Us

Peekaboo!

2012-02-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

6 am update

2011-11-26T03:56:00.005-08:00

Just a quick update while I nurse a baby who was up for 2 hours in the night (little stinker!) Hopefully he goes back to bed now so momma can catch up a smidge on sleep.

Things are going well here: Ian will be 6 weeks soon!

He's awake a lot more these days, and usually up for a good 3 hour stretch in the evening. Then he usually (although it's hard to say "usually" with a newborn) sleeps for a longer stretch after that: the other night he slept for 5 hours. Last night, only 3. Sigh. What can you do.

Tomorrow is Ian's baptism: will post pics of that sometime. :) SO excited to see my family and Derek's family again!!

We're so thankful for our little Ian and love him to smitherenes. (where on earth did that word come from?)

Time for me to go back to sleep for 2 minutes before the big kids wake up! Although, Ian is looking quite wide awake in his bassinette at the moment. . .

I'm ready for our walk, Mom!

Ian and his friend Molly (thoughtfully posed by Molly's owner, Brooke)

All bundled up with nowhere to go (other than around the block)

Geneva multitasking

Figured it was time for an update!

2011-11-17T18:37:00.009-08:00

Our little Ian is a month old tomorrow! Where does time go? Although he's still rather newbornish, he's really starting to change. He's grown out of his newborn clothes (because he's so long!) his neck's getting stronger and his skinny little chicken legs are starting to fill out! He's been awake a lot more lately and although he's still waking up twice a night, he's at least starting to figure out that night time means sleeping time... A few nights ago he slept from midnight til 5: That was a treat!

Here are a few pics from the last few weeks

Check out the skin colour difference between these boys. Jaundice city! It's pretty much gone now, but it took a good 3 weeks.

Huisman hike w/ Ed and Lori and fam

Checking out the Baltimore Oriele nest

All the Huisman girl grandkids

Snug as a bug

With big sis

AWWWWW

Huisman hoagie!

M' boys

Can you tell who's actually sleeping?

These kids LOVE their baby bro

(the oldest kid does too, she just didn't make it into a lot of pictures lately) :0)

Chel came for a visit last weekend! What an awesome time I had with my college roomie! The kids absolutely loved her. She was so helpful with the kids: playing with them, babysitting them, burping them (ok, that one applies to just Ian) Thanks Chel Chel for a great weekend!!!

Thanks J and Rick for wanting to go on a road trip to TO and bringing her. I'll talk to the government about those confusing Canadian road signs for ya.

Building with Aunt Cheli

Puzzling with Aunt Cheli

Crystal came on Saturday too! SO much fun to spend time with my great gradeschool friend.
We had some good giggles. :)

A fairly typical look for Ian

So sleepy!

2011-10-24T17:27:00.003-07:00

Our boy is a week old tonight! It's gone by very quickly, but at the same time, it feels as if this little creature has been here for a lot longer already! All 5 of us are absolutely ga-ga for this sleepy little sweetheart. He's pretty dozy, dozy and not the worlds' greatest eater: a week in and he's only 7 lbs 6 oz. We're hoping this week will be better than last! Nursing takes a good hour, and we've been having to wake him up to get some milk into this little guy! (hardest thing EVER to do in the middle of the night when you just want to sleep) Difficulties aside, we are just truly enjoying our little blessing! We can't stop staring at him! :)

Loving on his baby brother after he missed him all week! Grandma said he was asking about his baby brother Ian every day while at her place.

Grandpa meets Ian

Catching some rays to help get over some jaundice

My big helper: Possibly a future midwife?

My sweet sweet little man

Our big helper at it again!

Opa and Nana's enjoying their "last" grandchild.

(unless Ann and Matt change their minds and decide to have another! hehe)

Opa meets Ian

Brooke getting some cuddles in on her day home from SK.

It's a boy!

2011-10-19T12:09:00.009-07:00

Introducing....

Ian Nathaniel Huisman

October 18 @ 3:26

8 lbs 21 inches

Our 'lil man, fresh out of the oven.

Ian's name means "God is gracious" and indeed, He is!

It's a.... boy!!! I was so shocked, I really, truly, honestly thought we were having a girl! Not that I'm disappointed. I wouldn't trade him for all the girls in the world: and really, I was secretly hoping for a boy. As was Derek. Although perhaps not so secretly: in his words to the midwife, just a few hours before Ian arrived: "We'll be happy with whatever we have" and in the same breath: "But a boy would be nice." :)

Our secondary midwife, Rhea.

Our primary midwife, Sarah. Awesome Burlington midwives!

Round that up to an 8!

Proud poppa of 4! Couldn't have made it through without him there. :)

It was a quick labour/delivery, but very very very intense. To sum it up quickly: Light contractions started at 8, went away by 10. They were back at 11pm, we were at the hospital just after midnight, and he was born 3 hours later! Crazy painful, intense, but WHAT a reward at the end! Wowsaz.

My peeps! (and perhaps the noisiest hospital visitors!)

Big, big sister Brooke

One of my favourite pics: can't you just see this big, big, big sister just a beaming!!!

Guess who's a big brother now!

Home! Was so glad I was able to come home to sleep. (although sleep proved somewhat elusive...) No private rooms available at the hospital: a ward with 3 neighbours: not so bad, quiet babies and all. BUT they had noisy visitors ALLLL day long: very annoying!

Our lovely neighbour Margaret who stayed with our big kiddos in the middle of the night!

Me and my babies! No chance to get a family pic of the 6 (!!!!) of us together yet!

We got home from the hospital just in time to let the kids say hi and goodnight to Ian.

Micah really wanted to hold "my baby bother" and was quite interested in touching and holding him (and beeping his nose.)

My 3 boys! Aren't they handsome?

Chillin' on Grandma's lap

Sleeping lots during the day today... too bad that wasn't the case last night. To sum it up, this sleep-deprived Momma wasn't good and asleep til 4 am!

More pictures another time! The girls are home from school now and are having some Ian-time. Micah's gone to Grandma's for the rest of the week, so things are relatively quiet around here. Relatively. :) Feeding time!

Come and visit us: we'd love to show off the newest Huisman. :)

September!

2011-10-04T12:12:00.006-07:00

Grandma and Grandpa came over on Saturday and we made lots of yummmy applesauce. The girls were great helpers.

Working hard

They also brough a big boy bed for Micah!

Our trip to African Lion Safari. This was our favourite part: the elephant show! These guys could play basketball, soccer, paint, do handstands, all kinds of neat stuff! It's the only show Micah sat still for and was completely mesmerized.

We pretty much had the whole park to ourselves in the morning: a PD day Monday!

Train ride!

Fireman Micah

My tree hugger

My little shadow

Me & baby! (around 35 weeks)

Rollerblades, kneepads, elbowpads, wristguards = $3 garage sale steal!
They're Geneva's size but Brooke put on 3 pairs of socks and gave them a spin. Not bad! (no injuries to report as of yet!)

This girls' a natural skater

Just for fun...

2011-09-13T17:51:00.004-07:00

Well, just over 6 weeks left to go, and we're purty eager to find out who this little guppy is! :)

I've never done this before for any of our kids, but I'm curious to know what people think, so here's a bit of a poll...
When do you think this babe will arrive? Boy or girl? How big?

