Moved

I've had some trouble with blogspot - getting pictures uploaded, etc., etc., so I decided to move our blog. You can come see us at www.martinandwieska.wordpress.com

My excuse for the wait...

...our computer is broken. I had managed to choose which pictures I'd post of Justin over the past year, and then it quit. When I get access to my pictures again, I'll be back :)

When he came home...

...Martin said something along the lines of,

"They say the best way to love your kids is to love your wife."

And so I got flowers from my husband on our son's birthday.

We are loved very much - and I'm so very thankful :)

Some random thoughts...

...because it's been a while :)

These beautiful flowers (my very favorite kind) are thanks to my secret pal who spoiled me for a year! It was fun to finally find out who she was - I had no idea this time! It's so much fun when I can't guess :)

My new secret pal has already spoiled me with a super thoughtful gift. I think she's fantastic already! I love the secret pal thing we do at church. Not only cause it's fun to be thought of in extra little ways, but mostly cause it's fun to think of fun little surprises for the person I have!

That nice little cold bug has been making its rounds at our house too these last few weeks. Of the 3 of us, it seems to like me the most, and isn't quite ready to leave - even though I'm past ready! It's not so bad though, especially if I start looking at some of the crosses others are bearing, and so while I look forward to feeling better, I'm trying to keep it all in perspective.

Justin is nearing his 2nd birthday, and I really just can't figure out where this past year went! It's amazing how fast it goes. I hope to share a few pictures of the past year next week when we celebrate his birthday. Maybe if I promise another post I'll actually do it? :)

We are on the countdown now to meeting Baby #2!! Hard to believe we have less than 10 weeks until my due date. In many ways, this pregnancy has gone incredibly fast. For the most part, I'm feeling well, though I'm starting to feel those normal aches and pains of the third trimester. I've also developed gestational diabetes, which has been a bit of an adjustment, but we are thankful for good medical care that not only caught it, but also is helping me to manage it. I do get some extra ultrasounds out of the deal, and I kind of like that idea :)

I've made my "list" of things I'd like to have ready before the baby comes, and so between the regular stuff of life, we're trying to chip away at that. One of those things is moving Justin into a "big" bed, so we'll see how that goes! We're open to tips to make that a smooth and happy transition for him :)

One last thing to share - and that's about the study we're doing with our women's Bible study. If you ever want an eye-opening and soul-searching study, may I recommend "Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins we Tolerate" by Jerry Bridges. I'm so grateful for a group of women to get into God's Word with.

And I guess that's all for today :)

Our goofy boy

Just a fun picture I took yesterday. Playing with a basket on his head. He thinks he's pretty funny. We think so too :)

Some entertainment for the day

After delaying for quite a while, we finally decided to agree with our neighbor about taking this tree in our backyard (right on the fence-line) down. (I didn't think to take a picture until after they had started).

Considering that the trees is what Martin loved about our property when we bought it, this was no small decision :) But it was a pretty high and top-heavy tree - and I admit, I got a little scared anytime we had some significant wind come through.

They started at about 9, and were finished by 5 - all evidence except for a bit of sawdust gone. Pretty good, if you ask me!

Justin enjoyed watching them work.

The even more open view of the mountains is fantastic... hopefully we won't miss the shade in our backyard too much in the summer!

This time last year...

...we were making daily trips to visit our new little boy.
...we were on the hunt for a carseat for him.
...we were converting our office into his bedroom.
...we were so eagerly anticipating bringing him home "for good".
...we had no idea that 1 year later we'd be having a routine doctor's appointment to check up on our 2nd baby.

Wow.

What a year it has been! We thank God for all He has blessed us with and pray that He will lead and guide us as we move into this new year and all He has planned for us.

Happy New Year to you all!

