Hope

This week has been hard.  Coming off the high of our 4th of July weekend, there have been some major challenges thrown at us with our surrogacy this week.  Things ranging from insurance to scheduling to personal questions to answer.  I have been pushed beyond where I thought my breaking point was, and guess what friends?  I'm still here.  Still breathing.  Still praying.  Still hoping.

I find in the midst of all the crap that's thrown at us on a frequent basis, that small word at the top of this blog post is often the ONLY thing that gets me through.  HOPE that God has this under control, HOPE that we are making the right decisions, HOPE that all of this will lead us to our baby.

If you believe in the power of prayer, I would ask that you pray for us this week as we continue to make decisions, attend appointments, speak with medical professionals, and finalize a schedule.  We are always seeking wisdom and grace through these very important decisions and an extra dose of HOPE can't hurt either.

You guys are amazing.  Thanks for caring about our family.  Thank you for being attached to our journey.  Most of all, thank you for HOPING with us.

Lots of Love,

{Reluctant} Monday Morning Musings

I have to admit, Monday Morning Musings during the summer don't really seem too bad since I don't work full time in the summer.  However, this Monday was the first in awhile that I didn't really want to come.  I have loved every second of this weekend between 4th of July traditions, extra time with my wonderful family, a friend's wedding, and Julie, Dan & Crew being in town - my tank is overflowing.  Even though both Julie & I were somewhat ready to get back to "normal" - we both wished "normal" didn't mean 4.5 hours away from each other.  You're about to be on picture overload of the fun we had this weekend!  :)

Gianna and I at the parade.  It was a beautiful day - not too hot and sunny.  I really wish Genevieve would let me hold her so she could make an appearance on this blog!  :)

Kaitlyn and Maicey at the parade - Maicey was in the parade as Miss Iowa's Outstanding Teen's princess.  She may or may not have genuinely believed that she was the prettiest girl in the whole parade.  :)

My brother in law, Rob is a wonderful cook - he set up his supplies and made the most delicious breakfast for everyone.

Kaitlyn and the beautiful Emma Kate {Miss Iowa's Outstanding Teen} who is a dear friend of our family.

The high school dance team I coach with my sister {Platinum} before the parade sporting their new uniforms.  I love them.

Emma & Maicey in their convertible.  Waving to their loyal subjects.  Memories they will never forget.  :)

Kaitlyn ended up being in the parade carrying the Platinum banner.  Even though she didn't wear comfy shoes, she still did a great job and had lots of fun.

Melt.My.Heart.

Maicey was in love with "those babies" as she kept calling them.  It's a little frightening to me how much these two resemble each other, no?

One of the rare pictures I can capture of my favorite boy, Sam.  {He never stands still long enough for me to snap one!} The boy has mad skills at catching anything being thrown at him as he is flying down the water slide at my parent's pool.  Too funny.

Hello Genevieve!  Thank you for not screaming when I got close to you.  Anyone else notice the grip she has on Julie's dress?!  She cracks me up.

Dan & Kevin with the twins.  Kevin has fallen in love with those girls.

Our family at the firework celebration.  Kevin can make fun all he wants of my red, white, or blue clothing requirement on the 4th of July - but nobody will argue the benefit of said requirement in family pictures.  Carry on making fun, babe - I'll take one for the team.  :)

Words cannot describe how much I love this picture.  That's the party that headed over to get a Tropical Snow to waste some time before fireworks.

This is one of the only pictures out of the other 15 in the series of these two.  I simply asked for a nice picture of my sister and brother-in-law.  The other 15 are either blurry or inappropriate for this family friendly blog.  I love them for so many reasons.  Mostly because they keep me from taking life too seriously and support my crazy dreams with every fiber of their being.

This woman is solely responsible for my marriage.  Jenny was my dance teacher growing up and remains the big sister I never had.  She and Kevin were best friends in college and she is how we met.  I am forever thankful.

                  

Those eyes melt my heart.

Mama and her girls. 

Shane & Cody {Julie & Dan's boys} - they are so sweet.  I adore them.

I know this picture made an appearance on the blog over the weekend,  but it's too good not to share again. 

Kaitlyn and one of her life-long friends Emma.  They are quite the pair.

Julie and Dan with their kids enjoying fireworks.  Except Gianna, she's just hanging out watching me take pictures of them.  That kid is a riot.

Other highlights of our weekend that I don't have pictures to go with included (but are not limited to...)

• Diana's wedding (I have pictures, but haven't uploaded yet)
• Late night convos with Julie & Dan
• Spending all day Saturday with Julie's family - I adored meeting the people who make her heart so full.  Her sister Molly and cousins Sean & Kristin were so kind and I loved watching them together.
• Having dinner with Julie & Dan and our kids on Saturday alone.  We didn't have much time just the 4 of us this week, so we enjoyed chatting without many interruptions.
• Watching their family mesh with all the people I love.  Everyone was anxious to meet them and although it should have been awkward, it wasn't at all.  Julie & Dan said many times how welcome and loved they felt this entire weekend and that makes my heart overflow.

Happy Monday, Friends.

Silent Weekend

Spending my weekend with my family.  As a super-duper added bonus, we also get to spend the weekend with Julie, Dan & their beautiful family.  Be back Monday with 4th of July updates and other fun.