Some stats to keep in mind...

I'm due Oct 28
Geneva: 1 day late, 8 lbs 9 oz
Brooke: 5.5 weeks early, 5 lbs 13 oz
Micah: 2.5 weeks early, 7 lbs 11 oz

Leave a comment... Whoever's closest wins a prize! K, I haven't actually thought of what a good prize is... but I'll come up with something! :)

Camping again! (and a baby belly shot)

2011-09-08T18:29:00.005-07:00

At the end of August we headed to Paradise Valley Campground for 3 nights. A GREAT trip! We had visitors every day since we decided to camp close to Wyoming (Derek's family and friend Joel and family) which was awesome. The kids were happy and soooo good, and it just was a lot of fun!

Fun with glow sticks. Can you tell who this is?

Cousins (and other creatures)

Practicing for having a new brother or sister in a month or so!

Happy Camper boys!

We opted for a cabin so I wouldn't have to sleep on the floor... and ended up sleeping on the floor. :) Ah well. The beds were triple bunk which the kids thought was AMAZING! It was really nice to have a cabin though, especially when it started to rain. AND the fact that we could block the windows off: the kids slept in til past 8 every morning! Unheard of!!! (Especially compared to our last trip when we saw everyone up by 6 every morning)

G took her camera to the beach

me = 31 years

babes = 31 weeks

I'm 33 wks now, just 7 more to go! (Give or take a few weeks I guess) Who knows this little babe will arrive on time like big sis Geneva or be early like big bro Micah or super early like big sis Brooke!

First Day!

2011-09-08T18:13:00.003-07:00

G had her first day on Tuesday and B on Wednesday. They were pretty excited and both had great days. Happy schoolgirls make for a happy momma. :)

Pumped!

Out the door by 7:35 am! (20 mins earlier than last year... ack!)

Brookie's first day

They wanted to be twins (I think Micah was distracting them from looking @ the camera)

Worker guy (and gals)

2011-08-17T12:24:00.003-07:00

summer camping trip #1

2011-07-17T19:07:00.004-07:00

The long weekend in July we decided a few days beforehand to go camping! Took us a while to find a campground that had openings, but discovered a little place called Jordan Valley Family Campground. Cute little place: grassy site, pool, playground, etc. The kids LOVED it and can't wait to go again. Aside from a missed nap or too and 2 very early mornings x 3 kiddos we considered our first camp of the summer a success!

Our best attempt at a family pic... not too bad I guess!

Can you see the fish? It's HUGE!

D's big catch of the day

These monkeys played camping for a few days when we got home. LOVED their first trip of the summer!

"When can we go 'real camping' again?"

June!

2011-07-17T18:29:00.003-07:00

Brooke turns 5!

A few of the party-goers.

Mikers helping Daddy change the oil

I love my big sis!

We love spring!

2011-06-05T11:28:00.007-07:00

My favourite people!

My biking babies! Brooke learned to ride a 2 wheeler at Grandma & Grandpa's on Mother's Day and our bike rides have picked up, in terms of pace, about 200 percent. So fun! Now if we could just get Micah to learn to pedal, we'd be even faster! He's a bit too big for the baby seat on the back of my bike (although I still do it, even though I probably shouldn't since he's like 38 pounds) but he's waaaaay too poky to go on his own.

The Jorritsmas came over for a hike! Fun times jumping mud puddles and trying to get birds to land on our hands. We didn't have any birdseed, and they didn't seem appetized by bread.... which my children ended up eating anyways.

Technology & Hiking go hand in hand.... apparantly. :)

girls weekend!

2011-06-02T18:35:00.003-07:00

Don't you just love the matching outfits? NOT planned.

Me and my girls!

Megs and Chel

me n' Sarah

View from our cottage on Lake Mac

An amaaaaazing time away in Holland Michigan with my ol' roomies! Love you girls! We will definitely have to do that again!!!

April/May

2011-06-02T18:17:00.006-07:00

May 1st: 5k run with some of Derek's family. The kids and I had a fun time watching the race!

Sistery love @ the pool in our hotel

Notice the nice scar 2 stitches left behind (run in with a table at preschool!)

my little fish

some more fishies

playing "preschool quiet time"

Uncle Bri came in April!!! Oops, this is one of the only pictures I took. Too much time spent having fun to take pics I guess...

Maple Syrup Festival @ the beginning of April. Derek's birthday I think, actually.

March

2011-03-27T14:29:00.006-07:00

Time for my monthly update! I'm writing this while feeling quite crummy... bad cold, sore throat, very tired. But it was a beautiful day today and the sunshine made things a bit more bearable. The kids played outside for a few hours, and after an afternoon snooze I was feeling much more.... human. :)

Anyway, here's some pics. There's actually a few of me this time!

Buzz chowin' down some goldfish.

Isn't this the greatest costume? My friend Karen came over with her kids and brought it along, Micah loved it!

One of the birthday boys! It was hard to get a shot with both of them... Too much fun stuff to do at the Y! These special twins are 3 already!

G and her cuz Abigail. She stayed with us for March break during Sports Camp week. These 2 were quite the cheerleaders! SOOO much fun. The girls absolutely adore their big cousin. They mentioned quite a few times that week that Abigail is special because she's "their ONLY girl cousin!"

The Huisman girls

The whole camp!

How I spent some of my March Break...

And some more of the week... It was sometimes really tough teaching 5-7 yr olds basketball skills. Like how to PASS the ball. Oh ya, and how to not travel. We had one adorable little guy who would literally push his 'defender' out of the way when he had the ball and say "give me space!" sigh

Playing rock star.... not sure where this idea came from...

Was anyone else perterbed with the amount of snow we got at the end of March!?! Ok, it was pretty, but really... it's spring!

February!!!

2011-03-09T10:53:00.006-08:00

My little cheezer.

Here are a few pics from a day in the life of Micah and Brooke at home...

Making a fort

Getting wrapped up "like babies" (They actually couldn't move for a few seconds, kind of nice!)

Playing in the new dryer box fort (which mommy squashed 2 days later due to WAY too much craziness/arguing! I'm such a kill-joy, hey?)

Checkin' out the new dryer! Watching clothes spin is very mesmerizing. :)

At the Dino Exhibit in Midland with cousin Eli.

Micah getting eaten

G: "Hey, my mouth is almost the same size..."

Gotta love Brooke's style of paleontology...

Our 2nd annual trip to Zehnders in Frankenmuth! Fun times!

The smiles did not leave their faces alllll day.

The weekend before our Zehnders/Midland trip, we hung out with the Huisman side of the fam. (Family Day wkend) The kids went out with D and Opa to build a snowman, but they decided a homemade toboggan hill would be much more fun.

Skating on the HUGE rink at Rudy and Tina's.

The newly teenaged b-day boy (and cuzs)

Where's Oma? On my Grandma's 92nd birthday we all got together in Woodstock. Just a few people missing. Quite a legacy, huh? FUN times with the relatives!

a few pics and videos...

2011-02-10T18:56:00.006-08:00

awww

poor boy

Oliebollen time! Derek was sent to the shed to fry up these tasty New Year treats.

There's a "random" girl skating (very well, mind you) at the beginning of the video for a few seconds. That's our neighbour, Jenna. :)

look! I'm blogging!

