Mount Garfield Hike

Monday we made an attempt at hiking Mount Garfield. It's a local "must-do" trail - one that everyone asks if you've done yet. It's a fairly grueling short two miles, gaining 2000 feet. It's one of those hikes where you're not sure which way is worse - going up where you pray your lungs don't burst, or going down where you pray your quads don't give out. We actually only made it about half way because there were some nasty looking clouds coming and there are serious warnings about not doing the hike if the trail is at all wet. We thought it better not to chance it with our little girl along. Good thing, too, because it did rain later. Plus, it's not at all a trail I would want to be on if there is anything more than a gentle breeze. As you can maybe see in this picture, much of the trail is the top of this ridge and is about 5 feet wide, then drops off steeply on both sides. (For those of you wondering: Yes, I conquered a little bit of fear on this hike.) Cora lost her pacifier on this hike, too. She spit it out at a point where it bounced off the trail and tumbled down a couple hundred feet...We weren't about to go after it. She has more at home!
If you're a Facebook friend there's an album of more pictures posted there. If you're not, copy and paste this link in the address field.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=17008&l=dd4cf&id=592975435

Toy Exhiliration

This is Cora's little infant-to-toddler rocker. We've been putting her in it since she was a couple weeks old, but I gave up on it for a while because all she did was sit there and stare off to the side, slouched up like a sack of potatoes. So it went away for a while. Well, lately I started putting her in there again and it is soooo fun! Sometimes she gets really excited and her little legs are kicking back and forth so that makes the chair rock forward and backward a little bit, which makes the toys hanging in front of her wave back and forth and rattle. So for a week or two she still just stared but now it was at the toys. She put on her inquisitive, studying face (for those of you who have seen her in person, you know the face I'm talking about - some people call it a "furrow" or "scowl" but I don't think she's mad, she's just thinking hard about something) and stared at those toys for a long time. Lately she started to wave her arms in the air as if she's trying to figure out where those toys are.

Well, today she made a leap in her gross motor skills and depth perception. She figured out how far away those toys are and that she can hit them! Today she was swatting the pig and sheep over and over. Once in a while the poor cow got a smack across the face, too. Way to go, Cora! The amazing thing to me, also, is that she will sit there for 30 minutes, completely enthralled with these little rattling farm animals.

This is very funny - if you can see the details (I took the picture in the dark with no flash so as not to wake Cora up) you'll see that she's sucking on her pacifier with her thumb perfectly positioned to move in in case the pacifier fell out. She generally puts her hand in a fist and sucks on whatever part comes near her mouth, but the last few days I've seen her occasionally get just a finger or two, or her thumb all by itself. Isn't it funny what evidences of development excite us!

Wedding Adventure

We're back! We had a great trip to MN. We are so thankful for good weather, safe travelling, the Stasowick's (where we stayed in Lincoln, NB) and good friends! The wedding was successful - Jer and Val are married! And it was beautiful and everything went well. It was wonderful to be able to be there with them and be part of their special day.

Cora and Cadence did great! They both traveled exceptionally well and sleeping in new places didn't even seem to phase either one of them. What a blessing. We drove in our rented Mini-van for about 11 hours on Thursday to Lincoln, spent the night and went another 6 hours to Hollandale, MN on Friday. Friday was busy with decorating, the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner (at Pizza Hut!). Saturday morning I went to the salon with Val and the bridesmaids to take pictures while they got their hair done. Then it was back to church for pictures, the wedding, and the reception - we danced till midnight! Sunday morning we drove to Sioux Center and had lunch with Grandma Bierma, Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Dianne, Uncle George, Aunt Mary and their kids. It was wonderful to see them, if only for a few hours. That afternoon we drove back to Lincoln for the night and then got up really early Monday morning to drive home to GJ. It was quite the road trip! Since Amanda and I are both nursing our babies we used hand pumps to express milk in the car and feed the girls with bottles. That saved us soooo much time. I can't imagine how long it would have taken to stop every few hours to feed them. I think we had two "emergency" stops - one for a diaper-blowout and one for vomit-like spit-up. Pretty gross. Otherwise we just changed diapers when we stopped for gas or to use the restrooms ourselves.

My parents came out to MN Friday and Saturday and took care of Cora and Cadence when needed. That was such a blessing! I could not have helped Val as she needed me or been as relaxed for the wedding and reception if I was with Cora the whole time, also. I think :) they felt it was worth their long drive to come out for a couple days!

