First Christmas

Well, we are fast approaching Christmas and surprisingly I am feeling prepared. I have all my presents bought and wrapped and under my tree and now we are just waiting. Ian is in the middle of finals and recording to finish up the semester and he is very much looking forward to the Christmas break! We are spending a quiet Christmas with our families in Swift Current and look forward to spending this first Christmas with Marc. He is quite mesmerized by the lights on the tree and the colorful packages underneath. He is learning new things daily and I am so amazed. He has almost rolled over a few times now but hasn't quite mastered getting from his side to his stomach so I am expecting that any day he will figure it out. He is still really happy and smiles at everyone he sees. He has started talking more now and babbles away as we change him and play with him. He has started to grab at things and occasionally these random acts will trigger a toy's lights and music. He looks surprised and pleased at the same time it is so cute!
We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season as we celebrate Christ's birth. Blessings on you all!
Love Ian, Jenn and Marcus

Enjoy these pictures-Marc is 12 weeks old in them.

10 weeks

Hello to all our faithful blog readers!
Well I must admit that I tried facebook for a couple of weeks and just can't get into it like everyone else does. I still prefer our good old blog!
Marcus is 10 weeks old now and is pretty much amazing! He is so much fun and is responding to us now! I am getting more sleep as he is going around 8-9 hours at night; for this I am SO very thankful.
I wanted to post a few pictures of this past weekend. We had a family Christmas gathering and he was so cute I just have to show you all. So here is Marcus my angel!

Jenn

Smiles for my daddy

These pictures were taken a few days ago as Ian was about to change Marc. He is 6 weeks old now and smiles for us regularly.
We hope you enjoy!
Love Ian, Jenn and Marcus

Time Flies!

Wow it is so hard to believe...Marcus is one month old! To me it seems like he just came home and should only be a few days old. Yet at the same time, Ian and I both agree that it feels like several months already! I took Marc for his 1 month check up yesterday. He has already grown 1 inch since birth (23 1/4) and he weighs 10 lb 10 oz. He has started to recognize our voices and will turn his head towards us, he is focusing in on our face when he looks at us and will follow objects with his eyes. His neck is so strong already and he wants to sit so he can look around. When he isn't sitting he usually wants to be on his tummy so he can lift his head and look around. He loves to hear music and if he is fussy it will usually calm him for a bit. He has started to learn how to smile and we have noticed a few smiles that seem to be unrelated to gas bubbles. His smile is so cute! So many changes already and there are only more to come. Tuesday night he went 8 hours between eating and slept for 7 of those! It was amazing! I have to brag I have such a little angel! Well I think I have blabbed enough for a while but I just wanted to give the latest update. Here are more pictures for everyone! Enjoy and God Bless

Love Ian, Jenn and Marc

Life...now comes with less sleep!

As funny as the title of this post is, it isn't totally true. Life with little Marcus is going quite well, despite a little disruption in our sleeping habits (that's right, I said "our"). Marc is doing very well and at his 2 week checkup he weighed 9lbs and had grown 1/2 an inch. As of right now, he is experiencing his first growth spurt (as can be seen by his increased feeding habits!). I am sure that since he is my son, he will be experiencing many more of these growth spurts throughout his life.

From my end of the picture, life is going well. I have started to get into a routine with school, and I am very, very thankful that I did not schedule myself any morning classes. The reason for this, is that I have claimed the "late evening" shift. This is the time from 9PM until 1AM that Marc likes to remain "wide-eyed and bushy-tailed". As some of you may know, Jenn is completely useless beyond 10PM while I, on the other hand, am a master of late night xboxing! Lets just say Marc and I spend a good deal of quality time together already...

Jenn is enjoying being a mother, poopy diapers and all. She is constantly amazed at how much dirtiness one little creature can create. I don't think a day goes by when I don't hear "MAN! I just did laundry!" while Marc spits up, pees on, or poops in something she just washed. Needless to say, we are buying the "costco size" detergent box next time! Jenn is also working hard at step-aerobics. She goes 3 times a week at 6:30AM, which I am extremely proud of her for doing. She is bound and determined to "fit into those jeans", and I think the exercise does her good by allowing her to "vent" some of that frustration, and workout the kinks in the process. So, huge Kudo's to Jenn!

As for Marc, well he is just being himself. He is sleeping well at night (after the "evening shift") he will usually get about 5 hours of sleep in. This is a relief to Jenn, and it gives both of them a nice longer break. Marc is constantly holding is head of and looking around. He is responding to both of our voices, and he is starting to get a personality that is quite cute. He is actually a fairly quiet baby, only asking for food or attention when needed. Overall, we couldn't be more proud of our big boy, and we find new ways to love him each day.

Finally, for your enjoyment, I have posted a few more pictures of our family! Special thanks to Merryl Dyck for taking them!

Ian

Welcome to Marc!

