone's keeping score and everything you do counts. Does this resonate with anything going on in your life? Or, maybe it is time to put Jason out to pasture? Leave me a comment, and let me know what you think.

I'm going to work!

Kyan sat down on his truck with my boots on and a bucket and said 'I am going to work!"

Don't worry we did go and change his diaper after the video! : )

Sticker face!

We were playing with stickers today, and I have, in the past, put a sticker on forhead to be funny.  Kyan really liked it!  So, this is what happened:

Love Budget

Back when Fawnda and I were planning on bringing Kyan home, I spent a considerable amount of time planning and budgeting to ensure that we would keep afloat financially with Fawnda staying home, and with us dropping down to one income. Over the past year, I feel that we have reaped some of the rewards of all of that careful planning, but after a few recent setbacks, I had to pull out my old spreadsheets and rework the numbers in an attempt to squeeze out a few more dollars each month.

It was during the course of all of this planning that I happened to read the parable of the rich fool again. This parable is only found in the 12th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, and it covers a mere 9 verses. I have probably read through this parable dozens of times during my lifetime, but this time this story took on a much deeper meaning for me. For those of you who might not be familiar with this parable, here is Jesus' telling of the story:

"The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."'. But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

With all of my recent planning, I have to admit that I was a little envious of this rich man, who was at a point where he could kick back and take life easy. However, when I read that God called him a fool, I sat up straight, and scolded myself for feeling that way. I still wouldn't mind being rich though, so the phrase, "rich toward God" really caught my attention.

I had to ask myself, "what does it mean to be 'rich toward God'?" I can imagine earthly riches, but this seems to hint at something much different. A few of the clues to the meaning of this phrase can be found before and after this parable. Luke 12:15 says, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." This verse implies that these riches are separate from our possessions. Luke 12: 33 speaks of "treasure in heaven", which makes me think that these riches cannot be seen, and verse 34 states, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." The word "heart" is often connected with the term of "love". This connection really helped me pull it all together. I remembered that Mark 12:30-31 contains the greatest commandments, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." The plain and simple truth is that God values love so much more than anything else. Just as a modern day currency could have its value based on gold or silver, heaven's currency is based on love.

When I think of love, I often defer to the definition of love as holding some one's best interests in the highest regard - often ahead of one's own. Lately, I have spent a lot of time focusing on how I earn money and spend money, but I don't remember a time in my life that I have ever been this focused on how I'm earning or spending my heavenly currency (love). I am forced to ask myself, "if I were to put together a financial plan for my heavenly currency, what would that look like?" That's when I came up with the concept of the "Love Budget" - hence the title. There's an old adage that states, "we manage what we measure". If we're looking to manage our heavenly riches, I'm thinking that we must make it measurable.

There are a lot of great books out there on the topic of love, and I felt that this was a fitting blog entry with Valentine's Day being just a few days away. I read through Gary Chapman's book, The 5 Love Languages a while back, and that is a great resource on understanding how we give (spend) and receive (earn) love. I'm thinking about putting together a plan including tangible things I can do to better manage my heavenly currency. King Solomon is considered to be the wisest man that ever lived, and he is the author of this proverb found in Proverbs 14:22, "Do not those who plot evil go astray? But those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness." If what I'm thinking is true, then love is the most valuable thing I can possess, and a plan (budget, if you will) to improve love in one's life is not only good, but it would result in finding love and faithfulness!

What do you think about this "Love Budget" idea? What are some ways that you could be even more "rich toward God" and increase your heavenly currency? I don't know about you, but I would hate to live my life pursuing the ambitions of this world, only to come to the end and be bankrupt toward God.