It's good to be home!

First Big Trip

Thursday morning we leave bright and early to drive to Hollandale, MN. Brad is in Jeremy Plantinga and Val Kallemeyn's wedding - the best man, actually. Hello, speech time. We are traveling with Brian and Amanda Cook, local friends of ours. Brian is also standing up for Jer. The great thing is that the Cook's also have a 3 month old little girl. Cadence is one week younger than Cora. It's going to be such a fun trip. I was stressed for a while about how it was all going to go - trying to feed and change two three month olds on a two-day car trip could make for, well, a three-day car trip! But the last few weeks I've been looking forward to it. We'll get there when we get there and I'm pretty sure we'll have fun on the way!

Another exciting part about going to this wedding is that we will get to see a lot of people we don't see often! My parents decided to take a little vaca to MN this weekend and do some grandbaby sitting. It is a bit of a drive for them, but they can do it in about 8 hours, I think. We're so excited to see you, Mom and Dad. We will also get to see lots of Dordt friends and do some catching up with them, which will be wonderful! Then on Sunday we are driving back through Sioux Center to go to church and have lunch with some of the Bierma clan. I'm not sure which number of great-grandchildren Cora is for Grandma Bierma but I'm excited that they get to meet each other! It will be quite the weekend and we're looking forward to it.

Blessings

I think most people that know me even a little bit know that my (short) career in teaching never left me feeling totally fulfilled and at peace. It was always a bit of a mystery since I did enjoy it (for the most part), I was trained and prepared to be a teacher, and I received a lot of confirmation that I was a good teacher. I always felt a little bit in turmoil that while I trusted that I was following God's will for my life at the time that I was teaching I still felt unsettled. I guessed that it was an "assignment" for a time, but maybe was not where God would have me long term. (And who knows what He holds for the future...I won't even go there.)

This last fall while I was pregnant there were times I wondered about our decision for me to stay home full-time. I wondered if that nagging unsettledness would stick around, making me question if I had really understood God's direction for my life or had missed the boat somewhere.

Well, Cora will be three months old tomorrow and 9 days out of 10 I love, LOVE with every fiber of my being, being her mama and spending my days caring for her and adoring her. I also love that staying home means I'm able to spend more time with Brad, run an errand for him, meet a friend to walk at the park, and keep up on housework happily instead of a little bit begrudged because of being tired after a full week of work. (I admit, I'm somewhat of a homebody. I can spend a lot of time at home doing this and that with out getting bored.)

We feel so blessed that I am able to stay home - that our church provides health insurance and a fair wage for Brad. Speaking of the health insurance, I must share that in the end everything has worked out wonderfully. Since we have a high deductible health plan (and I mean HIGH - someone said to me they have a HDHP with a deductible of $500...try that times 20!) we were prepared to take out a considerably large loan to pay for all the bills associated with Cora's birth. In the end the bill was half of what we expected it to be and our health savings account covered three-fourths of it. We had enough in our own savings account to cover the rest and still have savings left! I admit that there were times I worried way more than I should have about how it would all work out, but again God has provided beyond what we imagined or hoped for.

So back to the original topic, I not only feel contented, settled and at peace with my place in life but I also enjoy it more than I ever imagined possible. And that 1 day out of 10 when I don't love being a mom with every fiber of my being, well, I still like it - I'm just tired out, confused because Cora's being unexplainable fussy or I've gagged one too many times changing her stinky diapers. Or it's a day where I fight the mental/emotional battle against worry - worry that I'm doing things right, etc. But 1 day out of 10 isn't too bad, I'd say. I'm thankful that I not only enjoy staying home with Cora, but that I'm able to stay home with her.

Side note to future mothers - getting through the first 6-8 weeks is key. I'd say I still enjoyed motherhood then, but it definitely became more fun these last 4 or 5 weeks for two main reasons. 1) She's interactive and responsive with personality really starting to come out and 2) I feel like I know what I'm doing more than before. I can anticipate what she needs better, understand her signals better and I'm not so shaken by a little bit of crying or fussiness like I could be in the earlier weeks.

This is way too long. Congrats to any who made it all the way to the end!

Funny Faces

I know Cora will not thank me for posting these pictures but they just make me laugh so hard I couldn't keep them to ourselves! Hope you get a chuckle, too...or an all out belly laugh! Now, no saving these for future torture sessions or blackmailing of our daughter, you hear?

Do you think she could win an award for this one?