2011-02-10T18:18:00.007-08:00

Sigh... I haven't been very good at this blogging thing, have I? Ah well. Not sure how many people are actually checking it anyway since I don't get any comments! haha, doesn't that make you feel guilty? :)

Anyway, here are some pics I stole/borrowed from my friend Karen's facebook. We had a fun skating/sledding/hiking date with them a few weeks ago, and have vowed to do something together as families 1 Sunday a month. We'll see if we can do it!

m'girls

my buddy Karen

The girls eating cookies in their "fort" The walls were about 3 inches high. Within a few days after this, we had enough snow to have 3 feet high walls instead!

Derek getting his workout for the day.

Anneka wanted in on this pic.

some indoor fun

playing house with all her stuffies

this boy lovvvves winter

with G's friend Jenna. Derek just said "look at the girly scarf he has on" :)

Snow day!!! These girls spent about 4 hours outside on their first snow day of 2011.

lovin' on froggy

my bed head boy

sweetie boy

not so sweetie boy

Just had to show that's he's not all sugar and spice. Oh wait, that's not what you say for boys, is it? "Snips and snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of."

at Opa and Nana's

2010-12-31T13:15:00.004-08:00

After a few days in Midland, we headed back to the homeland for Christmas with the Huismans!
Highlights include: Yummy food, Rubikub, a flag raising ceremony, more yummy food, gifts, visiting family and friends, even MORE food, playing in the TONS of snow, Geneva getting to sleep over at her "only girl cousins" house (aka, Abigail!), and lots and lots of fun!

Lighting hat!

Twin presentage

The spectators

A little scared of his new car which drives by itself...

Joel and Lisa's new baby girl, Taylor. So sweet! I just had to have a few snuggles.

One of Brookie's pals @ Ed and Lori's. Oscar is massive!

Not much left of Opa's flag. We thought he needed a new one (badly!)

A group effort to get the new flag up.

It's up! O CANADA!

at Grandma and Grandpas

2010-12-31T11:23:00.004-08:00

With Gma and Gpa

The name "Bobby" was said numerous, numerous times...

Celebrating Jesus' birthday!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! All ready for Christmas Eve Candlelight service at church.

In BIG need of a haircut!

Uncle Bri cut it right after Micah woke up, so he was DOZEY which made him sit really still! Worked well. Thanks Bri!!

Finished product. So handsome!

Skating in the backyard.

The girls are getting to be pretty good skaters, but this was pretty fun too!

Sistas

UNFORTUNATELY, no pics of sledding, curling on Dave and Christel's pool, ping ponging, playing hide the baby Jesus, Settler-ing, Dutch Blitzing, and many other festivities!!!

What a great few days we had!!

We didn't even get any cousin pictures!!! Sigh, next year.

Love you all!

Pics of Wyoming-Huisman-fun to come. I'm done blogging for now, the kids are getting antsy!

Niagara Falls

2010-12-31T11:07:00.002-08:00

Last week we took advantage of the fact that Brookie was gone (to Grandma and Grandpas for teh week) and went to check out the lights at Niagara Falls. It's less than an hour away, so not too bad, and we knew that we'd have no one complaining about a long walk in the cold weather. We took our big girl and our little boy out for dinner and then checked out the cool lights and the amazing falls!

We had the falls pretty much to ourselves!

Micah traveled in style.

Admiring

My favourite light display next to some of my favourite people.

Grade 1 Class Trip

2010-12-31T10:59:00.002-08:00

G chillin' at Springridge farm

All the Grade 1s.

Making gingerbread boys and girls.

Even I made it on a picture.

Derek showed up during his work day since the jail is only 10 minutes away from the farm. Geneva was pleasantly surprised! "What are you doing here?!"

A very fun afternoon!

December 2010 entry 1

2010-12-31T10:51:00.002-08:00

Our kiddos

Tree full of homemade and random ornaments!

M'girls

Shine Your Little Light

2010-12-19T11:12:00.002-08:00

She only seems just a BIT distracted...

bunk beds!

2010-12-12T10:07:00.003-08:00

p.s. derek's first blogging experience: nice work D! :)

More space to play

Opa and Nana came over this past weekend to suprise the girls with their new bunk bed. This bed is NOT store bought. Opa built and painted the whole bed in his shed at home, took it apart and we put it up here in no time. The girls just LOVE it. THANKS again dad.

The girls plus Micah enjoying their new bunk bed with opa.

entry 3/3

2010-12-01T19:50:00.006-08:00

OK, so I'm staying up later than I wanted to and finishing my blogging. Here's some last pics...

My baby is turning 2 tomorrow! AAAHH! What happened? :)

Me and my little man.

Showing off his new train jammies from Aunt Ann. He LOVES them.

Too bad his belly makes him look like the tank, not Thomas.

Beauties and the Beast

The Beast, revealed.

The beast attacks!

K, so I always hate listening to myself talk on videos, but here's one anyway. :)

SOOOOO glad MOvember is over. But, pretty neat that he helped play a small part in helping to raise awareness, oh, and MILLIONS of dollars for prostate cancer research. Saw a neat clip on CBC and it makes me realize that I put up with ICK for a month for a good cause. I love my Derek, but love him more without a fuzzy caterpillar on his face. :) I'll post a much more handsome "after" picture later.

post 2/3

2010-12-01T19:39:00.003-08:00

We then got to celebrate M's birthday with the Huisman clan! Tons of fun! :) Thanks Rita for hosting the par-tay!

Total amazement on his face... even though it was the 2nd round! This time, he knew exactly how to blow them out!

My new camera is great. I took this from across the room. I've never been able to zoom AT ALL, so this is verrry exciting for me. :)

Hudson (I think?) Maybe Logan tries to pin the fly on the frog.

G figures out who the winner was. The older kids figured out how to feel for the froggy's mouth.... Ah, the downfalls of handmade products. :)

silly Travis...

estados unidos

2010-12-01T19:10:00.003-08:00

Blog entry 1/3 or so... I have a bunch more pics to put up, but don't have time/energy tonight... Maybe tomorrow? We headed down to Midland for American Thanksgiving this past weekend. What a wonnnnderful weekend! I loooooove my family.

Here's a few pics compliments of our new camera via a great black friday sale! The old one just wasn't cutting it. 3 mpixels was top of the line back in the day... haha.

p.s. I'm not used to working with 12 mpixels... any advice anyone on how to upload big files without individually having to resize them all? I didn't resize these and they took for-ev-er to load up...

The wait was worth it though! How can you not just love this little face.
Meet Jayber! The new grandpuppy. This dog is SOOOOO cute! The girls fell head over heels in love.

The Mulder/Huisman clan!

The cupcake art...

The cupcake artists. Thanks Bert.

My baby is 2 tomorrow! We celebrated with my side of the family on Saturday. Gotta love the boy's face as we sing...

oops

2010-11-11T17:39:00.005-08:00

OK, so it's been a while! Here's to all the people who check the blog, just waiting for me to update. :)

Things are good here. Pretty routine... but good. Finding beauty in the small things.

