First post of 2012!

Wow! I haven't posted in 2012 yet?! Yea, it's been a bit busy and I've been procrastinating... but I'm blogging again now :-) (hopefully I'll blog again this year :-P)

So what's new this year? Well the biggest thing that has happened around here is we have been blessed with a sweet little girl on Feb 23. We named her Lydia Heather (Named after her Nana (my Mom)). We all love her soo much. We are all adjusting well to the 5th member of our little family <3
Lydia is a very sweet little girl! She is very good and hardly cries, she sleeps 8hrs almost every night!!!! (I can count on one hand the nights that have been less than that!)Ahh! miracle baby! Seriously! I love my sleep, but who doesn't? Nursing is going well - the only thing was a bit of a foremilk, hindmilk imbalance, so she hasn't gained as much as she should have according to her 'curve' but, I think she is gaining properly again (I find out on Monday). Other than that I/we have had it fairly easy, very nice to have it easy on the third seeing as the other two keep me running :-) Postpartum for me has been the best so far, and I haven't had it bad. Labor and delivery went well... I HATE that part! But I can't really complain if I compare my labor stories with other women. I was only in labor for a few hrs and I pushed twice so ya... :-P

We are all really enjoying the spring weather we are getting :-) Yay! The kids love playing outside and I love the peace and quiet :-) I can't wait to spend more time outside, I really enjoy having a yard where we can have bbq's, birthday parties, play in the pool or sprinkler, garden, have little fires in the fire pit, and all the other fun stuff we do.
We are planning to dig up a bit of the lawn in the backyard this spring so I can have a small veggi garden - oh I wish we had more room to have a big garden like I did when I was growing up, but if I dug up our entire backyard there would be no place for the kids to play :-P I can't wait to get my hands in the dirt and start planting! <3

I'll end with a few pictures of the last little bit - I haven't had the camera out very often which is mostly why I haven't blogged, but I'm hoping to change that.




Baptism


This was also Baptism Sunday <3


Just Chillin'


The shirt says it all <3



Snow :-)



Building a snowman with Dad!




Our little Lydia is growing and changing so much everyday!


Warming up after being outside for an evening backyard 'camp' fire :-)


All those newborn features are disappearing and being replaced by chubby baby ones. Bittersweet! The newborn stage goes so fast!

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.