Well, at 8:30AM on Sunday Sept. 2, our baby son was born. His name is Marcus James Isaak, and he was a healthy 8lbs 13oz strong. He was 22 1/2" long (takes after me) and was very wide eyed and also very tired. Jenn did an awesome job of going through 14 hours of active labor, which when added to the pre-labor contractions, totaled almost 26 sleepless hours for her. She did amazing and gave birth to Marc without any pain killers! She was very determined to meet our little boy, and I think that along with some very large Grace from God allowed her to persevere and achieve her goal. She truly amazed all of us by never giving up and always being polite and courteous despite the hellish contractions and pushing. She showed me her true character and I am very proud of her.

Jenn and Marc are doing well in the Moose Jaw hospital, and both of them are getting some much needed sleep. We are unsure when Jenn will be released home, but we will keep the blog updated as things progress.

Below are some pictures of our dear little one, and I thank God every moment for his arrival and safe labor. Stay tuned for updates from Jenn when she gets home and for some stories from her side of the birthing bed.

Ian

Waiting

Hello to all of our faithful blog readers! Just to give you a quick update. We are still waiting for baby to show up! My due date is the 31st but we think it will be a few days after that before baby will arrive.

We have had quite the busy summer. Our time in Swift Current was good but really long for Ian as he had 12 hour work days for 4 weeks so it is really nice to be home! We have spent this week with Ian's dad and that has been fun too. We now just wait...Wait for school to start and wait for baby to come. We are not very good at waiting but I guess we don't have much of a choice! You can pray for me as I have developed a cold within the last few days so I am feeling a bit run down and under the weather. It is getting hard to sleep and I think that has affected my health. You can pray for Ian as he begins classes on Tuesday and may end up missing a few of them when baby is born. Pray that he can keep his energy up and his good health! Thank you so much in advance for your prayers; we will update our blog and send out calls and emails as soon as we have baby!

God Bless and take care!
Love Ian and Jenn

Life in the Fast Lane!

hello to everybody, you must think that we have forgotten about you but we haven't!! Things have been a bit crazy around here lately. We are busy preparing for so many changes it is hard to sit down and write about all of them. The first is that Ian has been busy working in Moose Jaw all summer. He started out at AMJ Campbell Van Lines for 6 weeks. It was a job but it wasn't what they said it would be. So, when he was offered a job with the school division doing I.T. he jumped at the chance. He has been there for about 6 or 7 weeks now and is really enjoying it! Although it is mostly grunt work the pay is great and he has made some good connections. Everyone is asking if this will lead into something in the fall but the answer is no. This is only a summer student positions however, he does get seniority so if he were to apply next summer for the same job he would already have a foot in the door so to speak. It would also help him if he were to apply for a full time job down the road. Anyways, Ian is there until the end of the week when we move to Swift for 4 weeks. My parents are going on vacation for 3 weeks and Ian has agreed to work for my dad in his absence. So Ian will be driving the Swift Current DHL route for a little while. After that it is home for a week and a bit and then school starts again. And of course in all of that we await the little one's arrival! We hope baby doesn't show up too early but since we have no control over that I guess we just wait for God's timing in all of it!

As far as my health and all that goes I am still doing really well. The doctor is always happy with how baby is growing and how I am doing so we are very happy about that. I am officially on maternity leave and am very glad that I have been able to take it easy these past few weeks. The heat has been hard but we are thankful for our air conditioning! I have been sleeping lots and cleaning lots too! Our baby room is emptied of all the excess stuff that was being stored in there and now it is waiting to be filled again! We are getting anxious to hold our little one in our arms and it is hard to be patient but we still have 6 weeks to go so we must wait a while longer yet!

We hope everyone is having a great summer! we would love to hear from you so drop us an email or response on our blog! We will post pictures of baby as soon as it makes it's appearance and we will try to personally email or call everyone but we hope you aren't upset if we forget one or two of you so keep checking back as the summer progresses and hopefully we can be a bit more diligent about updating our blog.

God Bless and take care!

Love from Ian and Jenn and the little one!

Our Little One.

Well, now that I am done playing with videos, here are some pictures that some of you might find interesting. These are the three pictures we were given after our ultrasound a few weeks ago. But, before the pics, here is some thoughts on the ultrasound.

Well, going to an ultrasound and actually finding a baby this time was quite a joy. Even though God had given us many positive signs to keep us hopefull up to this point, we were still worried. (for those of you who can't remember, this was the same point in our last pregnancy when they told us there was no baby...) So, to see something on the screen was such a blessing. Well, needless to say, God didn't stop there. He allowed us to watch our little one wiggle, move, and even flip over while the technician was measuring everything. It was so cool to watch something be alive inside Jenn, and to know that God was in the process of forming a new life. I will be processing that stuff for a long time to come!

So, once the ultrasound was done, we asked the lady if everything looked normal. Thankfully, she said everything was good, and the only thing she noticed was that the baby was big. (no surprise there). But then she told us it was in the 90th percentile, and I think Jenn almost started to cry! I guess our little one is not going to be so little for long. And I guess that also means that it is strong and healthy.

On a final note, most of you are probably wondering wether or not we found out the sex of the baby. Well, the answer is yes, but we aren't telling! We want it to be a surprise, so everyone will just have to wait and see. (I know, cruel ain't it?).

Well, here are the pics. Cute isn't she/he?