A few highlights from the past few weeks of life for this 30 year old, in absolutely no particular order.

enjoying peeking in on the kids while their sleeping, reading a book while getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist (why didn't I think of that before!) waiting for Derek to say something funny as his meds wore off after getting his wisdom teeth pulled, waiting not so patiently to see my family at American thanksgiving, listening to the girls singing songs to Jesus together after they've been tucked in, eating yet another Halloween size chocolate bar, going out for dinner with a friend from high school, seeing my hugely tall Brooke at preschool standing next to another 4 year old who is literally the size of my almost 2 year old, leading a children's message at church and getting a bit choked up looking at ALL those kids listening intently to me talk about other kids who don't even have food to fill their tummies, skyping with my little bro as he takes his computer (and thus me) outside to say goodbye to my parents as they leave, baking cookies with my Brooke who never wants to leave my side when she's home from school, saying the abcs with Micah and hearing him shout YES for the letter s, watching Geneva play the air guitar on the broom while the radio plays, telling Derek his "Mo-vember" mustache makes him look oh so handsome (ick), letting the girls paint their own artwork to hang on the walls in their newly painted pink and brown room, praying for a church friend's husband who's just been diagnosed with a brain tumor and feeling God's presense even in a terrible situation.

God is good, all the time. Good times: Yes. Mundane times: Uh huh. Boring times: Yuppers. Exciting times: Mmmhmm. Awful times: You bet.

OK, so I'm leaving you with some videos of the most precious things I have "out on loan." :)

Brookie's first hair cut!

2010-10-13T09:45:00.003-07:00

Brooke's first hair cut, compliments of Aunt Tina

Still looks curly when it's wet, but it dries pretty straight! "I look like Geneva now!" Only a few curlies left. It was kinda hard to do, but she was sooo excited to have it cut, it made it pretty worth while. It looks a lot healthier now and is much easier to comb through the tangles.

some Sept, some Oct

2010-10-11T18:00:00.005-07:00

Our children are ginormously huge. This is at Korny Korners with Opa and Nana on Saturday. It was reeaaallly fun. :) Most of the pics I took turned out kinda fuzzy, but here are a few that were ok. We had a great Thanksgiving weekend with Derek's fam! :) We're thankful for the whole Huisman gang.

Farmer Mike

Waiting 'patiently' for their turn.

Ok, so this makes them look smaller. :)

At Story Book Gardens with Opa, Ann and the twins. A beautiful, beautiful day. We were delinquent about taking pictures though, so this is all you get. :)

Mikers

Gva on a bikeride along the waterfront a few weeks back.

Brooklet

The little bikers.

Brooke's first day! She didn't even turn around to wave at us she was SO excited.

Waitin...

Ready to rock preschool and Grade 1. They are absolutely loving school so far this year.

Walking/Hiking

2010-09-12T19:23:00.005-07:00

Out for a stroll with "Big Benny"

Strollin' with "Holly Moose"

Rockin' the manly blue stroller with 'Rog'

Stuffy-walkers

Hikers with Mikers.

D took the kids out for a hike while I got to have some much needed peace and quiet while making dinner. I had homemade squash soup (from the garden!) ready and on the table when they came home. Just call me Annie homemaker. :)

Photo compliment of Brookie.

G's photography skills

This picture amused me. Can't have all these posed pictures all the time. This is what they're really like.

G with a moose.

B with "Bailey"

haha

The little hikers.

first day!

2010-09-12T19:18:00.002-07:00

Our big Grade 1 girl! Every day to school (and loving it!)

The pround sibs, 1 very excited to see the bus, 1 slightly bummed that she had to wait an entire week longer to hop on the bus!

Apple Pickin'

2010-09-12T19:07:00.004-07:00

First time apple picking as a family was a great success. We could have easily picked 5 bushels and had to tell the kids "STOP picking apples!" Delicious Silken apples. Unfortunately, they don't decrease the amount per pound much when you pick them yourselves (perhaps because they know a family of 5 can easily munch away at least $5 worth of apples in a given hour) In fact, when we arrived, there was a couple ahead of us that, when hearing the price per pound, said "I think we'll just go to the grocery store" and left. So, our $xx worth of apples are actually almost all gone already. We paid only a few dollars more for an entire bushel later on in the week (different location) when Grandma came to make applesauce. (our yearly tradition) Anyway, it was fun and still totally worth it! Must stop always thinking in dollars and cents.

My mom would just say, "We raised you right." hehe

Is she double fisting it?

Had to throw this pic in of our garden. Aren't those massive sunflowers?!?

Camping trip #2

2010-08-30T19:47:00.008-07:00

We went camping at Cran Hill Ranch, a small Christian campground near Big Rapids, Michigan

We had the best site ever! Grass, water, trees, what could be better!

View from our site that evening.

We enjoyed doing some things w/out Mikers. Grandma watched him for a few days! What a treat.

The approach...

The attempt...

The assistance. Cousins don't hug, they high 5!

Some of our camping visitors!

The loading...

The farewells...

The push...

The lost girl! Oops.

Brooke doesn't know how this happened. The muck pulled her in apparantly! Uncle Brian, who was taking these pics, seemed not to notice.... :)

One of Cran Hill Ranch's lovely farm animals. What a fun campground!

The whole Mulder gang came up on Weds afternoon and brought our Micah for a visit. Otherwise, the camping was completely Miker-free!

Animal watching

We went tubing down the _____ River... I'm drawing a blank as to what it was called.

Wheeeee!

Tied up to Daddy

Catching minnows

Brookie got a splinter...

Mother hen tried to help calm her down...

....and promise her a special piece of paper from her special note pad....

...but she was still sad.

The End!

Other summer stuff

2010-08-30T19:42:00.002-07:00

Visitin' Oma!

Picking/eating berries

Too busy to pose/smile

Verrrrry tasty raspberries

Boy at the beach

2010-08-30T19:34:00.002-07:00

camping trip #1

2010-08-30T19:15:00.003-07:00

We got our camera back! Hooray! Here's some pics of our camping trip with Dave and Karen @ the Pinery. Twas busy with 2 very active little 1 year old boys, but we had lots of fun!

Sorry Dave, not the most fetching picture of you... :0) but it's the only pic I have of you guys: the rest are of your children!

Micah's naps happened like this

Or this... (fell asleep after eating a few smarties. We asked him if he was tired and he nodded yes as he fell asleep.)

Beach babe

Trying on hats at the visitor centre

Buddies!

How the boys spent a lot of their time.

Spikey hair is complements of yogurt for lunch

Craft time!

More time in the pen!

Working hard doing dishes.

August photos

2010-08-09T19:25:00.007-07:00

Well, the camera got itself lost.

So, please use your imagination here as you view our pictures.

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This photo is of Geneva suddenly realizing that she can, indeed, play soccer; stealing the ball from the purple team, getting a break away, and scoring her first goal ever! On her birthday!

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This is Geneva and her crazy friends playing on the slip and slide at her birthday party. This is Brooke running on the slip and slide for fear of accidentally getting damp.

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These are the new webkins Geneva has picked out from the catalogue to buy with her birthday money from her friend Jenna. The unicorn is for her and the golden retriever is for Brookie because "Bailey is getting too grungy."

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This is Brookie on the trampoline with Micah as she throws her child-size teddy bear overboard, resulting in Mommy's heart to stop beating. (Can you picture how this may have freaked me out considering the bear was wearing Micah's old clothes???) Big Bear subsequently is NOT allowed on trampoline.

