There's Daddy!

June 2014

June was C.R.A.Z.Y. We traveled a bunch, but none for vacation unless a wedding weekend counts as vacation. One weekend we all traveled to Pella, IA, for Brad's second interview at Calvary CRC. Another week, Brad and I traveled to Pella to participate in the CRC Synod 2014 where they recognized and affirmed the recent seminary grads for ministry in the CRC. Brad also received a letter of call from Calvary to be their Minister of the Worship (lead pastor) at that time. We celebrated Addie's 2nd birthday somewhere in there. We all traveled to DeMotte, IN for Brad's cousin Jenna's wedding and we visited Sunrise CRC and friends in Lafayette. We accepted the call to Calvary and decided to move out of our apartment before the end of the month (7 days later) and temporarily moved into my parents' house. In the midst of all of that we said good-bye after good-bye to our dear seminary friends, church friends at Lee St CRC, and family who lived around the GR area. 

Cora and Peter help Addie open a birthday present

New toys are exciting for everyone!

A play kitchen for Addie's birthday

Brad (solemnly) listens to the list of names of seminary graduates at Synod

My view from the back of the auditorium - Brad and some of the others with President Medenblik captured on screen behind them.

Fun February

January proved to be deep, deep winter. I think Cora had 5 days of school cancelled (in addition to the first week off for Christmas break, and a day off for records day). I'm the kind of mom that feels as excited as the kids when school gets cancelled!  I love the thrill of a snow storm and seeing the beautiful white blanket covering  the ground and piles of snow balancing on tree branches. Plus, I love that Cora gets to be home with us and we just have a lot of fun together!

February, as we know now in March, didn't let up and fought to compete with the extreme conditions that January provided. It has been a major source of complaint for many people,   I have to admit that it seems strange to me that the long, cold, dark (as in short) days of December and January didn't bother me in the least, and for the most part I've been secretly loving it!   I just take it as a blessing; one of the ways God has answered prayers for sustaining us through this last year of seminary. 

Other than the weather, February started with a bummer of a Super Bowl for us Denver Bronco fans! We had a great little party with extended family. Deb and I had fun coordinating as much blue and orange food as we could!

 Despite the super disappointment, we remain Bronco fans!

 February means Valentine's Day to lots of people. Admittedly, Brad and I have not traditionally made a big deal about celebrating it. But when a babysitting offer came from my parents we decided to enjoy a date, our style. Dinner and a movie? No thanks! We strapped on our snow shoes and got off the beaten trail to experience the deep snow where no one has tread before. We explored the snow covered sand dunes and over to the frozen shore of Lake Michigan.

 I just had to throw in this picture of Addie. She is obsessed with babies, lately. If I mention anyone in my sister's family she chimes in with "Bee-bee?" asking if we are going to see her cousin, baby Lucas. It's sweet but I really have to  keep an eye on her when a baby is around, even if it's a stranger when we're out an about. She tries to give them pacifiers and blankets and point to their eyes...things that moms of newborns would rather a toddler not help with. Her fascination has translated to playing with the baby doll that Cora got when she turned 2 and never really played with very much. In the picture below Addie had asked me to wrap up the baby in Addie's favorite blankie which she calls "Ee-hee". It's amazing how fast little one go from being a baby to recognizing anyone smaller than themselves as a baby!

Things that go bump and the prayers of a child

Peter has been suffering from bad dreams for a quite few weeks now. Almost every night he wakes up screaming in terror or comes running into our room, terrified. It's very sad to see him so tormented. But is has been getting better recently, thankfully. He has started praying at his bedtime "Dear Lord, please keep the bad dreams out of me, and give me good angels."  It's touching to hear him adopt his own version of the prayers that we say with him in the middle of the night after a bad dream as his own. 

He also has been very excited about praying before our meals. He often says his prayers like this: "Dear God, thank you for our food. I really bless you for..." followed by whatever toy, friend or fun event he's thankful for and also for someone he's asking God to help, which lately is his recently injured uncle.

Cora also takes her turn praying. She starts with the memorized "God is Great" prayer and then follows it up with thanking God for her family and friends, and asking him to help the people in, (Where is the place with the really bad storm? she always asks), the Philippines.

Addie is cluing in to the prayer time, too. She folds her hands sometimes and mimics the sing-song tune of God is Great. It's very sweet. But most of the time she just wants her food-now!

