One of Those Days

Today was one of those days that you just make you feel emotionally exhausted. I had blood work done again today to see where my hormone levels were at. They were back to normal which means that the pregnancy hormones are out of my system. It also means that we have to wait until I cycle normally before we can try to get pregnant again. While that is what we had expected it is still just another reminder that there is no little life growing. Sometimes it seems that if the reminders would just vanish it would be easier, but then again some of the reminders are our greatest joy - our two beautiful children. I am thankful though that our heavenly Father knows all and has a plan for every life, mine, yours and the life that we will not know know on this side of heaven. I just need to remember that every moment of every day....

Loren & Shellie's

While we were at Loren and Shellie's this weekend Shellie broke out their camera and got some adorable pics of the the kids.

Loren is self-employed and thus has an office in their home. Move over Shellie! I do believe that Loren may have a new office assistant!

They also have a train set that their sons played with when they were younger. Now they get it out when youngesters show up. Micah is especially a big fan of it and Becca really got a kick out it this time.

NW Iowa

This weekend we had the opportunity to head back to our marital roots as I like to call them. Nick and I were married when we were still in college and so lived some distance from our families for the first five years after we were married. Due to the distance we had to form our own "family" support system. It was great because it forced us to met and become friends or "family" with some really great people. This was also a great experience as we learned to depend on each other versus on those around us.

Any way we went up for Northwestern's Homecoming and to see some good friends. We stayed with a wonderful couple, Loren and Shellie, who have opened their home and hearts to us numerous times. The kids have really started to develop relationships with them and their two sons.

As always we had a great time. On Friday we were finally able to visit the gals that I used to work with and catch up with them along with having lunch with some of Nick's college friends. That evening we attended the local high school football game.

Saturday started off with a bang as Nick ran the 5k at Homecoming. He finished 88th out of approx 250 people in 31 mins. We were happy with the finish as he has only been running for 5 weeks! Then there was Morning on the Green (a carnival for the kids) at which the kids had a ton of fun. However the petting zoo wasn't much fun as Micah flipped out when any kind of animal looked at him! It would have been really funny except for the fact that he was constantly trying to climb up my leg to get away from the animals. Becca however was quite taken with the animals so she threw a fit when we left. I can't win. We then had lunch on campus - the official reunion and then Nick headed to the football game with the guys. The night was lovely as we sat out around a campfire and had all kinds of goodies with good friends! Mark & Suz and their kids joined us and Loren & Shellie. We sat, talked, laughed and ate a lot!

Sunday we attended the church that we were members of while we lived in NW Iowa. It is always great to go back and see so many familiar faces. Sometimes it feels as though we had never left. It is so great to reconnect with these people even if it is only for a short time.

Now it is back home with the laundry overflowing (hopefully the kids have enough clean clothes for whatever the weather does tomorrow), work to go to tomorrow, meetings, a lawn that will need to be mowed, and the to-do list that never seems to end. Oh, those weekends away are so nice.....

The Doctor Is In

Auntie Tricia took these pictures of Becca while doing Grandpa and Grandma Ver Heul's "check-ups" I am sure that this may have been as good of medicine as any!

Love Birds

I mentioned in an earlier post that I would post a picture of my sister Melinda and her fiance, Brian. Since they have not been dating for long we have very few pictures of them together. I finally got my hand on a few of them. Here is a lovely picture of the love birds!

It has been a long time since I have seen my sister's eyes shine they way they do now! Their story is quite interesting as they have only been dating for a very short time (8 weeks) and will be married on March 14, 2009. Sometime during the summer of 2009 they are planning on moving to Koper, Slovenia (former Yugoslovia) where they will serve as church planters for approximately 5 years.

The last two months have been exciting for us as a family as we have watched these two grow together and share their passions for following their Lord and Savior. As with most huge life changes they are in need of huge amounts of prayers as they both continue to work full-time, plan a wedding and plan to serve on the mission field. That is a lot to accomplish in 9 months! However we already can see the hand of our heavenly Father working through all of this and we look forward to seeing what He does in the coming days and weeks.

Brian and Melinda, Blessings to you both! We love you and are excited to see what the coming months hold for us all! :)

Washing the Van

This literally was just taken and it is a little picture of what life is really like at our house. Hope you enjoy! (Sorry it is a little dark.)

