And then there were 4

As if I haven't been vocal enough this year about my passion towards the well being of the children in my life, why not prove it once more.  And to vaguely answer some of the many questions we have had about our growing family.... only almost 2 months later because apparently the more kids you add on the less time you have to type... or something like that.

For a majority of my BK career I referred to my employees as my BK Family.  It is/was true.  We made many lasting friendships that feel almost like family.
One in particular was Alisa.  I hired her probably in 2008.  Like most my other employees we got to truly know one another more than on a how you make a whopper level.  In Dec 2010 I through her a baby shower at BK where several employees came and her family as well  as a few regular customers.

Alisa didn't have a lot of close family.  That Christmas they were planning on spending it alone on a Ramen Noodle type budget.  Of course that did not happen and I made my small house accommodate quite the crowd, including them and one other employee.

Amusingly I helped name their daughter as we discussed baby names on fb and she liked the suggestion of Jayla amongst many other possible possibilities.  And when Jayla Kay-Ann was born of course I met her 10 hours later.

I haven't missed a birthday, I was the sole witness, photographer and guest when Cory and Alisa got married 2 years ago.  So Jayla has been no stranger in my life.

Birthdays 1-4

Of course she has joined in on my favorite local summer activities: VBS

Alisa and Cory are married Dec 2014 

And so when Jayla and her parents became homeless, there really was no question on what to do.  Initially Jayla had other living arrangements and her parents knew we had an open door policy, although they choose not to partake in more than free showers, meals, laundry services.  But when Jayla's living arrangement fell through -- immediately it was known she was to be with us.  I hate to see children suffer adult consequences (for lack of better wordage) and homelessness is not something I would ever want her to truly face and understnad and to her little four year old head she has in deed moved a lot (too much) but she's always had a home, a loving place to stay and that will always be the case if I have any power or any say.
Within hours she had her own room all set up.  Still initially her parents  weren't ready to stay here so from the first week of November until Thanksgiving it was only Miss Jayla living here.  But once her parents stayed here over Thanksgiving it was without saying permanent.  As with any situation in life there are some adjustment factors, mostly for Jayna I think as Jayla seems rather unaffected by it all. Jayla hasn't had to change schools since moving here;  just buses/bus stops.  She gets to see more of her parents than the previous living arrangement had.  And she really hasn't had any issues even when I was being the primary care giver instead of others she was used to as her parents work, deal with adult issues, and try to prepare their next home--- none of which are kid friendly tasks so it's more convenient for Jayla to not have to tag along to all of that when she doesn't need to.

All will work out and most importantly all four of my children are loved unconditionally, WANTED and hopefully are having the opportunity to be a part of a blended family that is accepting of their strengths, flaws and everything in between and and will teach them how family should be for some of them the first time and some of them have never known any different. Miss Jayla will likely only be here until February but she is certainly one of our children and we do our best to have absolute equalness for each child, right down to the number of gifts we had for each child under the tree (which was really too many, but they will have memories of that Christmas when...)

And so our life has been blessed with four children.  And just when you think you have your life planned out and you successfully had that magic number of children you imagined and everyone says one of each is perfect---- life throws you into reality.  There is no perfect number of children and their is no plan that can't successfully take a few unexpected turns.  And we have now had two unplanned children, just not pregnancies so our nine months of planning was more like nine hours for our last two children.  And we will all live happily ever after!

Our kids 2015: Angela, Anthony, Jayla and Jayna