May these family prayer times penetrate their spirits, so that Philippians 4:6-7 is a daily reality for them and they choose to turn to God in prayer in every situation: 

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God,which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Little Miss Addalynn- almost 1 1/2

This is a girl with a ready smile and a set mind. She is lots of fun! She loves to play with big brother and sister and she's tough. If she gets a little clobber she'll either respond with a laugh or mostly fake cry, just to show she didn't like it. But she recovers quickly and usually is back in the scramble. She is daring and determined, climbing on anything and everything, pushing chairs around the kitchen to get what she wants from up high, standing on the rocking chair and making it rock on purpose. She is also very affectionate and expressive, often wrapping her arms tightly around our necks in a hug or giving sweet kisses on cheeks. 

She sat in her high chair for 30 minutes playing with this wipes tub filled with empty plastic easter eggs I found stashed in the closet.

Showing her sign language for "eat". She also signs more, please, all-done, drink, and milk.

She verbally says da-da, ma-ma, woof, meow, ee-ah (Peter), oh-wa (Cora), ay-ah (Moriah, a neighbor friend), uh-oh, up, hot, uh-uh (as in "no"). She nods and shakes her head no. (Thankfully the high pitched scream she was doing this summer has disappeared!)

Lately she's been into wearing Cora's clothes! I didn't think this would start for 10 years! She brought this t-shirt of Cora's to me and was obviously asking me to put it on her. After I slipped it over her head she had the proudest look on her little face. It was so cute watching her run around in this t-shirt dress. Thankfully, Cora thinks it pretty cool having a little sister wearing her clothes at this point!

What else about Addie? She's 17 months old. (My semester ends on her 18 month birthday so I probably won't be thinking about making a blog post about her at that point, so we'll count this her 1 1/2 year update!) She LOVES milk. Oh my, she would drink milk and only milk all day if we let her. 

She likes playing in the bath and especially likes having the water running a little bit to play with the trickle from the faucet. 

She is fast! She is not quite running but she moves quickly.

She would play with my car keys all day long if I let her.

She loves the idea of dogs, (more than any other animal) but is terrified by the real thing. Pictures are good for now!

She only has 8 teeth still. She's working on cutting 3 molars, though. 

I gave her her first full hair cut last week! I think I did a good job, too :) I took an inch off the back, and trimmed around her ears and the hair that falls on her forehead. The easter egg pictures are before the cut; the t-shirt pic is after, but it's hard to tell.

Hard to say what her favorite food would be. She's not a great eater, like the other two kids were as toddlers. She's not picky, she just barely eats anything so I have to always remind myself to only give her a tiny bit to start out with. I can't say that there's any thing she refuses to eat, so that's good!

Addalynn, 1 year old

Take a look at this sweet girl! 

Bright blue eyes, baby fine blond hair, heart warming smile. 

She turned ONE last week. 

May God bless us with many more birthdays to celebrate you, Addie!

Photo credits: Deb Gritter

May 2013

Addie turned 11 months a few weeks ago, and now we're actually closer to her birthday. She is hard to capture in a sitting, still position, so this month I avoided the conflict and just got a picture of her standing by her booster chair.

It's funny how she always realizes this sticker is on her shirt and she tries to pull it off! No matter how sneaky I try to be about it, she recognizes it and tries to get rid of it. 

Cuddle-buds

We've been enjoying seeing our friends a little more now that it's warm and everyone's running around outside more often! We've had lots of fun "end of the year" get-togethers.

Addie has little interest lately in sitting and playing with toys. Instead she is exploring the world from a perspective that is a foot higher than before. She loves pushing toys that she can walk behind and toys she can climb on and over. Her expression here is a common one recently, and you can imagine her sweet baby voice making an excited, "oh oh oh" sound!

Addalynn: 10 months

I hope your neck is flexible...or you are looking at this on an ipod or otherwise rotatable device. I am not as tech-savvy as I wish I were, so I can't figure out how to fix the orientation of these pictures! How frustrating!

Addie turned 10 months old last week. Here's where she's at:

She weighed in at 17 lbs 9 oz a few weeks ago at the doctor office. The doctor didn't like that weight and encouraged me to feed her more and more often. It was frustrating to hear that from the doctor because she said it in a very demeaning manner, implying that I was leaving her hungry and unsatisfied and she used a poor choice of words like calling her "scrawny"! This was not our normal doctor so I am glad we will not have to see her again. At the same time the doctor said that this "thinning out" is normal for babies at this age! I have tried to brush it off because I know that Addie eats well and often (except for when she is sick, like any normal person). She is starting to prefer finger food over being spoon fed baby food, so that does increase the challenge in giving her variety and abundance in appropriate foods for this age. She loves avocado pieces, so maybe she'll pack on a few pounds before we go back for her next checkup.

