Lately.

Trying to sell our home, thus, cleaning way too deeply and way too often for showings. Stressful to say the least.

Working through our home study and seeing the finish line near (2 meetings left!) Next step: work on our profile that will be shown to expectant parents. Gulp. Scared, excited, pressure filled.

Playdates, zoo trips, family time. Spring, I love you.

Doing photo shoots, finally. My camera was getting dusty.

Work is busy (praise.the.Lord), we're happy and healthy (a double praise.the.Lord). I'm wrestling against an unsettle spirit towards our house selling, where we'll be next, if there will be a next (our house might not sell). 

More than anything, thankful. Thankful and blessed. That's what is up here lately.

happy easter!

Yes, we are looking at 3 different cameras but you take what you can get these days!

Happy Easter. Hope you had an amazing day celebrating that the tomb is empty and our Redeemer lives!!!

The More I Seek You.

Last weekend Mark and I went and saw Michael W. Smith in concert at our church. I was looking to re-living some music that we rocked out to in Jr. High. Little did I know it was going to be an amazing night of worship. He shared that his favorite worship song was "The More I Seek You". Every since he sang it that night, it's been stuck in our heads. Pure, deep and simple.

The More I Seek You

The more I seek you,
the more I find you.

The more I find you,
the more I love you.

I wanna sit at your feet
drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breath,
hear your heart beat.

This love is so deep,
it's more than I can stand.
I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming

The more I seek you,
the more I find you.

The more I find you,
the more I love you.

I wanna sit at your feet
drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breath,
hear your heart beat

This love is so deep,
it's more than I can stand.
I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming.

I wanna sit at your feet
drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breath,
hear your heart beat.

This love is so deep,
it's more than I can stand.
I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming

I wanna sit at your feet
drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breath,
hear your heart beat

This love is so deep,
it's more than I can stand.
I melt in your peace...

Let the fun begin.

Today was a day we've been looking forward to.....our first day at the Children's Zoo this season. We have a family pass and it's usually a once a week excursion so there is much fun to come. It was an "Earth Day Scavenger Hunt" theme but it was also about 45 and windy. We froze our tootsies off but it was fun nonetheless. (Plus we were some of the only people there!)

Declan is capital "O" Obsessed with the goats. 

He would stand there and feed them forever if I let him. 

There are 6 week old babies this year and they are precious. I wanted to stick one in the stroller and go on my merry way and hope they didn't notice. :)

It was so fun to have daddy along!! We go to the zoo a lot during the week on play dates while he's working. Declan took so much interest in things this year. It's going to be a fun season (did I mention that already?!)

Coldest train ride ever! But so worth it. Oh, and Declan refused to take this pic without "Baby" in it. Yes, Baby did the entire zoo with us today. I tried to explain that Baby doesn't need to do everything with us with no success. 

Food Play.

I am not normally a fan of playing with food (especially in lieu of eating food). But, tonight, Declan got such a huge kick out of his "coo-cum-ber finger":

 And his "can-tah-lope bowl-hin" (Cantaloupe bowling pin -- the bowling ball? A blueberry.)

Candy, Candy, Oh My.

We spent the morning at Declan's adoption agency at an Easter Egg Hunt. He consumed large amounts of sugar, played with "fwends" (while we chatted with other adoptive parents- very cool) and met the easter bunny (not cool- he freaked him out).  

 Decs & Daddy (Deckers is chewing some sort of candy in every pic I took yesterday. These next 2 pics feature him chewing on Starburst and drooling Starburst stickiness. Bleh.)

 Me and my lovie!

sunshine + fresh air = bliss

 

There is nothing better than Spring. 

The sunshine, fresh air, park days, picnics, flowers. Love it. Every bit.

I sit here blogging for the 2nd day in a row because my son ran around a playground for hours with 4 little boys and is entering hour THREE of his nap. Oh, the joy.

*Side note: this picture I snapped with my phone blows me away. My little Deckers is such a big boy. Sniff. 

*Additional side note: We turned in gobs of paperwork the day after meeting with our caseworker this week. Let's get this home study stuff moving. That's how we roll.

Preferences

 

This picture cracks me up because I see many of Declan's preferences. This day, he wanted his glasses, not his hat. His baby doll HAD to come with us (though I tried to keep it in the house so it doesn't get filthy/lost). I offered up a snack of Trader.Joe's cinnamon crackers but he also insisted on "crunchies" too. 

Mark put Declan to bed tonight while I picked up the living room (toy explosion). He then went to "jam" with some buddies and it's been over an hour of me trying to get the little man to sleep. The most recent time in his room, he insisted that he needed bandaids for his skinned knee. Okay. No prob. Then the preferences kicked in- he didn't want Mickey bandaids, he wanted Toy.Story bandaids. So I laid him back down and placed his favorite 2 stuff animals at his side. I started to cover him in a blanket and he literally went from drifting off to sleep to whining. Why the whining? He wanted the GREEN blanket, not the POLKA DOT blanket. 

Ha! Please tell me this isn't just my child?! I choose my battles so you'll see lots of giving in. Hope it doesn't bite me later.  Where's the hand book on all of this? ;)

Hallelujah

I've gotten in to quite the routine of things to get Declan to sleep for his afternoon nap. My son has no "tired" button and he never wears out. For nap I rock him for at least 30 minutes, rub his back and hum "Hallelujah". I can't forget this last part. If I stop humming, his fluttering eyes pop open like "ummm...don't stop..." Have you heard this beautiful version? Totally worth the 4 minutes. My humming does not compare even one bit.

Curious about other's bedtime song(s)?