September 2014

We moved into the church parsonage on September and Peter turned 5 in September! He got to start preschool at PCGS, too. I'm glad we waited for him to start preschool until this year. He was ready to start and has done so well. His class is for older 4 year olds and 5 year olds. It meets three mornings each week. He is really loving it!

September was also an exciting month as Brad passed his classical examination and was ordained and installed as a pastor in the CRC. It was the final step in the seminary journey and it was exciting to see the dream fulfilled and his hard work and calling affirmed.

Peter's first day of preschool and our new home's front step - sorry for the crooked picture

Peter got to help drive the excavator that working at church - on his birthday!

Our friends and family gathered for Brad's ordination- we ventured to Red Rock and tossed stones in the water for a while

Group picture on the hike back - you can see it was a hot day as the kids decided to go shirtless

Love birds

Family picture on Ordination and Installation Day

So special to have both of our parents here for the weekend

Special men involved in the day: Pastor Paul Hoekstra, Pastor Mark Quist, Brad and Dad (aka Pastor Merle Bierma)

These cousins got "caught" playing in the balcony after church!

Our Little Gal's Golden Day

My sincere apologies! I must think about posting on the blog often enough that I feel like I've actually done so, when in reality it only happened in my head. I wonder how many other things are only getting attention in my thoughts and not in real life?

Flash back to January: Cora turned 7. SEVEN! Is each year going to be this crazy? I overheard a father's advice to his adult son, whose daughter had just turned 6. He said to his son, "Congratulations! One third of your time raising your daughter is finished!" We're one year past that. Seven is one third of 21...I was married at 21!  

This year was Cora's Golden Birthday. She turned 7 on January 7, so we played up the "golden" idea a little bit with her birthday party. Cora and I had fun trying to find golden colored foods: finger jello, pine apples, golden raisins, potato chips...etc. She chose, for the third year in a row, a rainbow layered cake. To change it up this year I made 6 layers, each a different color. It seriously is the most fun cake I've ever eaten! 

We enjoyed celebrating Cora's birthday with a few friends of hers (one is also a cousin). They colored her a birthday poster, played some old-fashioned party games (musical chairs, hot and cold, pop the balloon, etc), ate lunch and went sledding in our back yard. It was super fun...and I'm really glad we limited the invitation list to only 5 friends! They had a lot of energy! Here are some pictures of the fun we had.

Red Light, Green Light

Coloring her birthday banner

Musical Chairs

The gang!

Lunch time

Happy birthday, sweet Cora!

The (huge) rainbow layered birthday cake. 

A Happy 4 year old Birthday Boy

It was all about our birthday boy last week! We played classic preschool games with a few of his friends like "Hide-and-seek", "Duck, duck, goose" and "Freeze Tag". 

 Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting was his choice. Oh yes, and chocolate ice cream!

 Thank you to everyone who helped him feel special on his birthday! Cards, phone calls, gifts!

 He's getting so tall! Look at him stand there so seriously. :)

 Seeing as how 90% of the time Peter spends with toys is spend playing with race cars and monster trucks, we thought it'd be a fun way to celebrate by taking him for his first go-cart ride. He loved it!

 Scooping, dumping, scraping lentils.

Happy 4th Birthday to our little man! It gives us so much joy to celebrate you! We are so thankful that you're in our family, that you are healthy and growing into such a fun boy. Thank you, God, for Peter!

How to celebrate a birthday and feel all filled up

It wasn't the pinterest-inspired cake that I made for my family and me that filled me up on birthday.

Or the pinterest-inspired sangria for my husband and I to enjoy later.

However, it was my kids announcing to strangers we passed at the grocery store that tomorrow was their mommy's birthday. It was the special secrets they shared in front of me about birthday presents for mama.

It was helping Brad fill and tape balloons around the house...even though I'm an adult and we weren't even having a party.

It was Peter's surprise the next morning that there were decorations and his disappointment that followed because we didn't do streamers too. ("The floaty things")

It was the multiple hugs and kisses and "Happy birthday, Mommy!!!"s all throughout the day.  

It was the phone calls (even if I missed it and only got to listen to a voice-mail) and cards and e-mails: friends and family taking a moment to let me know I'm special in some way to them. And yes, even getting some Facebook love feels nice, too.

It was, especially, spending the day with the people most important to me and enjoying a day being surprised by Creation together that left me feeling all filled up and satisfied on my birthday. (Click here to see an album of more pictures from our hike.)



And, yes, the hour of P&Q in the morning while Brad took the kids out was really nice, too! "P&Q" (peace and quiet) are gifted-moments these days!

Thank you, Lord, for this full life. For my amazing husband and wonderful kids. For my family and friends far and near, new and old. For health. For freedom. For opportunity.

As you have so blessed me, help me also to be a blessing!

Anniversary Antics

Our anniversary getaway vehicle (crooked cell-phone picture)

 Tandem bicycling is a good trust builder!

We borrowed this bike from a lady in our church and explored some bike paths on the Wabash Heritage Trail around Lafayette and West Lafayette. Very fun! I laughed longer and harder than I have in a long time. It was very good to do together.

11 years of marriage... Happy Anniversary, Brad! 

I thank God for giving me such a wonderful man for my husband! I pray we have many more decades to enjoy life together!