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This is Micah and the girls at "Touch a Truck" day in Midland while we were at Grandma's. Here, he's sitting on a small street sweeper type thingy and looking at the street sweeper man with the expression of, "Really guy? You're going to let me sit on your truck here? Awesome!"

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This is Micah playing tag with Daddy (inside the house) and bonking his noggin (the noggin which causes the poor lad to be remarkably top-heavy) on the window latch. Only a little blood.

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Hope you enjoyed our photos! Unfortunately, these aren't and won't ever be real pictures. Nope, we weren't smart enough to borrow one, and not rich enough to buy a new one... But at least I've recorded them here. Hopefully I'll be able to remember them just as well. :)

Update!

Last night, we discovered while on the phone with Uncle Bobby that our camera has been located and wants to come home. Apparantly it was hiding out at Grandma and Grandpa's. We're excited to have Ol' Click return home. He may not be new or provide images above the amount of 4 mega pixels... but he takes some pretty neat shots of some memories we don't ever want to forget. Once he returns, we'll share some pictures of our FUN camping trip with our good good friends.

lots of love

~An

June

2010-07-18T09:45:00.006-07:00

A blog update was much needed. Here are some pics from June!

Matching kids

"More more more!" (in reference to the freezie)

You're not going to share with me? I'm outta here.

Checking out the horses at the Dorsmans'

G's turn

Even Mikers had a turn. He didn't want to get off.

We went for a quick trot.

We had some baby robins up in our apple tree. The girls had so much fun watching them go from egg, to tiny helpless little things, to birds, to GONE from the nest!

The bird watchers

Brookie's 4th birthday party at the splash pad! With some of her buds.

Father's day! We love our daddy SOOO much!

On the new trampoline!

Our weekend away w/ no kiddos

G's trip with Derek to the Blue Jay's Game. At the CN tower.

Her favourite part of the game... the overpriced food. She loved her one-on-one time with Daddy.

Brooke having some one on one time with Daddy as well... I guess the book wasn't too exciting.

Playin' in the mud.

Chillin' out.

My busy, slightly crazy boy.

Sneak preview...

2010-06-21T19:22:00.002-07:00

Got together with my bud from high school, Julie last weekend and she took a few "tu tu cute" pics of the girls. The colours weren't quite right for Mikers, so Jules snapped some very manly pics of Micah by the creek instead. :0) More pics to some.

Camp Brian

2010-05-30T10:14:00.003-07:00

For our Victoria Day long weekend we headed up to "Camp Brian" in Holland MI for a relaxing weekend at his cottage he was renting. He's now in CA starting his summer long bike trip across the US to raise money for wells in Africa (Ride Well Tour) www.brianmulder.net if you know him and would like to see what he's up to these days. :)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand! I'll let the pics sum up our weekend!

Not sure what this ended up being... :)

Eli and his pa

Micah munchin away with his cuzs

Hot tubbin with the uncles

It was actually more of a semi-hot tub

Ok, so maybe we do look just a smidge alike.... Mom claims this was her first ever self-taken picture. We all love this lady. Unfortunately, Gramps couldn't make it, he had a trip somewhere across the globe. We missed him.

Was a smidge foggy on Saturday. Christel went for a walk with the kids and disappeared after a few minutes. We had the beach to ourselves! Sunday and Monday were incredible and HOT with lots of brave people in the coooold water. All around, we were pretty blessed with the weather!

Look at all these bony, long feet!

B came home from the beach each time just loaded with sand everywhere. I think Brooke definitely had the most showers of the weekend. :)

We definitely want to do this again! I love my family.

rob wanted to see these

2010-05-30T10:10:00.002-07:00

Here's a few pics of our new patio. Bert wanted to see them, so here they are!

We're loving having a place to sit outside. Now all we need is a patio set of some sort. :)

workin' girls

2010-05-07T18:06:00.003-07:00

Derek's at work tonight, the kiddos are in bed, dishes are done, finished up my hours for work, there's nothin' on t.v. and I just don't feel like doing much productive tonight... so I thought I'd update the blog!

The girls were hard at work on Tuesday with Daddy while Micah slept and Mommy taught preschool. D took some shots of the action. :)

I'm thinking it must've taken a LOT of trips with those little buckets...

these girls LOVE to help their daddy.

This is where all that gravel is going. Derek's building us a patio!

Playing outside on a beautiful crisp Thursday. Oh, I guess that was just yesterday!

Had to take a pic of them actually getting along. :) It seems when they're playing house or school or something together they are best of buddies. In this pic Geneva was the Mom and Brookie was the kid.

Brooke: Mommy!

Me: Mmmhmm?

Brooke: No, Geneva's the mommy! You're the aunt, remember?

Me: Oh, right. Sorry neice.

Geneva: What do you want kid?
....

For some reason, when they play house, the mom always calls the kid, "kid."

All right, that's it for now. Happy early Mother's Day to all you mommas out there. :0)

Mikers in the trees

2010-04-28T19:31:00.003-07:00

In awe of the beautiful weather lately. God is sooooo good!!!
Just some pics of the boy to share. He didn't last long between the trees once he saw the neighbours dog outside.

"How you doin' "

"Huh, doggie? Ball?"

"I'm outta here."

March!

2010-04-03T18:25:00.002-07:00

Makin' a tower. :)

Got Easter bunnies from our neighbours.

At the Maple Syrup festival. Fun times on the wagon.

Hard to believe it was this chilly just a few weeks ago!

first 1/2 of March

2010-04-03T18:09:00.003-07:00

My little chair climber.. A few fallings thus far.

Derek went with G's class went to the Fire Station. I just noticed that Geneva either looks terrified or real excited in this pic. :)

Drivin'

some pics from a while back...

2010-04-03T18:02:00.001-07:00

Just a few older cutie-patootie pics to share. :)

Zehnders

2010-03-19T18:01:00.003-07:00

At Zehnder's Splash Village in Frankenmuth. Our first time in the lovely Bavarian village. :0)

We left Micah with Gma and Gpa for the day/evening/next day and it was quite lovely! Fun to bond with the girls and just chill and have all sorts of fun.

Tube slide! I was actually a little scared at first. G and B were pretty brave girlies.

In the kiddie pool. Brooke wasn't looking at the camera, so Geneva thought she'd help.

Were excited to snuggle in the same bed! Funny kids.

This was in Bronner's. (A huge-everything-Christmas-type place for those of you who have never driven on a certain stretch of hiway 75 that has huge ads for it every few minutes) I'd never been. It was way huger than I expected! Not exactly my type-of-fun really, I don't go overboard with decorating... but the girls were awed by all the big nativity scenes and Santas.

Just so you can see the sweet splash-place...

Flutterbyes

2010-03-19T17:47:00.003-07:00

Dow Gardens in Midland has an annual butterfly exhibit. We happen to be here pretty much every year at the right time! A neat tradition. FYI, these are the gardens where Derek and I got our wedding pics done, for you lovely bridesmaid-viewers with fond memories of jumping across creeks and such with flowy dresses on.

The prettiest kind there, in my humble opinion. This side is blue, and the other side....

...is not! Doesn't look like the same flutter-bye, does it? (Blue Morpho)

p.s.No one trusted Micah to get too close... I do believe I was holding his hands back in this shot.

