Ready and Waiting...!
We are officially in countdown mode. The baby we are hoping to adopt is due any day! And we know she won't go past Wednesday, May 14th! We are so excited, and a little nervous. It's strange and surreal to be "expecting", with no baby belly to see. Mariana is especially excited, since she'll be sharing a room with her baby sister. She helped me put away some baby items and wanted to try them out herself -- I drew the line at actually getting IN the bassinet!

Trying on the baby towel

Our family's bassinet -- Mariana and Jack, and many other babies in my family, have spent their first months sleeping in this bassinet. Thank you, Grandma, for keeping it in such great shape -- 52 years!!

Mariana's Penguin Speech

Mariana did her last 2nd grade speech. She chose to talk about penguins. She did an AWESOME JOB!! We encouraged her to look up once in awhile (and not read the speech), and she did! We're not sure where she gets her confidence, but she definitely has it. (They had a casual dress day, by the way, which is why she's not wearing her uniform).

Marieke and Maebe, Reunited

We've been blessed to have Marieke visiting us for 3 weeks! Marieke is Christiaan's cousin from The Netherlands. What a great visitor! :)
And Maebe loves it because she gets special long walks!

Some Baseball/T-ball Pictures


(top)
I love this shot. All the kids are going for that ball. You can guess that in the end no one really catches it, but they get that ball to home base in no time.
(click on any of the pictures to see it full-size)




(below) Jack getting ready to hit it out of the park!




At last week's game, we all showed up to cheer him on, and so was cousin Marieke and the entire Stirling gang, all 8 of them! All taking pictures of our baseball star. He later told me: "I am so popular, Dad..."
This thing might be going to his head!!

Jack T-Ball Action

Jack is loving t-ball. Here's a video of a recent play!