She measured 29 1/4 inches long...which is really long (or tall) for babies her age. So it's not like she's not growing! She is too long for her infant carseat now, so we will be changing that out as soon as it stops raining for more than a few hours!

Addie is an adept crawler now, seeking to explore and claim every corner of our home as her own. I was not eager to enter the mobile baby stage of life, but it's been fun watching her grow and learn and see what draws her interest. 

Ma-ma-ma-ma, Ba-ba-ba-ba, Da-da-da-da are sweet sounds that we love to hear from her. She also makes sounds that gives us the idea she's trying to sing, and also like she's trying to yell or call to us, imitating her siblings!

Addie is drawn to round objects and loves to hold balls of any size.  She's taking 2 naps each day that are about an hour to hour and a half long. She's sleeping 11-12 hours straight through at night. She seems to have the early-inclination of her siblings, too. That's OK. At this point I don't expect any differently and better that we're all on the same or similar schedule anyway!

And of course Peter wanted to get in on the photo-session. 

Pretty handsome little guy, huh?

6 months

Earlier this month Addie turned 6 months. What a milestone! I have loved this age and stage with all three children. Addie's daytime routine is starting to become predictable; night time sleep is also more reliable; she sits up with help and enjoys watching all the activity going on around her. (Now she is sitting up completely on her own!) She has been eating fruits and vegetables and is enjoying it more and more. Addie is generally happy, smiley and content. She cut her first two teeth already!

It's almost December already!

It's seriously amazing how fast time is going. I couldn't believe it when I saw that the last post I did was a month ago! Nothing extraordinary has happened this month. We are healthy, happy, and grateful! 

Addie's halloween costume was this adorable cupcake outfit a friend gave to us.  Even though she slept through all the Halloween festivities, I still wanted to put her in the outfit and get a picture of her. It's supercute!

She looks so big in this 5 month picture!

This is the fun stage where playing with her own feet is as good as any toy! She's mastered reaching, grabbing and holding on to toys...and toes.

We had some really warm days here and there this month and the opportunism that is required when living in a northern climate takes over. For me a warm (or at least warmer than normal) day requires spending time outside. One Saturday I took the kids to explore the Blandford Nature Center. It was really fun and I was impressed with the size and variety of activities for us. We spent the afternoon walking the trails, playing in the creeks and on fallen trees, and admiring the animals in the wild animal sanctuary. We didn't even have time to explore the historic homestead site or the indoor nature center. We'll definitely be going back again!

Another place we just can't pass up is the beach! Especially if it's a nice (or nicer than normal) day. We just can't get enough of this place. This month we visited Saugatuck Dunes State Park where a short walk through a beautiful forest opens up to the grass covered sand dunes, beach and Lake Michigan. It was a warm 60 degrees and windy.  We also explored PJ Hoffmaster State Park, near Muskegeon, on Thanksgiving Day, another unseasonably warm day, before joining my parents, uncle and aunt, grandparents and sister and brother-in-law for supper. 

Thanks for visiting!

3 month old Addie

We have a happy baby in our house, and she is such a blessing! At 3 months old (a month ago now) Addie was full of smiles and smiles easily at almost anyone who looked at her. She would crane her neck around to watch whatever shenanigans her bigger siblings were up to. She had started going to bed at about 7 pm for the night, but waking up once or twice to eat before getting up for the day at about 7 am. I figured she weighed about 14 lbs and she's plenty long.

Hello, Miss Joyful!

The arms and legs are going wild.

Peter playing pee-a-boo with Addie: she's intrigued.

June 2012

Early in June we moved to a larger, 3 bedroom apartment. We are now just across the street from the seminary. After Addie was born, Brad took Cora and Peter for a one-night camping trip to Walton Lake, a campground owned by Calvin College. He also took them fishing a number of times to a few different places. Cora has become quite the fisherwoman! She is very patient and focused while waiting for the fish to bite...and they sure do!

Keeping the "bully flies" away!

Cora loves holding her baby sister!

We really do fit all three kids in their carseats in the back of the Toyota Camry. It's a squeeze but the benefit to being close together is that it's easy to help pass toys or snacks to the kids. Cora even helps with Addie by giving her the pacifier, wiping up spit-up, singing to her to calm her down and occassionally even giving her a bottle!

Addie's first visit to Great-Grandma and -Grandpa's place. She is about two weeks old in this picture.