This picture is of the baby's head. You can see its hands and face too.



This picture is of the baby's spine. You can see all the little bones...



This picture is the hardest to make out. It is of the baby's feet. You can see them in the black bubble in the middle.

Some new content!

Hey Eveyone. For those of you who have been watching our blog over the last week or so, you will know that I have been conducting tests to get videos into our blog. Well, now the tests are complete, and I have some videos from our trip to Georgia. For the guys out there, I have the quading clips, and for the ladies (or more femenine guys) I have the ballet clips. Props to videoegg.com for hosting these things for me. They are free and so far have not limited the number of clips I can have. Hopefully I am going to post more videos in the future, so keep an eye our for some Cypress Hills footage, and some new baby room shots!


This video was taken during our first major quading obstacle. Fun!




This video was taken when we arrived at a lake we found deep in the woods. It took us a good couple hours to get there, but wow, was it worth it. By the way, while us guys were eating in the wilderness, the girls were haveing some fancy Italian cuisine!




This was the last quading trip. Dad and I went way back into the mountains and were following an old farming and loggin trail. Needless to say, the view was breathtaking!




These are some of the ballet shots taken while we were attending the Nutcracker in Georgia. They are pretty self explanitory, so enjoy.

God is working...

Hey Everyone! Ian here.
It has been a while since our last blog update, but I had a gentle reminder from Auntie Irene (thanks for the movie tickets!) that I should get my butt in gear and update our blog. So here I am. I will start with our trip to Georgia (the country, not the state) to visit Dad, and go from there.
For those who don't know, Brent, Jenn, and I went to Georgia to visit Dad over Christmas. Jenn took tons of pictures (380+), but I will post my favorites below and give a quick overview of the trip. First, we got to meet Rusi when we got there, and got a tour of Dad's house. It is very nice and was still being renovated when we arrived. The picture on the left is all of us at a restaurant for a fancy evening out! We never ran out of stuff to do, and our activities included: hanging out with Dad's neighbors, visiting monasteries and churches, quading (Dad has 3) all over the mountains, visiting a museum of Stalin, the Nutcracker ballet, and playing boardgames. We had a blast, and as you can see from the pictures, the scenery and architecture was amazing! A special thanks to Dad for a great trip and great memories. I especially enjoyed the quading, and I think Jenn really enjoyed the Nutcracker. The only downer to the trip was that the airlines ended up loosing both of our skis. We still don't have them, but hopefully insurance will cover the loss. I will continue this post, and I will put Georgia pictures along the sides so you can get a better idea of how much fun we had.
While we were in Georgia, we found out another tidbit of news, Jenn's pregnant (again)! So, I guess that type of news deserves an update, and I am happy to say that we have had 3 doctors appointments, 1 ultrasound (another one coming at the end of march) and all is going well. We have a strong little baby with a very loud heartbeat!
School is going well this year, and I am enjoying all of my classes. I am taking Hermeneutics, Gospels, History of Western Music I, Foundations of Church Ministry, and Marriage Enrichment (we are both taking it Monday Evenings). I really enjoy how God is using this semester to make me think about what it really means to read and understand the Bible, and how to allow the Bible to transform my life.
I just finished Youth Quake about two weeks ago, and needless to say it was both great and tiring at the same time. This year I was asked to be the stage manager for the event, which is a huge responsibility. I had 8 people underneath me (my pawns!) that I had to oversee, and it was allot of planning and organizing. Since I had never done anything like this before I was in over my head, but God was gracious and I had some great guys to work with who were patient and willing. Together we pulled it off without any major technical problems, and overall the event went incredibly smoothly. Youth Quake this year to me seemed different than many other years. For various reasons, we did not have a "headliner" band for YQ, and the leadership team prayed and discerned that God wanted us to use the money to further His kingdom. So, YQ had a contest that allowed youth groups to submit project proposals, and the YQ retreaters would vote on which 3 groups would win $8000 each! We ended up doing a Jay Leno style interview/show with the youth groups, complete with house band and leather couch! The point of the show came through loud and clear; "How are you going to further God's kingdom with what He has given you?" This really changed the focus of YQ towards discipleship and obedience, while allowing the retreaters to contemplate how God was working in their lives. We had many amazing times of worship and reflection before God followed by dedication of lives, repentance, and submission to God. In short, God be praised!
Along with YQ, I found out that I am on the short list (I am the only one!) for a job here at Briercrest. I would be working in the productions department full time over the summer with the possibility of full time employment in the fall. This is the next major step in our lives as Jenn will be ready to pop (she is due August 31st by the way) and I will be needing to decide whether to work full time or to take school full time. Either way I would finish my degree, it would just be a matter of finances and the logistics of Jenn going back to work. Please pray for us over the next few months as we seek God's will in our lives, and as we march towards parent-hood.
Well, that is the major news from our neck of the woods. I just had a Birthday and I wanted to throw out a huge THANKS to everyone who sent cards, presents, and prayers. I pray blessings on you and I will try to be more diligent on our blog posts in the future.

In Christ,
Ian ,Jenn, and Baby!