Remember when...

...I used to write on this blog?

Yeah, that was fun.

For the life of me, I cannot think of anything worth sharing a whole post about.

Hence, the quiet.

Surely there's something I can say if I just start typing, right?

What have we been up to? Playing outside! It's been SUNNY, readers! Warm and sunny! (Rare things for the Pacific Northwest.) I think we've even had three days of sun in a row without the interruption of rain. So we've had lots of outside time and that's been nice.

Were you to visit us, you'd find Ella on our swing set or riding her bike, Isaias playing with water or dirt (or both!) and Isaac riding his bike, playing in the dirt, singing or telling stories or explaining something loudly. Either that or you'd find him out of the sun altogether and inside the house, playing legos. Or all of them playing in the little kiddie pool.

You'd find Addie inside taking a nap or hanging out in my arms. When I'm outside I'm putting laundry on the line, watering the flowers/garden, or weeding --if I'm really inspired--


which as you can see I am not, very often.

At the very least I'd be taking a walk around our yard to peek at everything growing (or not, as the case may be with my basil. And that's all I'm going to say about that because I really really wanted that pesto this year. Ugh.)

I had a request for more news/photos about Addie, so I'm happy to oblige. [Except for I haven't been taking many photos lately, so I'll have to work on that.] Addie is a happy, sweet four-month old now. She's 14 lbs (which is tiny in our family!) She is a sweetheart: rarely fussy, content wherever she's at (okay, except for on her tummy). She babbles (when she can get a word in edgewise around here), laughs, and blows bubbles. This week she's started reaching her hands up to touch my face when I talk to her. It's very cute.


Adelia and I have always been in a good rhythm when it comes to her needing to go to sleep. She's a great sleeper for naps and nighttime, and I can lay her down awake or asleep and she will sleep great. But I noticed when Mark was trying to put her down on Sundays, she wasn't so happy about it for him. And when Mark and I went away and my mom put her down she wasn't too warm to the idea, either. So we've been working on a little sleep training. I've been making sure she's going down awake and letting her cry it out a bit. (Something that is so very much easier for me now that I've done this a few times. I distinctly remember bawling in the living room as Ella cried in the next room. Now, with Addie, I'm like, "Ah, she's fine.")

Many (all?) of you know that we're in the process of adopting her, and that's still in the works. Her caseworker has told us that she should be legally free (available for us to adopt) by the end of the summer, and then we would start the adoption process at that point, which will take another 3 months. Everything is going well for that to happen.

Let's see... in other news, I just finished reading God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew. I had never read it, I'm now ashamed to say, because it was so good. I made a note to read it aloud together as a family when the kids are a little older. Right now I'm reading Carolyn Mahaney's Feminine Appeal, and it has been encouraging (and challenging, too) to me in my roles as wife and mother.

That's all the catching up I have time for. Addie is awake. Ella is entertaining her in their room for me while I finish this up.

I hope you are all well!

::Congratulations to Jodi who is HAVING HER BABY AS I TYPE THIS.

::Rejoicing with the Fletcher family now that Joe is home! Praise God!