Geneva had a little friend that stuck with her for a while, then came back!

Brian refused to take another shot, saying this one is more natural and realistic. hehe.

Teacher-Aunt Christel. :)

Eli got pretty brave. I didn't include the next shot which was him pouting. :) hehe, what a sweetie.

And the hand-off...

(Pics by Funcle Brian.)

Family Day

2010-02-25T06:43:00.005-08:00

Opa and Nana came up on Valentines & Family Day! We had SUCH a fun time skating, bolwing, out for dinner, and just hanging out. Thanks for a fun, fun time guys. We think you're pretty special people... What a great way to spend family day & we wish we lived a little closer to all our wonderful family so we could hang out more often.

Granny bowler!

high five Opa!

Mikers had "fun" watching.

I tried to upload a video here of Geneva bowling for the first time, but it didn't work. Maybe I'll try again later. She got a few spares. Would you believe I bowled a 214? I had 5 strikes. Unheard of. (I beat Derek, hehehe) No pictures to prove it though. You'll just have to believe me.

Oh, child.

Skating queen

Dino-Mike

Our backyard has never been quite so fun.

M.I.A.

2010-02-04T07:26:00.006-08:00

Sorry, I totally have neglected this blog! Life has been just a smidge busy these days...

Unfortunately, my camera was acting up, so this foot pic is literally the ONLY picture I took all weekend of my marvelous Chicago weekend away! Megs will hopefully pass along some of the pics she took. It was an amazingly fun weekend, and SOOOO good to see my dear Chel and Meggers. Missed you Sar!

Derek did a great job on the homefront with the kiddos. I don't think they really even noticed I was gone! Brooke went to my mom and dad's for almost a week and LOVED her time there. She got some good one-on-one time with Gma, and just absolutely thrived on being there. She's grown up a lot lately.

Brooke's creation

The artist.

Me and m' boy.

Uncle Bobby came for a visit in Jan. LOVED having you over Rob. I think the girls rather liked it too.

Watching the girls skate.

Taking Big Benny for a stroll.

Skatin'

Gva's getting purty good at the whole skating thing. (with a few amazingly large bruises on her knees of course)

Before (sorry, pics out of order!)

Derek's been working hard at keeping this baby skatable.

Big helper.

toothless wonder

2009-12-26T19:44:00.001-08:00

Today she was singing, "All I want for Christmas is my one front tooth..."

Haircut, Gingerbread Houses, Presents, Cousins, and Sledding... Just a taste of our wonderful Christmas week!

2009-12-26T19:04:00.008-08:00

Waiting patiently... stockings in hand.

The twins all decked out and handsome for Christmas.

Woo hoo!

Merry Christmas!

First haircut, compliments of Aunt Tina.

This kid doesn't sit still for much... Brave Auntie kept him pretty still!

Starting to look much better!

Earlier that day... making gingerbread houses with Justin Riley and Abigail!

THEN.... off to the U S of A!

Here are a cute herd of dino-baby cousins!

Big dinos have had enough!

Oldest and youngest cousins.

"Helping"

Snuggling with Uncle Bri

Baby Luke!

5 grandkids within 5 years, not bad eh?

Geneva's first time holding Luke. Last visit she was a sicky-kid. All healthy and SO happy to hold her newest cuz!

Busy boys.

Love this sequence of Brookie pics.

Sledding in the backyard! We were able to go skating too. (and curling!) so it actually felt like winter. Then we got to come back home to our green grass. :)

The crew!

Another haircut. This one took a bit longer than a normal cut.... But MAN does it look good. :)

(Loved the cape by the way Bobs)

A wonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndeful week!!!! Mom and Dad and Opa and Nana are always so good to us. THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!

MERRY Christmas!

is this the first time i've posted with NO pictures!?

2009-12-16T17:13:00.004-08:00

We're still alive over here! Just busy and haven't taken many pictures or had the time to update the blog! But, I've vowed to take the evening off, and just veg tonight.

I'm back at work part time (15 hours) for our church, and am a few weeks in and having fun thus far! Feeling challenged, but a little overwhelmed at times.... :) Hoping God will use me however he sees fit! My homeschool group is going well, it's nice to have had a Weds morning off this morning though. I'll pick that back up in January.

Geneva's still liking kindergarten lots, loves to write and draw. Really into playing house lately. She's about to lose a big front tooth! She keeps wiggling and wiggling... She's excited for it to fall out.

Brookie's her usual follow-my-mommy-around-and watch everything she does type self. She doesn't really play much, but is happiest to help me do things... and really, I don't know quite what she does all day!

Micah is super happy when his teeth aren't bugging him one-year-old self. He definitely keeps me busy, this busy, busy boy. He's recently figured out how to get our baby gate loose and sneaks up the stairs. He's also mastered going down the stairs, when I point him in the right direction instead of face forward! Actually, the other day I left him on the main floor while I did something with the girls upstairs and when I came back down after 2 minutes he was gone... the basement door must've been open a tiny bit, and he either fell down the stairs and didn't hurt himself, or somehow miraculously remembered to turn around and went down! It kinda scared me, but he just smiled at me and crawled away quickly. what a guy.

Derek was excited to hear the news that he's getting full time status in January! A schedule! Benefits! Vacation time! Nothing's in writing yet, but they say it'll happen, so here's hoping and praying! We're excited to see this happen!
He's taking a break from doing youth group at church, he did it for 7 years and was ready for a break. He's enjoying having some free time to do some more projects around the house and loving having power in his shed to work on stuff at night! Loves his shed. :)

Well, that about brings us up to speed, sorta! Sorry, no pics, but I'm sure we'll take some over Christmastime. :) Our camera's not the most reliable these days... Still trying to convince Derek we should get one on a boxing day sale.

Anyway, Merry Happy Blessed Christmas to everyone! May you be able to celebrate the true reason for this holiday!

Side note: Brookie asks me every day, "How many days until Christmas?" and I usually tell her, but today she asked a different question: "Is Christmas in the morning time or night time?" I tried to tell her that Christmas Day is all day and really the 1 special day we celebrate Jesus' birthday, but all the days that lead up to that special day are what makes Christmas so neat. Then Geneva and I talked about how really, ALL YEAR we can celebrate that Jesus came to the earth too! We can sing songs to him and pray to him and thank him all year that he was born as a special, special baby. Not sure how much B actually got out of that convo, but its' been really neat to see her little mind try to figure things out. :)

All right, enough writing for me! Thanks for letting me share our lives!
Love, Andrea

Just had to share this

2009-11-15T20:21:00.002-08:00

While I was making dinner tonight, Geneva gave this to Brooke. Gva's first letter done all by herself. Rather cute, I'd say. I'll have to post some of Brookie's "artwork" sometime too. So far, Brooke can write the letter O. Really well. We're working on the letter B. :0)

some assorted pics

2009-11-15T15:30:00.004-08:00

Hey! Long time no blog. Here are some pics from November thus far. Things are good here: I'm back at work this week. Which I'm excited about... and I'll admit, slightly annoyed about: due to the fact that somehow an entire year has gone by. SIGH. Anyway, pray for my sanity as this begins! And that God would use me however he sees fit. :0)

These 2 pics sum up what Micah's been playing with these days.. Little People apparantly taste really good.

