Baptism and Grandparent Time

On this past Sunday Cayden was baptized in our church. As parents, this was a wonderful celebration of dedicating Cayden to God and promising to raise him up in the ways of the Lord. It was great to have our parents as well as many of our friends there to share in this wonderful occasion. We are thankful that we have so many people praying and supporting Cayden as he grows up. Thanks to everyone that came to Cayden's baptism, it meant a lot to us to have our close friends and family there with us.

We had a wonderful time with our parents this past week. My mom was able to come last Monday (the 21st) my dad closely followed on Wednesday. Matthew's parent's joined us on Friday just in time for his graduation. We had a busy but fun weekend with a lot of Grandparent time for Cayden and a lot of relaxing for Matthew and I as we handed over a lot of our Cayden duties to our parents :)! We took advantage of the parents and went out for dinner by ourselves on Thursday and then saw Batman with our good friends Janna and Troy. It felt nice to go out alone for a change!! Then on Sunday night Matthew's mom was willing to stay with Cayden as the rest of us hiked Garcia Trail (to the top of one of the foothills in Azusa). Troy and Janna were willing to take us on this hike as they were preparing for their upcoming backpacking trip. This was a very fun hike and we are glad that we were finally able to do it. One of the things I think our parents enjoyed the most (besides spending time with Cayden) was playing the Wii. We never knew our parents could enjoy video games so much so we had a lot of fun with that. We had an enjoyable weekend and we are so thankful for our wonderful parents. Thankfully we will get to see both of them again in a few weeks!!!

Earthquake

So we experienced our first earthquake today. It was 5.6 in magnitude. It was quite scary as we have never actually felt the earthquake when it has happened. I (Melissa) was at home with both our parents and Matthew was driving to his supervision. The whole house shook for approximately 20 seconds and things came flying off our walls. The only things that broke were are wedding plate that Matthew's Grandma had given us (but can be replaced) and one of our regular dinner plates, bummer. At least everyone was o.k. and I was so thankful to have other people here with me when this happened. Right after the earthquake I tried calling Matthew but could not get through for about 30 mins. When I finally talked to him he was in the car at a stoplight and did not think that it was that bad (he probably wished he would have felt it the way we did). But praise God everyone is safe!

CONGRATULATIONS MATTHEW!!!!

After two years, Matthew has completed his Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology! He graduated tonight at Azusa Pacific University. Congratulations to him, what a wonderful accomplishment! I am so proud of you. It also seems like Cayden wants to graduate too or at least eat the diploma (probably the latter of the two) :)! Both of our parents are here to join in our celebration which we are very thankful for. It will be a great few days hanging out with our parents. This Sunday, Cayden will be baptized which we are very much so looking forward to!

Back Home from Iowa

Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Derek

Grandma De Haan

Aunt Annaleyza

Scott and Nicole Kallemeyn. Scott got in a biking accident but thank the Lord he was o.k. except the face injuries. We are praying for you Scott!

Great Grandma Vermeer

Kristi and Bret Van Wyk

Matthew, Cayden, Seth and Matthew Steensma

With Great Grandpa and Grandma Van Essen

With Great Grandpa and Grandma De Yager

Well, I have been really slacking on updating our blog since Iowa. We have already been home for a week but it has seemed to go really fast. We had a wonderful time in Iowa visiting many family and friends. It is always good to catch up with everyone! The rest of our time was spent mainly with family. A lot of hanging out, playing Rook (Lindsey, we will get the boys next time!), celebrating the Fourth of July, and taking family pictures. We were able to get Cayden's 6 month pictures done as well as our first professional family picture. They turned out great! You can check them out on our smugmug. We also took family pictures with Matthew's entire family so I am excited to see those pictures as well. Cayden had a great time cruising around Grandpa and Grandma De Haan's house with his new mastered skill of crawling. Man! I am exhausted just thinking about it. So after a week of being home we are starting to get the schedule down again as well as introducing new foods to Cayden's diet. So far he only likes the rice cereal and sweet potatoes and even sometimes won't eat those. We will figure it out. Cayden had his 6 month doctors appointment today including his vaccinations. He cried pretty hard when they stuck him with the needle but recovered the rest of the day with a lot of down time and napping! He weighed 16.3 pounds was 27 inches and had a head circumference of 17.01 inches. So all looks good!