Second Children

I have always felt a little bad for 2nd (and 3rd, 4th, etc) children. It seems as though sometimes they don't get the attention that a first child gets. I felt this way before we had children and now even more that I have my own 1st and 2nd. Not that the 2nds are loved any less, mind you.

Examples: 1. We have way fewer pictures of Becca than we do of Micah.

2. Becca's firsts (crawling, steps, words, etc) are exciting, but not quite as exciting for us as Micah's were because they are our second experience with first. (Follow that? :) )

3. Nearly everyday when trying to do something with just Becca, Micah jumps in and believe that he needs to be included as well. So that one on one time quickly turns into one on two time! :)

4. Every time you ask Becca to do something, Micah quickly jumps in and does it for her because he can do it faster or better.

So... Today Micah was at preschool and Becca woke up early from her nap. She was being so good, playing by herself that I broke out the camera and got her to pose for me. All of these thoughts went through my head and I took a few extra minutes and just talked and snuggled with just her. Here are the pics. What a beautiful 2nd child we have been blessed with!

As side note....
I just want to express thanks to everyone who has been praying for us or has expressed their condolences. Your thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated. We ask that you continue to pray for us as we continue to work through this both physically (On top of everything I have come down with a nasty cold.) and mentally. Thank you so much - each of you are a blessing to us.

New School, Happy Birthday & Monkeys

Crazy title - I know, but there are some neat pictures that I would like to post and they cover a wide variety of topics!

Micah is going to preschool throught the local public school. The school district was able to secure funds from several grants to provide a free 4-year-old preschool and add on to the current K-12 building. They have been working on the building (which is just up the hill from our house) in the hopes of having is completed by November. This is big stuff for all the preschool kids and they all enjoy going and checking out the progress. Nick took the kids up the hill to look at the progress earlier this week. Doesn't look like much yet, but since this picture was taken they have put the roof on along with other advancements.

It was Grandma Ver Heul's 81st birthday this past week and we had a little birthday party for her on Saturday night. One of the main reasons that we moved back to south central Iowa was so that our children would know their many grandparents (they have 11 living grandparents). Events like this make us thankful that we moved back. Nick's grandparents live for the moments that they are able to see the kids. This is a picture of Becca and Grandma snuggling. (I am sure that Grandma went to sleep last night with a smile on her face.)

Micah loved to play with the Barrel of Monkeys that we have. He often time gets frustrated because he can't get them hooked together like he would like. Tonight however he hooked all the monkeys together all by himself. He was so thrilled! It was really neat to watch him how to figure how to hold on and figure how to add the next monkey. Here is a picture of his accomplishment!

And here is another picture of Becca just being Becca. Right now she is difficult to get good pictures of so I thought that I would post this one!

Loss

I have been thinking about posting this post for sometime, but just didn't know... My hope had been that this blog would be a picture of our life and this had been part of our life the last few weeks.

During the last few week we have experienced a miscarriage. The unfortunate part is that we didn't really even know that we were expecting until we were losing the baby. The last two weeks have been up and down as somedays I physically feel very well and the next I can hardly walk. The detail of when and why are unknown and at this point are really not all that important to us. All we know is that our third child is resting in the arms of his/her heavenly Father.

Many of you already knew what had been going on and your words of concern and your prayers mean so much to us right now. We ask that you continue to pray for us as work through this.

Thank you and God Bless.

Fun Times

Just a quick picture of Nick and the kids "horsing" around. There is always plenty of funny noises and laughter when Nick gets down on the floor with the kids. I am not sure who enjoys it more - Nick or the kids!

Wedding Bells

Just a quick note to announce that my sister, Melinda, got engaged last night! We are so thrilled for her and her fiance, Brian. Life will be interesting for all of us in the coming year, but that is for a future post! Once I get a picture of them I will post for you all!

Congratulations, Brian and Melinda! We wish you many years of happiness!

Preschool and Dress Up

Today was Micah's first day of preschool. He was so excited! He is also very ready to go back tomorrow. (Think we can keep him this excited about school through college? :) ) Here is a picture of him.

For her birthday Becca got a set of dress-up clothes. While it is difficult to get a good picture of her these days I thought that I would post what I have. She can be rather darling when she pulls the skirts up to her armpits and runs around in only that! Don't ya love the heels?