Like Father, Like Son

One of the words I would use to describe my husband is "enthusiastic". It comes out in lots of ways - those of you who know him well, know what I mean.
Last night we enjoyed some special family time with his side of the family. We made it a "kid-focused" night, where we promised them games and just some special fun. Martin got right into it with these kids. It's one of the things I love about him. He takes the time to play all kinds of fun things with them - just 'cause he remembers how much he loved that kind of thing when he was little.
One of the games last night was the good-old, "find the item in the room while everyone told you if you were getting hot or cold". As usual, Martin got pretty caught up in the game - letting the kids know if they were freezing cold or burning hot or somewhere in between.
At this point in the game, someone was "so burning hot!!!!"
Which brings us to Justin. One of the ways we describe Justin is also with the word "enthusiastic". Again, those of you who know him well, know what we mean by this. Sometimes, he gets so excited, he vibrates. Quite literally. It's one of those things we've wanted to capture on camera many times, but somehow the camera just isn't ready in time. He does this over a good throw of his ball, food, Christmas lights, etc., etc. It's really quite funny. He also does this if he notices everyone else in the room getting excited - even if he doesn't have a clue why. And that's what happened last night. He got so caught up in the excitement, this is what he did:

You really have to actually see it happen to really know how funny this is - but this picture really does capture most of it.

Like father, like son?

Amazing :)

Thanks, Leanne, for these great pictures ;)

And thanks to everyone else for a really fun night together!

Snow

First snowfall of the season, so we went outside to enjoy it a bit. Justin had to learn to move well in his big snowsuit, but once he got the hang of that, he enjoyed himself thoroughly. Until his hands got too cold because he didn't keep his mittens on :(

Being home

Last night I worked a night shift. As much as I enjoy being back to work for a shift here and there, I think the best part is being home the next night. I so love being home with my family.
To top it all off, the wood stove is on, and I think I might just go curl up on the couch with a blanket and a book. Sounds positively delightful :)

Overwhelmed

Again. In fact, that might actually be an understatement.
Because Martin and I were wonderfully surprised to find out that we are expecting our second child! And this time we know the due date! We are praising God for this miracle - and also still trying to wrap our minds around it :)
To be honest, I struggled with how to word a post like this. Simply because I did not want the specialness (is that a word?) of this announcement to come across as more or less special than this one. Because they are equally special. Just different. I can't put into words how thankful and humbled we are to be able to experience both adoption and pregnancy.
Though we are excited to move forward in this journey, there are some things that I had grown to treasure about the experiences we have had (though I can not deny that there were some painful days along the way). Of course, I treasure our precious son Justin, who we can not imagine life without anymore. I also treasure the fact that God used that time to grow us and stretch us in ways I know we would not have been had we not gone through those years of infertility and the adoption of our son. And I treasure the people we met along the way, some of whom we developed wonderful friendships with - friendships that I hope and pray will continue. We are so thankful for those people, and will continue to pray that God's grace would surround them, as it did and does us.
If all goes well, we are very much looking forward to welcoming this baby the middle of May! We are fully aware that God is in control of this little life too - and we commit this child, as we have committed Justin, and our whole lives, into His care.

Precious Memories

We just received these pictures the other day. The very first day we met and held our boy. I just had to share. Definitely precious memories.

Just pictures

I've been meaning to get these up for a little while - but for some reason, blogspot wouldn't let me. Anyways, here's a few pictures from the last month:

A family picture to remember Justin's baptism September 26

Discovering the fun of slides

Story-time with Daddy

So intrigued by horses in the field behind our house

First sit-down movie - Franklin couldn't keep his attention for long, though :)

The most efficient way to eat snacks when Mommy puts them on the floor instead of in a cup

It was a good attempt...

Martin has wanted to hike to the top of this peak - Yak - for a long, long time.
(Not to worry, there is a hiking way up, it's not only for rock climbers :)

So on the holiday weekend, we decided to head up there. Before leaving, we already had a small problem, and that was that our printer did not work. Yes, that is related to hiking. You see, we get our directions from the internet, and so we usually print them out so we know where we're going. But, since it didn't work, Martin just jotted some of the "main points" down. And away we went.

We spent quite a bit of time - about 45 minutes - just trying to find the trail head. Finally, I spotted some flagging tape. And what else could flagging tape mean, but a trail? And a trail it was - or maybe not. I don't think either of us have been on such a rough trail for a hike before.

But there was lots of flagging tape and it was going in the right direction - up the mountain. So we hiked. For about an hour and then we came the the base of the rock face.

We stopped for lunch, and then carried on. Unfortunately we ran stuck. That nice trail with so much flagging tape ran us to a dead end. So, after about an hour of trying to find our way up (and a little melt-down from me when we were climbing a part that I thought was too steep - a story in itself), we actually gave up on the hike. For this time. At this point, we were more determined than ever to go home, read the directions well and get to the top of the mountain some time soon.