Happy Weekend -

Independence Day :)

As a 5th grade teacher, part of the curriculum I teach each year is American history.  My favorite unit to teach is the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence.  The bravery of these men and women is astonishing to me.  The determination they showed in standing up for what they believed in is inspiring.  I adore teaching my kids about the history of our country and the battles that were fought and won so that each and every single one of them will have the right to have a voice and further, the right to use their voice - whether they use that voice in small ways like a blog, a vote, or even a conversation; or in big ways - it doesn't matter.  There are millions of people around the world who would give anything for the freedoms we enjoy here in America and I will spend today being thankful for the men & women who originally fought for our Independence and for the men & women who continue to fight to defend those freedoms today.

God Bless America.

So What! Wednesday

I'm linking up with Shannon at Life After "I Dew" today to say So What if...

• I have an obsession with Jeff Lewis on Bravo.  He is absolutely hilarious.  And his housekeeper, Zoila, is my favorite. {new season starting in a few weeks, yesssss!}
• I checked out all of the Iowa Children's Choice Award books to read this summer and have yet to read a single one.
• I absolutely wrote things on my To-Do list today for the sole purpose of checking them off.
• the only thing I can think of today is that Julie, Dan & their kids will be here tonight!!
• I have put off every ounce of school work I intended to do this summer.  I am going to regret that in August.
• While I am excited that tomorrow is the 4th of July, I am secretly dreading it because that is always my invisible marker that summer is almost over.  School starts 6 weeks from today. 
• I became irrationally excited about the new "Welcome" mat I purchased on sale last week.  It's adorbs.
• I have found myself pretending to be a stay-at-home mom this summer.  I have started enjoying making dinner for my family and having some sense of normalcy to our home.
• I can't remember the last day that I actually did something with my hair.  Not good, friends.  Not good at all.

What are you saying So What! to this week?

Up to You

Hi Friends.  I am still quite frankly astonished that real people are actually reading this blog.  Really, it's crazy to me.

I know many of you - ok, pretty much all of you - have gotten here out of interest of our surrogacy journey.  I am so thankful for all of the support we have received and even thankful for the curiosity that has come out of all of this.  The reality is that we are on a journey that is extremely uncommon.  And with that journey comes obvious curiosity.  I love the platform of this blog to be able to share the journey and answer the questions.  As I have mentioned before - this blog was never intended to solely be about infertility or surrogacy.  It is one aspect of who I am.  I'm also a Christian, wife, step-mom, teacher, sister, friend, daughter, etc.

With all of that being said, I wanted to open the blog up to YOU.  It's sort of an in between timeframe for this little blog.  The exciting announcement of surrogacy plans and getting everyone caught up with us is over.  Yet, we're not pregnant so we don't have that exciting stuff to chat about.  Soooooo, what should we talk about?!  I'd like to pretend you're sitting across from me at a little table and we're just getting to know each other - what would you like to know?  What would you like to read about?

It's audience participation time, people.  Leave me a comment (or shoot me an email at katie.rokusek@gmail.com) with a question (surrogacy, or otherwise) or a topic I could blog about.  I'll work my way thru them.  I need ideas, people - come on!

Have a Terrific Tuesday!

Monday Morning Musings

How is it possible that it is already July?!  Honestly, weren't we just getting out of school?!  The weather this summer has been so strange!  I feel like I'm just now getting into the real summer spirit because Mother Nature has finally figured out it's supposed to be warm and sunny outside.  I'd like to say I'm not mad.  But I am.

As mentioned on Friday, I spent all day on Saturday scrapbooking.  I got lots done - but it took me forever to get into the spirit of creativity.  Most of the time I can crank out lots of layouts during an all day scrap.  This weekend...not so much.  I did get caught up on Kaitlyn's book.  I just have one layout to do for the book we started for the baby.  That's still a little surreal to me...but I'm just going with it.  :)

After I complained that Mother Nature and I were fighting during my Finally Friday post, she decided to offer a peace agreement and allow Kaitlyn, Kevin & I some time to swim on both Thursday night and Friday afternoon.  Friday afternoon was so much fun - we had some friends come swim with us and I was able to catch lots of good shots of them going down the slide and jumping off the side.  What a riot.

I really need to spend some time this week cleaning our house.  We have accumulated SO.MUCH.JUNK since moving in here one short year ago.  I see a haul to Goodwill in our near future.

My nails are a hot mess.  I have tried really hard this summer to keep polishing them and taking care of them weekly.  Yep, not so much.  They need some major attention.  Maybe this week!

It's been really fun to watch the "followers" grow on the right side of the blog.  I love to see who's all reading.  Some days I see a huge number when I check page views, other days not - but that's not really the ultimate purpose of this blog.  Although I really love that other people are looking at this little online home of mine.  It makes me happy.

Summertime in our home is a bit chaotic because Kaitlyn is with us 5 days a week {she's with her mom 5 days a week during the school year} and I'm off, but Kevin is still working.  In an effort to keep my OCD brain somewhat calm, we have created a few organizational tools this summer to keep things running smoothly.  I will share more in a later post - but here is one of my most favorite of the summer! On the inside of our pantry door: a lunch menu.  Kaitlyn is required to choose one thing from the first two columns and if she wants she can choose one thing from the third column.  It's helped with making healthier choices and she is still able to be self-sufficient.  Welcome to my happy place.  :)

Alright, that's all for this Monday morning.  Enjoy your week.  :)