Life Lately

I meant to publish this post about a week ago, but time has escaped me and I’m just now getting around to it!

So here is my picture dump life lately!

Aunt Natalie has been coming over to help me almost every time Theo is at work. She comes after she gets off work and arrives just in time to catch all the dinner and bedtime meltdowns! It is so helpful to me that she holds Little Miss, and entertains Tera while I make dinner, do the dishes and feed one or the other, then put Tera to bed. I’m so blessed by her service to me. Plus, she gets baby time…so I’d say it makes us all happy!!

We recently went to a local pumpkin barn that also had a few animals. Theo convinced a goat and a pig to come right up the fence, which Tera thought was delightful.

While we were there, I ran into one of my former students and his parents. I hadn’t seen this family since I was very near the end of my pregnancy with Tera. The first words out of the Dad’s mouth were, “Wow! You guys wasted no time with a second baby!”. Really, really had no idea how to respond.

It’s nice to see you, too. Thanks?

I love this picture of my loves.

Right now, date time consists of stealing a selfie in between wrangling children.

It’s getting chilly out! Or in, rather. We keep our house rather chilly and just layer up..haha!

This picture of Tera just cracks me up, so I thought I would include it.

We live right near a large downtown, but we still have deer come through out yard all the time! They love to eat all the fallen apples from our apple trees.

We went trick or treating! Tera loved it, and we love eating the candy! Hey, just being honest…!

Tera was a detective, and Little Miss was “Waldo”, or whoever the female Waldo character is.

Hilarious.

After putting Tera to bed, we lit a fire and had a little date/movie night in front of the fire. Of course, Little Miss was still with us, but she slept comfortably in her bouncy seat so we could enjoy some “kid free” time. It has been rare and really, really hard to find since Little Miss came to us. We are still waiting to have our friends approved as babysitters, so we have gone almost three months without a single break from children. It’s very wearying!!!

I’ve been following along with these #knittogetherbyadoption prompts for the month of November. November is National Adoption Awareness month, and I’m loving finding others who are on the same journey as us.

Tera discovered her new love of journaling….over what Mommy has already written.

This fall has been gorgeous, and our yard is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

….and FULL of leaves!

Theo has put in a lot of hours leaf blowing and hauling it all to the dump.

I love time with my Tera-girl. I try to be really intentional about spending time with her when Little Miss is at visitation. Or when Theo or I have to run errands, we will take one girl with us, just to give some one-on-one time to each girl.

I cannot believe Tera is 15 months old!!

And that’s all for life lately!

I am just posting some of my favorite pictures from the past few weeks, but the reality is that it has been incredibly busy and full of lots of things!

On the average week, we have 6-9 appointments for Little Miss. I am in charge of driving and being at every single one of those appointments. I know they told us all about this in the pre-service classes, but it’s an entirely different reality when I am hauling two children all over the Miami Valley on a daily basis.

We are hoping and praying (and begging a little) that our foster care specialist will approve some of our babysitters so that Theo and I can have a date night. We are in desperate need of a break from the constant needs of these two girls. Otherwise, we are faring fairly well. Theo has hit the three month mark of working for the Fire Department, so he is halfway through probation! Right now, his job is crazy. The medic at his station gets an average of 22 runs a day. That means Theo is taking 22 runs in 24 hours. As you can imagine, he is not sleeping at night. Then, since he is on probation, he has to do all the chores at the fire house, is not allowed to take naps during the day, and is basically the bottom rung of the ladder for all the other people who work at the firehouse. He has heard that once he gets through the 6 month mark, all this changes. We are looking forward to that! Little Miss has yet to sleep through the night and as any parent knows, it just starts to wear on you after a few months of being up every.single.night.

Overall, though, we are doing well. We are facing these “hardships” and doing our best to grow through them. We know that we are doing what God has called us to, and we won’t change that for anything!

But I wouldn’t complain about a date night and a full night’s sleep…!