Cayden in his hospital gown (I never knew they made mini ones, so cute!)

The rest of the week we will try to stay cool as well as continuing to catch up with friends around here. Matthew has started his internship and continues to work in the library on his days off from the internship. His internship is at Pasadena Mental Health Center. At this site he will be seeing five or more clients at a time all who have some type of mental illness. It should be interesting for him! Check out our smugmug for all the pictures plus some bonus pictures of us playing Dance Dance Revolution, pretty funny!

6 Months!

WOW!! Cayden is now 6 months old as of today. I can't believe that a half of a year has passed since we had him. We saw a 3 month year old baby today and I barely remember Cayden being that small. He seems to really be growing up lately . He is now crawling like crazy. It is hard to keep up with him as he is so curious about everything. He definitely likes to explore new territory and a majority of the time goes right for the things you don't want him to touch. He is not quite sitting up yet, he just likes to rest on one arm (we call it his model pose) but is getting close. Cayden has also started jabbering a lot more. He now tries to participate in the conversation, it is pretty cute! Along with crawling, Cayden has been pulling himself up on about everything. I swear this child would just like to walk if he could!! We praise God for continued health and strength. Well we just had a good couple of weeks in Iowa and just got home today. I will have to post more about that soon on that subject as well as post new pictures! Above are some of his 6 month pictures!!

Quik Update from Iowa

After a wonderful couple days in Northwest Iowa we have now been in Pella for a couple of days. We had a great time in Northwest Iowa as we saw a lot of people. We spent the first two nights at my Grandpa and Grandma Van Essen. We went mini golfing and played some fun card games. Of course there are always some new games to learn at their house. Have you ever heard of Strut?? It is an interesting game. The next night was spent at my Grandpa and Grandma De Yager's house. This was their first time meeting Cayden so that was fun. Cayden really enjoyed watching my Grandpa mow the lawn and crawling around on the floor with daddy. I never imagined Matthew would be crawling on the ground . . . so fun to watch the two of them together. On Thursday evening we went to the Pizza Ranch in Canton to meet with a lot of my De Yager side of the family. It was nice to catch up with a lot of them.
On Friday we drove back to Sioux Falls so we could meet with some college friends for supper. We went over to Seth and Tiffany Steensma house for some pizza. They had a little baby boy two weeks after we had Cayden, so it was fun to see them together. Basically one baby would cry and then the other would think he would have to cry. Finally Cayden has a boy to play with! After supper with them we drove back to Sioux Center (home of Dordt College) to stay with our other friends Bret and Kristi Van Wyk. We spent that evening and the next morning with them. It is always so much fun to catch up with our friends from college, knowing that nothing ever really changes when we get together! Saturday after another wonderful meal at Pizza Ranch we drove back to Omaha to drop off our rental and then Matthew's brother picked us up. So the past couple days have been spent relaxing and hanging out with Matthew's family. It is nice to be in one spot again for awhile.
Since Cayden has started crawling he is very interested in exploring, it is so crazy that he picked it up so quickly. I am sad to say that we now have our hands full as we can't leave him alone for a second otherwise he tends to find the places he can hurt himself. Plus he is now trying to pull himself up on different objects, I think he would rather just walk :). We tried giving him peas yesterday and he gagged and spit them out. Matthew wanted to give him the worst tasting vegetable first so that he will possibly like vegetables. Matthew thinks that if we start with the good things then he will not want the gross ones. Hmmmm . . . we will have to see what we try next but I don't think peas are going to be his favorite.
Today we are going to meet with some friends for lunch (Matt and Tara Schuring). They actually live in CA too but are visiting Pella at the same time so this makes it so easy to meet with them. Then tonight we are heading to Iowa City to visit some more college friends, Scott and Nicole Kallemeyn. I will have to post pictures when I get home but I am sure I will have plenty of pictures after our trip!