Isn't my hubby just so creative? :)

A chilly day

Taken by our 5 year old resident photographer

Playing tigers in the zoo

4 posts in one day??? Unheard of.

2009-10-22T17:42:00.001-07:00

Just had to share some of Geneva's artwork. Can you guess which Disney character this is supposed to be? Not bad for a 5 year old, I think.

Who needs peanut butter and jam...

2009-10-22T17:11:00.001-07:00

...when you can have a Geneva and Brooke sandwich!

(That's what Geneva called it.)

:0)

FALLLLLLLLLLLL

2009-10-22T17:02:00.003-07:00

Just had to include these hilarious few pics... Our kids are SOOOO photogenic!

hahaha

WHEE!!

So, could you tell he wasn't feeling 100 percent? Mean mommy still made him go outside.

We LOVE fall!

Micah's new trick

2009-10-22T13:57:00.003-07:00

Mikers can clap now! Still working on the waving.

Second video compliments of Geneva. I don't normally post videos of me.... She's quite proud of her (jiggly) camera skills. :0)

knock knock and a pulled out tooth

2009-09-30T19:08:00.003-07:00

It's about time I updated!

2009-09-30T18:29:00.009-07:00

Happy to be able to move.

My big bro Dave has inspired me to update the blog. Sorry, it's been a while! We're alive and well. Geneva is loving school (of course!) and Brooke is enjoying some mommy-and-me time. Micah is busy pulling things off of shelves and getting stuck under things like tables, chairs, exersaucers... I've been keeping busy... doing... well, raising 3 kids I suppose! I go back to work in November, so I'm going to enjoy my last month of "free time" :0) I'm teaching my homeschool group again which I'm loving, and am still enjoying being home! Derek is currently in his shed, oh I mean BARN working on some sort of wood project. He's very pleased cuz his dad hooked him up with power and lights in there, and I just don't seem to see him as much in the evenings anymore!

Let's see... what else can I tell ya. We're eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new cousin for the kids in a few weeks, excited to see all the Huismans again at Thanksgiving, and enjoying the smell of fall in the air (and only slightly missing summer already) Enjoy the pics!

Lotsa love, ~An

At the Ancaster Fair. Ran into the Ennemas, the Hiekamps and Marian Shoeman. Fun times in the GTA. One of Brooke's only times holding an animal without getting squeemish.

Lovin' on the bunnies

I want to eat your sunglasses Mom

Thrill ride

Back at home.

Sensing a Harley in his future.

Loves anything that moves and breathes. In case you can't see it, this is a frog, by the way. She let him go though. She's getting better at that.

Hmm.. on second thought, maybe we don't want to spend 200,000 and we'll let him go to Mac instead. Derek's already asked if I'll let him play football. NOOOOO. :0)

At least Micah's eyes are open.

Geneva's first day of SK at the beg of Sept. Sorry, pictures are out of order.

These were taken last month, but I thought I'd just give you a clue how this little dude is getting around.

Bye for now!

The boy moves! Oh, some cottage pics first. Still working out how to cut and paste and move and such with the new laptop... Faster loading pics tho!

2009-09-07T13:57:00.009-07:00

Cottage Weekend Away

with our small groupies!

(a short taste of freedom from children!)

There really was only 1 baby on the trip, it just looks like 2 since there was a baby-switchover!

We hardly noticed Nathan was there, he was such a good boy!

Well, I guess it's not officially "crawling" but this boy is moving! Micah's excited that his cousin Eli is crawling now too! What big boys! Micah can't wait to have a race around the house.

p.s. Please ignore the bigfoot at the end of the video. :0)

This mega update should make up for my severe lack of blogging this past month... right?

2009-08-20T17:30:00.011-07:00

Geneva turns 5! Craziness.

It wasn't a "princess party" or anything. I don't really do "themed" parties. But they found the dress up clothes, and the craft I had picked for them just happened to be a crown... so princesses they all became. Brooke was so proud to be "imbited to G-va's party"

Big 5 year old!

This dude is getting closer to crawling. Ok, it doesn't really look like it in this shot, but it's true!

Camping with our good friends Rob and Kim @ the beg of August. Good thing: site right by the beach! Bad thing: no running water! We managed quite well with 8 kids! :0) They played so nice together and it made for more relaxing days than when we went camping with just us, actually.

Good buds diggin' together.

"Hey Justin, how's it going buddy? What do you think of this whole camping thing? Eat anything good off the sand lately?" (ewwwwwwwww to what Justin put into his poor little mouth.....)

Loungin' and swimmin.' What could be better, really?

The daddies (and some of the kids.)

What a good babysitter!
Thanks Rob and Kim for a WONNNNNNNNNNNDERFUL time!
That lightning storm was SWEET! Even sweeter that we didn't float away in our tent! Hooray for tarps.

In other summer news, I just got home today from a WONDERFUL long visit to Grandma and Grandpa's! Beautiful weather, and nice hot days to enjoy D and C's pool! Derek stayed home to camp with the YPs (and work, poor soul) while we got to play in the U.S. of A.

Getting purty brave in her mature 5 years...

This next sequence is for my littlest brother.

Such talent.

The siblings bathe their boys.

Bath time for Eli and Mikers! Note the lovely pink toys Geneva picked out for the boys.

The chicken leg was the best bath toy by far. Caused a few brawls until I found another drumstick. I think maybe we need to invest in some bath toys for at Grandma's place! :0)

Race time!

Gotta love the way Brooklet runs.

Loves basketball already!

Brooke prefers dryer activities, like hanging out with her soon-to-be-revealed cousin. And Aunt.

Mikers has caught up to, and surpassed Eli. In foot size at least. Oh, and hand size. But I think that was at 4 months already. Have I mentioned that our boy has BIG HANDS. It was SOOO neat to see these two cute boys together.

I think this was when they were both trying to get the duckie. Hilarious.

I'll add some new pics soon, but here's a video to tide you over 'til then...

2009-07-19T19:32:00.002-07:00

Huh? It's not June anymore?

2009-07-01T11:21:00.007-07:00

This morning dawned, and June is no more! Happy Canada Day everyone!

We celebrated by hanging out at the park this morning with a picnic lunch. Sorry, no pictures to share. And we even had extra time/hands since we only went with 2 kids. G is at Gma and Gpas for the week, having the time of her life. She's keeping a journal with Grandma about what she's doing every day, it'll be fun for her to keep those special memories. We've talked a little bit each day on the phone, and I can just tell she is basking in the attention over there. She gets a little shafted sometimes at home, unfortunately..... It's a little quieter around here these days, but not too much since we're reminded that it's mostly Brooke who causes the commotion! Anywho, here are some pics of some June highlights.

Planting some veggies at the beg. of this month.

Geneva's last day of school!

Compare as we dare to this past September????? HOW has our daughter grown up this much in just one school year? She was still a baby when she started...She's wearing her raincoat both days, so it must have been a bit wet both mornings!

At Uncle Rudy and Aunt Tina's for Father's Day. The boys checking out the new kitties.

These boys LOVE the water!

At Twin Valley Zoo in Brantford. Great place to go with kiddos.

This picture strikes me as a bit amusing...