Anyways, despite not getting to the top, we had a fantastic day. Justin took one short nap in the backpack, and was happy the whole day.

Turns out we should have taken a trail further up the road - sounds like a pretty uncomplicated way up. Now we know.

Oh yes, we did get a beautiful view of Needle Peak from this side. It's fun to think that we've been at the top of that!

Amazed

At the gift of new life! I had the incredible honor and privilege of being there for the birth of our newest niece, Zoey Hendrika. I can not find words adequate to describe how special it was for me to be there.

Thank you Soph and Jeff - I will never forget that day.
And congratulations! We pray God will bless you with joy and wisdom as you raise your precious little girl!

Isn't she beautiful?

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. ~Psalm 139:14

Walking!!

For some reason, the video won't upload... so here's a picture of Justin taking some of those first cute, unsteady steps.

A Swim at the River

A beautiful evening for a picnic supper and swim at the river. We love that we live within biking distance of places like this.

Newfoundland

I figured it's about time I showed you a few of our pictures of our trip to Newfoundland. A trip across the country like this is one of those things we've talked about... but never really thought we'd do it anytime soon. And then my brother got married there. Made for a nice excuse to go out there :)
I was a little nervous about travelling for almost 10 hours with Justin over night - but he did really well. He definitely didn't sleep his regular 12 hours, but he did manage to sleep several hours on the plane. And, even with this lack of sleep, he was a very well behaved, happy boy. I really didn't have to worry about anything.
We spent the first part of our trip in the town of Gander, where T & L got married. We had a most wonderful host family while we were there. We slept in their RV, ate a lot of our meals with them, and just really enjoyed being with this family! When I discovered a stain on Martin's shirt for the wedding the day before the wedding, C even took care of cleaning it for me! Justin also very much enjoyed this family - especially their 12-year old son, J. He took to him instantly. One night around midnight (since a 4-hour time difference affects a little boy's ability to sleep), J had Justin laughing harder than we've ever seen before or since. It was a real "belly" laugh - and one of the cutest things ever. Too bad we didn't get that on video. But that will always be a fun memory!! Thanks again L's for everything!!
When we weren't doing wedding-related things, we spent some time with my family just seeing some of the country there.

Note: Martin wanted to find a place with "open ocean" very bad. We missed the spot that was recommended to us to stop, and decided to stop here instead. Martin and Dad got some great shots... but the girls got attacked by hoards of crazy little bugs! Don't think we'll ever forget that ;)

Gander also had a new splash park there that Justin enjoyed very, very much! He had the most fun the first day we went there, but of course, I forgot my camera that time. He had fun this time too, though - so here's a few pictures of the fun he had in the water there.
Of course, meeting Uncle Thys & Auntie Leah was a highlight of the trip too. My picture with Justin & Leah didn't turn out, but as you can see, Thys knew how to win our little boy over: food :) This is them at the rehersal dinner.
And the whole reason for the trip:
Congratulations Thys & Leah!!
After the wedding weekend was over, we headed out with just the 3 of us for the rest of our time away. The first day, we spent some time in St. John's - we did the "touristy" things and saw Signal Hill and Cape Spear.

The most easterly point in North America

We stayed in the little town of Tors Cove in this house. The owner was very friendly, and when he heard we wanted to hike part of the East Coast trail, he offered to have us drop our vehicle at one spot and then he drove us to the next entrance point so that we wouldn't have to go back and forth on the same trail. That was great, because it gave us time to do another part of the trail a little further on that day as well! Here's some pictures of our hiking day. All that ocean air tuckered this little guy out.

He slept through the rest of the hike, getting transferred

into the carseat and then for the next hour or so until

we got to the next part of our hike.

Enjoying a campfire at the place we stayed.

The next day we headed back for home again. Again, Justin did super well - thanks mostly to Martin - I just didn't seem to have the right touch this time :)We chose a little longer layover in Calgary so that we could visit Martin's mom & dad for a couple of hours. Mom found a nice park near the airport and packed a delicious picnic lunch. It was so nice to see them and get to have a break in the long day of travelling.

Back at the airport, waiting for our next flight.

Coming home was so nice! It was especially fun to see Justin go check out his favorite play spots in the house. He has 3, and he raced (yes, he still crawls, but he's pretty quick) from one to the next to the next!