And two becomes three....

We are so excited about the arrival of our sweet baby boy. Holland Douglas Nyboer arrived at 4:36 on Monday, October 22, 2012. He weighed 8 lbs. 15 oz. and he was 22 inches long. Holland won our hearts the moment we saw him. Granger and I love being his parents and can't believe he is finally here. My mom arrived 2 days before he was born so it was perfect timing!!

Our new life as a family of three is off to a good start. There is a lot to learn when becoming parents but we are figuring it out. I continue to heal and figure out how to meet Holland's needs. At Holland's one week check up, he was already back up to his birth weight which the Dr. was really pleased about. He continues to sleep a lot and needs to be woken up every time I want to feed him. He is a pretty laid back kiddo so far (just like his daddy)! Holland makes the greatest faces and continues to entertain us. Granger is back to work and my mom and dad (who got in on Thursday) leave on Monday night. It will be interesting as we try to do this on our own. My mom has made all the meals, cleaned our house and takes Holland so I can sleep a little during the day. We would not have been able to do these first two weeks without her. We are also very blessed that our church family and other friends provided meals for the first week, which was awesome to not have to worry about cooking! Granger loves coming home from work and taking Holland downstairs to take a nap on the lovesac with him on his chest.

As exhausting as parenthood can be, we are so blessed that God chose us to be Holland's parents! We continue to pray for wisdom as we learn how to be Godly parents to our precious boy. At 12 days old, it is amazing how much he has changed and continues to change daily. Thank you to everyone who have been praying for us, provided a meal, and all the words of encouragement. We love having such an amazing support system, both near and far! :)

New and exciting life moments

Our lives have been busy and full of changes since our last post. Yes, I realize a lot can change in one year and 2 months! So first and foremost, we are going to be parents soon!! Our lives are about to change and our family is growing!! We are expecting a little boy October 21, 2012. We are very excited and eagerly getting everything set for the arrival of our little guy! Also new to our family is our kitten, Spurr. She is an active, crazy and adventurous cat. She is fun to have around and has been a great source of entertainment. Another school year is right around the corner. Granger is starting his 5th year of teaching (3rd at Kenai) and I am going to start my 3rd year of teaching, still out in Sterling. My title is changing a little this year as I am only going to have intensive needs students. All of my resource students have gone to another special education teacher that was hired. This will be such a great blessing this year, as I was stretched very thin last year. We have been in our house for 2 years now. It seems like it has flown by! We are continuing to make improvements and change things around. Granger and some buddies have completed a rock climbing room in one of the basement bedrooms. It is a great little bouldering space. After 2 years, we finally got a kitchen table that has more than 2 chairs. So now when friends visit it is a little easier to fit everyone. We has a great, and very busy, summer. Granger, Donny and Braxton attempted Mt. Spurr again at the end of May. They made it about half way up and made the smart decision to turn back due to "sketchy" conditions of the snow bridges. I'm sure they will make it to the summit someday. We continue to help run Kenai Young Life and took 10 high school students to Castaway camp this summer. After almost missing our flight (one leader did actually, after breaking down in Anchorage) we made it to camp. Camp was amazing. The weather was high 90's to 100's. A bit of a shock for the Alaska kids to say the least. Camp was the experience of a lifetime for some of our kids. They all seemed to have a great time and 5 of them decided to make a decision to follow Christ! It was truly an amazing time. The last day of camp, one of our kids had a medical emergency and needed to stay in the hospital, in Fargo, North Dakota, for a few days. Granger stayed with him and I continued on with the kids to get them back to Alaska. I continued on to Michigan after camp to spend time with family. Granger joined a few days later and we were able to celebrate the marriage of Caleb (Granger's brother) to Calla. The wedding was beautiful and it was great to see family and friends. After the excitement of the wedding we spent one day with the Klunder's to have our annual Klunder Family Fun Day! All 17 and a half of us gathered to spend one (hot) day together. Let me tell you, having 7 kids ages 4 and under, there is never a dull moment. Seeing our nieces and nephews was very precious time, as we have only met 3 of them once before. Time goes very fast and the kids change so quickly! The Klunder family continues to grow and we can't wait until our little guy can meet the families! After our exciting time with the Klunder's, we had the opportunity to go to Canada with the Nyboer's. The Nyboer's have a cabin in Lake of the Woods, Onterio. We road tripped it up with 8 out of the 12 Nyboer's. While at Chinook, we relaxed, fished, and played games. The weather was beautiful (and hot). Granger got to water ski, which he hasn't done up there in years. Our time with family these days is so precious and we enjoyed every minute of it. Finally, we make our way back to Alaska. We rested and started preparations on our house before the school year approaches. A week later our friends Chad and Julia came for a visit. We were very busy showing them the beauty Alaska has to offer. The weather didn't cooperate most of the week but we still got out and enjoyed the beauty and adventures. It was very fun to show them our town and spend time with them. Now we are finishing up the last of our projects on the house/nursery before the school year starts. We are anticipating a great year and only have 10 more weeks until we get to meet our son!! I will start updating this more to keep you up on our changing life!! :) lots of love, Bethany, Granger, baby boy, and Spurr :)