My littlest brother

Awww, I have such a sweet littlest brother. <3 I found this note on my bed yesterday :-)

Family, Family, Family!

WOW! We had a super fun Christmas dinner at my Uncle A's and Aunt A's house this past Friday. Last I counted there was 69 Barendregt's! 2 Stads and Uncle Tom were brave and joined in all the fun as well. That makes 72 people!!
We all fit in one HUGE house in Grande Prairie. :D The noise level was insane in there! You see, us Barendregts seem to like to talk very loud, then you get 69 of us in one house and noise levels are almost dangerous. ;-) If you looked around you could tell who the born Barendregts were, and who the married in one's were! lol, although if the married in one's had been in the family for more than 10yrs or so they seemed to be less overwhelmed! :-D My poor hubby was one of the overwhelmed ones. I was having a blast! I could have been there all week! The craziness didn't seem to phase Miriam and Dylan either. Mrs. Stad sr. and Oma were troopers!!!
A BIG HUGE THANK-YOU! To those that organized, cooked, cleaned and did all the running around etc!
Here are a few pictures I took during the evening.



Amidst all the craziness there was a little girl reading downstairs :-)


Playing on the drum set downstairs.


Dylan and Uncle Leighton going down the looooong stairs


Busy making the dinner (I love Auntie A's kitchen! It has two refrigerators!)


Chatting



A few people lounging in the living room.





I wasn't the only one with a camera!


Cooking more food in Oma's suite.






Kids getting hungry... The smell must have brought them all upstairs!


Goofy grins


Uncle H posing :-)



Supper!! It was amazing!


Catching up.


Presents!! The kids that didn't participate in the white elephant gift exchange received a present from their parents so they didn't feel left out :-)


What did Dylan get?


Taking out the presents for the white elephant gift exchange.


Notice my Dad texting on his phone :-P







Yup this must be a born Barendregt! She's sleeping away even though the noise was super loud! She must have been pretty comfy on Uncle B.


Aunt J telling us the rules.


Haha! Love C's face on this one!



I think this is when Leighton opened the bra... and then put it on :-P haha! Thankfully he didn't end up with it in the end!


Byron stole the toblerone from Auntie J


Little one all pooped out!


Miriam and Dylan all cozy in one of my cousins bed - they went to bed around midnight and promptly fell fast asleep, even though the older kids that were attempting to pull an all nighter were still awake and playing video games in the hallway.

Family Night

We opened presents with just our family last night :-D So fun! Today they are playing SO nicely with their new toys that I have some free time to sit in front of the computer and blog a bit :-D Here are a few pictures from last night and a few more of the kids playing nicely today :-)

A CAR!!


Me: "Miriam what do you think it is?
Miriam: *Smiles*
Dylan: "A CAR!"



It has a remote!!!


Dylan trying to figure out the remote...


A train set!!


Matthew setting it up.


This Morning
Playing with the new train set on the coffee table (the rest of the train set was set up in Dylan's room so I could sweep the living room floor :-D)

Chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo








Miriam showing us how her new 'lipstick' (chapstick) works.

Dylan showing us how his new cars pillow case works.

Gingerbread trains!

We bought 2 kits this year instead of making our own gingerbread cuz I was too busy. (last week was insane!) Miriam and Dylan made Trains and cousins J and S made houses. The kids had so much fun decorating them and eating the candy! Dylan did more decorating than eating this year and that is quite an improvement on last year :-D

More candy please!


Loading the icing on :-D



Gotta lick the spoon!

Waaay back in October :-)

Here are a few pics I neglected to post waaay back in October :-) And one from November (I haven't really taken many pictures these last few months).

We've been keeping busy around here. Since we came back from Winnipeg in October we've renovated and painted Miriam's -soon to be Miriam and Dylan's- bedroom. We had had moisture in that room in the spring, so we had to do a bit of work on it to prevent any mold problems in the future. Matthew also added a well needed closet in the room, and we painted the room Pink and Blue. Miriam is THRILLED! (I'll add pictures another day - yes I know, I haven't been so great at posting pictures even when I have promised it but, I'll try anyway).
Matthew and I are also keeping busy in the committee's we are members of, as well as the regular household things that need to be done, Dr. appointments, bible study etc.
We have lots of snow on the ground now! Yay for winter! - Pack the lawn mower up and take out the shovels!
Miriam and Dylan have had their friends A and J over a few times in the last month or so, cuz their Mom (S) has had to take it easy during the last bit her pregnancy. (No baby yet, but A and J are allowed to stay home with Mom now cuz the due date is only a couple weeks away).
Dylan has taken on the task of potty training himself... not kidding! He has had a few accidents but that's what it's all about anyway, right?! It's kinda weird to have no kids in diapers right now!

Ok so, here are the pictures...

We cut the sunflowers down :-)



And pulled the seeds out, not all of them were ready, but oh well.
(Did you notice my strategic picture taking? Gotta love that wash on the line!)


Miriam taking the seeds out of the heads.


Dylan doing the same as Miriam :-)



Yay for beginning of November costume sales!! Best time to catch great deals on dress-up clothes!!!

Shoveling!!

Miriam and Dylan helping Daddy shovel. Snow is SO MUCH FUN!!