New beginnings

As I'm learning to be better at updating (and viewing) our blog...I realized that the posting I wrote a month ago never actually posted. It stayed in draft mode! Oops...I guess that's the balance I need to learn! Here is the previous update and the most current will follow....so I apologize if some of this info is old news or redundant! October: As most of you already know, I (Bethany) have the privilege and blessing of staying home with Holland. He will turn one at the end of this month! How times flies. Holland has brought about many changes for us and is the best blessing we could have received. It is amazing to watch him grow and learn new things. I never anticipated the excitement Granger and I would have watching him learn and explore this new world for him! Becoming a parent has opened up so many wonderful and challenging adventures! Going anywhere no longer allows flexibility to just throw on a coat and jump in the car. It requires bags and diapers, and food bags and extra clothes, strollers, pacifiers (which are a must!), pack'n'play's, and more! I'm not meaning that as a complaint, things that I never thought about that I now have to plan for! Since I am staying home, I have had the opportunity to start focusing on how we can help grow the Young Life ministry that we are a part of in Kenai. Granger and I have been helping lead the Kenai Young Life team since spring of 2010. This has been a big blessing for us, but has also been challenging. Working full time, being active members of our church, and doing Young Life keeps us very busy. It has been challenging being a volunteer area because most of the people involved work full-time. We are in the process of trying to raise support to allow me (Bethany) to spend more time focusing on developing key components of the ministry that will help strengthen it. Our hope is to develop three main areas in the ministry. 1) Raise up a prayer team to meet regularly to pray for teens in our area 2) Develop a committee to come behind and support the ministry 3) Build a base of people in our area who are committed to supporting the ministry financially. We hope that you will help us pray for these foundational components to be developed to help the Young Life leaders in Kenai be able to continue reaching the teens in our area. Granger has started a Master's program. He is studying to become a Teacher of the Visually Impaired as well as an Orientation and Mobility Specialist. This is a two year program and has kept him very busy. He is doing a great job finding a balance between working, going back for his Master's degree, Young Life, church, and family!

November: Holland is officially 1 and learning so many new things each day. His new favorite thing is to have his mouth packed with food signing for more!! He's a little bundle of animation. You know what he is feeling by looking at the look on his face. He's very expressive and knows how to entertain a crowd! He is solely walking....crawling is the thing of the past with this new found freedom! It's faster and easier on the knees. He's also starting to get tall....things once "out of reach" are now becoming reachable! This poses all sorts of fun chasing games with items that he should not have!! He loves phones, in fact, it is hard to get a conversation in without him screaming to be in control of the phone, in which he usually pushes many buttons, and often hangs up on people. Some of his new words include, mama, dada, hi (that's his favorite), ball, uh-oh, wow. Next week we have his one year check-up. He seems to be growing well, and becoming quite the picky eater (a little too familiar to his mother!) We had our Young Life banquet at the end of October and it was a success. We had new faces that were able to come and learn about the ministry. We were able to get caring adults on board and commit to helping the ministry financially. We are in the process of getting together a Prayer Team/Committee/Leader interest meeting on the 14th. We pray God will bring those who are passionate about teens and want to help reach them and come around our leaders to support them. God is truly doing great things in Kenai and we are excited to see what he has in store for the youth here. We so appreciate all of your love and support and hope that we will get to see/talk to you all soon! We are planing on going back to Michigan the week between Christmas and New Year's. Dad Klunder has officially retired and we have the privilege to go back and celebrate with him! :) I'm so thankful for my dad, who worked so hard, not only as a minister, but as a cement man, coach, and whatever else he needed to do to provide for us.He is a great example of what it means to be a faithful follower of Christ, a loving husband and father. I will always be his little girl! :) Thanks dad. We love you more than you'll ever know!

Time's a tickin' quickly!

Time sure does seem to speed up these days. Especially being back at work full time and trying to be a good mom. Granger has been able to stay home with Holland the last 5 and a half weeks, which he has loved. We often joke about who is going to get to stay home, but we all know who will win that battle! :) We are so enthralled with Holland and can spend hours just watching him learn new things. His latest milestones are: grabbing toys that you offer him and bringing them to his mouth, playing with toys that are near him (both on the table when he's in his high chair and in the "circle of fun," rolling over from front to back, and giggling. We attempted feeding him cereal, which is a learning process. It's harder than you might think getting the food from the front of the mouth to the back to swallow...still working on that. He has also tried drinking out of a sippy cup. He also has no idea what it is. The top is not soft like the bottle so he can't just gum it to get the water. Trying to teach him to suck it instead of gum it is comical. Holland also has learned that it is much better to sleep in mom and dad's arms....or in the backpack as dad walks around, instead of sleeping in his crib! He does ok at night, thankfully, but nap time has become a bit of a struggle. It is amazing how much Granger and I love this little guy! We both look forward to him and he always has a smile for us. He has been such an incredible blessing. We continue to seek wisdom for how to best raise him. We never thought that parenting would come with so many decisions...from "Do we let him cry it out?" to "When should we start letting him eat cereal?" These sound so silly but those who are parents can relate I'm sure to wanting to do what is best for your child but really having no idea. We are grateful that we don't have to rely on our own strength and understanding, and pray that God will give us the wisdom we need to help raise Holland the way he wants us to. As Holland continues to grow, so does his clothes. We have officially changed over his wardrobe from 3 month to 6 month clothes, with the exception of his 3-6 month stuff. He is a long and skinny little munchkin. In other areas of life, we are on Spring Break now, which I'm super ecstatic about because that's 9 days in a row where I get to snuggle my peanut all day! We are 2 days out from Nana Klunder coming for a month to be with us. We are glad that she is able to come and help care for Holland as we are at work. I know she is excited to spend time with Holland and I'm sure she'll be surprised with how much he has grown. On the Young Life front, we are in the process of setting up the 3rd annual Dodgeball Tournament in Early April. Life seems to go by so fast these days it's hard to keep up with everything. Sometimes it feels as though you throw 10 balls up in the air and catch about 7. We hope you enjoy these photos and videos of Holland as we love to catch his moments of exploring his world and learning new things. Here is a video of Holland trying to attempt drinking from his sippy cup. Here is one more video of Holland liking the idea of being tickled. He is not actually ticklish at this point, at least he doesn't react yet. It's more of the sounds and gestures he thinks is funny!!

How fast they grow!

Our sweet, little Holland is changing so fast. Everyday it seems like he has something new to show us. Each new little face, sound, or look melts our hearts! I can't believe how much he has changed and become more alert in just under 3 weeks. Time is already going by so fast. Holland's newest development is he is starting to find his voice and will make a smile and a sound together. He also squeezes his lips together into this little kissy face, which is utterly adorable. He is starting to be awake and alert for longer spurts. He looks all around just taking in the environment. He continues to sleep a lot, which is a good thing for me at this point, cause I get a few naps in here or there too!! :) When Granger gets home from school he likes to scoop him away from me and take him downstairs to snuggle with him on his chest.

He's growing so fast!

Wow...tomorrow marks 12 weeks since we were blessed with our beautiful baby Holland! He is growing so fast, each day brings something new. Sometimes I swear I can hear him growing in his sleep!! Holland is such a blessing. He is a great baby, who loves to give us smiles. He is just starting to giggle a little bit. Granger can really get him giggling. I caught a little on video. Holland giggling It's amazing how our lives have changed. Holland adds such a wonderful (and sometimes exhausting) component to our lives. We estimate he is close to 14 pounds now and I have under three weeks left before I have to go back to work and Granger gets to stay home for a while. I am dreading it and he's looking forward to it!! I told him he is not allowed to do a countdown in front of me!