Chilly Pinery Camping Adventure!

2009-06-19T17:55:00.007-07:00

This past weekend marked our first adventure camping with 5! We headed to the Pinery with Bri, Rob, Dave, Christel, Eli. (& baby-in-October-Mulder!) Grandma came to visit for the day on Sat. VERY VERY VERY fun times were had by all. Perhaps this may have to become an annual occurance!

The boys too busy checking out the rocks to pose for the camera.

Collecting shells

Cousin Eli

Pretty intense game...

Who won anyway?

The boy

2009-06-19T17:44:00.003-07:00

Here are some pics of Micah from a few weeks ago.

All about Micah at 6 months:
almost sitting by himself, does not like fruit, doesn't mind baby cereal, impartial to vegetables, loves baby MumMum crackers, loves bottles. Loves to smile, is ok with being ignored, and was a TROOPER on our camping trip. Has a cold, got some needles, still happy and smiling. He's our little PUMPKIN!!!!
Here are some pics with the biggest sis:

Half a year!

2009-06-03T10:58:00.004-07:00

I can't believe my baby is 6 months old!! He is such a joy, joy, joy to have around. His smiles melt away a grumpy day, and he just has such a sweet personality. Our "handsome boy," "little man," "buddy," "buster" Mikers is really growing up. (ok, way too many nicknames, I know it's silly.) One of my faves is when Brookie calls him "stylin' boy"

photos by G and another red car

2009-06-03T10:47:00.007-07:00

Geneva loves taking pictures. Maybe she has a future in photography? Check out these fine shots by our wiggly toothed (already!!?!) almost 5 year old.

And in other news... A new addition to the Huisman driveway!
Rudy and Tina came up to drop off our new ride! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!! She's a beaut. :0) hehe Derek loves her already and has yet to pick a suitable name. RIP Little Red. I'll post a pic soon of our "new" Tempo. :0) According to cousin Kyle, it's a very reliable car and even his teacher says that her Tempo has never had any problems. :0) So nice to see you guys again. Love you!!!

T LOVES sand!

Chillin' with one of their beloved Uncles!

Our soccer star!

2009-05-26T06:46:00.003-07:00

Well, there's a first time for everything, and last night was our first experience as soccer-parents! How fun! We were a little unsure of how Geneva would do, and it did take her a little while to warm up to the idea, but she had lots of fun! It helped that her good buddy Daniel from school was on her team. (that was intentional) She was so proud to wear her purple soccer uniform, and has been wearing her new soccer shoes all month outside. She claims they maker her run faster. You should have seen her snails' pace as she went around the cones in the warm up drill. Hilarious. It was very very cute to watch the mob soccer. Mini-mob, actually since they just play 3 on 3. It's called micro soccer, and it's a very very good idea, especially for 4 and 5 year olds!

G and her buddy Dan

Proud soccer player!

Memorial Day wkend

2009-05-26T06:21:00.005-07:00

On Thurs we left poor Derek car-less for the weekend and headed to Gma and Gpas! What a good hubby I have. His car broke down on Weds and he still let me go. He was at home with no (motor) means of transport til Sunday. He got some good bike-time in, and we have amazing neighbours who saw he was ditched and took him places, even brought him lasagna and took him out to dinner!
Anyone looking to sell their car? :0) We're in the market for a "new" vehicle.

They each got their own turn to go around the block with Grandpa. Brave girls.

Helping Grandma

Quality time with Uncle Bobby

And quality air time too

Huismans hike!

2009-05-26T05:00:00.005-07:00

We had some long weekend visitors! Ed and Lori and the kids came up for the day on Sun. It was beautiful out and we spent most of the day outside. Mucho fun had by all.

Riley

Cool cats

Darla, the newest member of the fam. What a cutie!

A snuggle with Uncle Ed and Abigail

The crew, minus the photographer!

secrets

Taking a break

I've never seen a 13 year old stand so still in my life!
Later on, 2 birds ate right out of his hand so the patience paid off

MAY!

2009-05-12T17:38:00.005-07:00

Mother's Day at Opa and Nana's
Mom and Rita, we love you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!!!

Brookie and the boys... Logan in the middle of an in depth convo

What a great babysitter this big cuz is. :)

Helping Uncle Rudy

Good buds

Soccer baby!

Can you tell how much Micah likes the jolly jumper? He got the hang of it right away.

Testing cereal out for the first time. And the consensus is.....

YUM!
(p.s. please ignore the fact that our very manly baby boy is wearing a pink bib)

Our new shed

2009-05-09T16:02:00.005-07:00

These are for Grandpa who wanted to see pics of the new shed Opa built us! It's quite a bit larger than I thought it would be, but I'm so happy with the way it turned out! Derek had lots of fun working with his dad, and the two of them did an amazing job.

THANKS OPA!!!!!!!!!!!!
You're a pretty swell guy. Complete with an attic for storage, ladder, workbench and shelves inside. What a workhorse this almost senior citizen is (hehe, he's turning 65 this summer!)
p.s. I have no idea how we fit all the stuff we have in the tiny little tin shed we had!

Seeing how the inmates feel

later that hour...

end of day 1!

What a great helper!

putting the size into perspective

finished product!!

she's a beaut!

where the old shed used to be... and the start of a small privacy type fence.

Easter, and a conflict of interests

2009-04-16T17:37:00.006-07:00

We got to see Grandma and Opa and Nana this past Easter weekend without leaving the comfort of home! How fun that they were willing to make the trek to see us!!!

My mom came up Fri/Sat for a visit which flew by too quickly, as usual... and oops, no pics! Opa and Nana were up Sun/Mon. The girls (and boy!) got some quality grandparent time in. Nana wins the prize for most children's books read in one day!

Opa and Derek went for a nice long hike... I got a call to come pick them up since they just kept walking and walking and walking and didn't have time to walk back!

Opa and grandbaby #10

Today was GLORIOUS! We were outside all afternoon once G got off the bus. I tried to get a snooze in before then, but as usual, Brooke and Micah tag-teamed on the naps and this poor tired Momma missed out on a much needed cat nap.... Micah's not feeling 100 percent and was inconsolable last night from 11 til 12 and again from 5 til 6:30! (6:00 being when the girls next door made their entrance) Poor little man has a bad cold and I'm thinkin' maybe his throat or ears must be bugging him. Very unlike him to be up in the middle of the night... Made me verrrry thankful we don't deal with a screaming baby in the middle of the night on a regular basis!
Anyway, I digress! The point to the story is... that I got to wear my sunglasses today to disguise the bags under my eyes!
I love my children, I love my sleep, what a conflict of interests...
:0)
Another thing I love? SPRING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here's some pics of our beautiful afternoon, and what the kiddos were up to!

Safety first!

How can this innocent little face be such a MONSTER in the mornings?!?! I know we can't all be morning people, but come on girly!

LOVES sand. She only brought in about a cup full in the cuff of her pants... Just after I vaccumed...

FYI, No, I did NOT give Brookie bangs. That would be compliments of yours truly in the purple shirt. No more details other than the fact that I found 3 lovely blond ringlets on the kitchen floor.

Trying the swing for the first time.

Checking things out... feeling moderately safe until the little creature in the background decides to come and give him a friendly push!

Thank you God for SPRING!!!!!!!!!