Monday, October 20, 2008

Yep, we're still alive

I've been told we're overdue for an update, and that's definitely true considering we have a new member of our family... Jenna Doreen! She's sweet and little and ooooh-so time-consuming! I should re-phrase that... she's sweet and time-consuming and WAS little. She's about a month and a half and already weighs over 14 lbs. Healthy but definitely not petite. She's the main reason there have been no updates here -- she's very fussy and cries every moment that she's not being held (and I don't believe she's manipulative; she has a lot of digestive trouble). Most of these pics are already up on Facebook but here they are again...











Jenna finally started smiling last week and I still have to attempt to catch it on camera. She does the same thing Emily did when she was pretty new... she pulls up one cheek and closes an eye for a lopsided smile.



As you can see, Emily helps out a lot by holding Jenna, even while she does school work sometimes.









We were delighted to have Matt here for Steve & Nic's wedding, and of course many other relatives including the Enter clan, Aunt Marlene, Uncle Don & Aunt Ria, Uncle Bert & Aunt Joanne, and of course Uncle Gord & Aunt Carol and Dori & James. The weekend went by much too quickly with so many people to catch up with, but the wedding was beautiful and memorable. Pastor Rutgers, as usual, has been such a blessing to us and officiated the wedding.













Nic had 6 flowergirls, one from each family. So cute!





A good-looking bunch of guys!
That's Brian, Kevin and Steve E., my brother Matt & Dave T.


Nicole's "inside shoes" were kind of a joke.
That's her cousin Joanna, friend Angela, Nicole, sister Aimee, niece Brittany





I can't resist posting a bunch of pictures of Holly too since she made such a cute little flower girl... like a little Kelly doll, still pudgy with some baby fat :)














Bouquet toss (for the record, Emma caught it :)





We're attempting to fit a coop school into our school schedule one day a week, not so much for academics as for the social, sports and fun aspects... They love it, even though it makes the other 4 school days much busier. I only have one picture so far (Holly in brown dress). Emily chose cooking and jewelry-making classes, Marie is taking Spanish, soccer and Ginger Pye (one of her favorite books), Joel has geography, animals in art and soccer, and Holly is in the toddler room with about 20 other kids. I help out with the infants and toddlers since I have to be able to take care of Jenna too. There's about 250 kids enrolled this year... busy place!


And, we have a lawn FINALLY! (kind of -- and a crop of chickweed too thanks to the fertile manure dirt from Steve's dad's farm; I hear it's very good for you but I can't bring myself to harvest it from the lawn and put it in salad :) Here's Steve working hard on it; he spent an entire week off from work getting the lawn in... We also hope to get some concrete work done yet this fall... it would really help keep things cleaner around here.








Winter is on it's way... it's getting cold outside!




Holly was in church for the first time last Sunday. She's soo rambunctious but tries awfully hard to be good. Sitting on Steve's lap, at one point she discovered his Adam's apple and stroked it a bunch of times, then felt around on her neck for one on herself. Then later she discovered I have eyelashes, and started feeling around on her eyes. She was quite pleased with the dollar Steve gave her before he went up to collect the offering, and she spent some time studying it. Then when she had to put it in the offering, she was absolutely devastated but dutifully put it in... her lower lip came up and she pouted for quite a while :)

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

My parents are here



...and they brought beautiful weather with them!


Child labor at its finest, ha ha. I guess sturdy Dutch kids are good for something :)



We never tire of visiting Washington Park, always so beautiful.










Another day we went up a boardwalk trail at Baker Lake, through a rainforest with beautiful old cedar trees, some around 700 years old. We discovered that rainforests often have very old trees because the climate is so wet that forest fires rarely occur. Also the trees often grow in long straight rows because they are taking advantage of the fertile remains of older fallen trees.





There were lots of blueberries & salmonberries to pick.



Mount Baker in the background!



Saturday, July 5, 2008

Fourth of July

We started the day with our annual church picnic... fun as usual (but I wasn't in a picture-taking mood). Then we went to see Josh & Becky's newly-acquired property (gorgeous!). We stayed home just long enough for Holly to get a good nap and then went to Bobby & Chris' place for a wonderful evening. The fireworks were incredible! Then Steve slept in a tent with Emily, Marie & Joel, much to their delight. Holly & I joined them in the morning for breakfast.


Holly repeated her swelling reaction from last year almost exactly to the day, poor thing... This time it was on both her legs not her face, but it was pretty uncomfortable with her and we gave her quite a bit of Benadryl. It went down just in time for the picnic on Friday. We're thinking it might have been from sand fleas at the beach.




Tuesday, July 1, 2008

At the beach!

Wow, sunshine and warm weather! We enjoyed it at the beach with Jenn & Bobby & their kids.







Sweet little Vieve, who by the end of the day no longer needed to have her mommy in sight while I held her :)