Life

It's true... there is another Barnhoorn baby on the way. Some of you were astute enough to catch the hint. Good detective work! The baby is due in December, around the 12th, which puts it smack dab in the middle of exams and papers and moving!! Good timing! It means that we likely won't be heading back to Ontario until January to give us some time to pack. We are quite excited about the new baby. Stephen is, as well. He often asks if he can give the baby a kiss.
We are now in Ontario helping the Drost side of the family get ready for Theresa and Joe's wedding on Saturday. We're hoping for nice weather because they are planning to have the ceremony outside. It means a lot of work around the house trying to get it looking pretty for all the guests. We will be spending several weeks in this area talking to people and trying to get our support level up. Neither of us have been looking forward to doing this, but it's actually starting to grow on me. I get to talk to people about my passion.
Around the middle of July we'll go to the Port Perry area to visit the other side of the family and talk to more people. We'll also go to the wedding of a friend and then at the end of August we have another wedding, this time a wedding on the Barnhoorn side.
That's how we're doing. Sorry about the lack of updates, but we've been traveling and dial-up internet is not something we're used to. It's really slow. Anyway, hope to see most of you in person at some point during the summer!

Hidden message

There may or may not be a hidden message in this post.... We'll leave it for you to decide.

Happy Birthday and such things

I just want to say a belated happy birthday to my wonderful husband. He is busy playing his present, Age of Empires III. I think he likes his gift. We spent his birthday at "school" and haven't done much to celebrate it. They did put a candle on a cake and sing happy birthday for him that night at dinner!

We are in the middle of COPE, a Wycliffe Orientation Course being held at CanIL. We drop Stephen off at the Family Room by 7:30 am! That means we are up and at 'em by 6:30am. That is much earlier than our usual 7:30am. The days are long but are filled with sessions, testimonies, food, and fellowship. It has been very informative, for the most part, yet very tiring because of the long days, we usually get home around 8pm!

We were driving home tonight and we commented that Stephen's language abilities have drastically improved this past week. He is saying new words and putting more words together to form fragments/sentences! In no time he'll be speaking real English and not just Stephenish/toddlerease!!

Superstar

For those of you who don't know Stephen is a professional personal trainer. Here he is in his uniform. The headband is from Jake and Donna and says "Ice Age" on it. It came in a cereal box. No one wears it as well as Stephen. And yes, he always looks this cool.

More Babysitting

Janice is also babysitting a couple mornings for a mom in her Bible Study group. She babysits them here at home. "Luta" (Lukas) and Stephen get along pretty well together. The other day we took Lukas with us while we went to the dentist. The dentists are a couple who are big supporters of Wycliffe and CanIL. They are wonderful people. Unfortuanately for us they ran into some big problems the morning we visited them. What was supposed to be a thirty minute visit ended up being a three hour stay. Fortunately Stephen and Lukas played together the whole time and were no problem even though they didn't have lunch and only a handful of animal crackers. At home, they love playing with the water in the water table.

Talking with Oma

Oma had a treat the other day when she called. Stephen was in a mood where he actually wanted to talk on the phone. We just had to take a picture of it.

Lunch at the Stelpstras

For Mother's Day I took Janice out to some friends of ours. Donna just won a parachute at a book fair, so we took it out in the back yard. Jake had fun with Stephen, throwing the ball on the "woot" or roof if you don't speak Stephenish. Kendra also got to play with Stephen a little (although not as much as she would have liked). We also got to watch the season finale of Survivor with them. Don't you just love the hat? All in all, Janice had a great Mother's Day. Just ask her.

Babysitting

Janice still babysits a couple mornings a week. Stephen loves to go there because of some of their toys. Of course, it doesn't hurt that there are two girls there, as well. Here are some pictures of one of the biggest toys (a boucny castle) and one of the girls.

Megablocks

Some friends of ours from CanIL have recently moved. Their oldest son has outgrown his Megablocks and now only plays with Lego. So Stephen has inherited the Megablocks. He loves them and plays with them every day. He enjoys making "tower" (He can pronounce tower fairly well.) but his favourite thing is to knock them down. In the one picture you'll notice that Stephen looks like he's falling down. Actually, he's jumping on the couch. He likes to jump when he gets excited.

Hair Cut

Stephen's hair was getting long again, so we cut it. We also figured we should cut it before his Aunt Theresa's wedding so that some of the inevitable "holes" would have time to fill in. Here are some pictures of the process. We fed him candy and let him watch a Veggie Tales movie to help the procedure go a little smoother. We forgot to take before pictures, but have a look at the pictures below to give you an idea of how long it was.

Bi Tu and Moye

Apparently Stephen takes after his uncle Rod. He loves to watch the cars go by from our back porch. He stands on his picnic table so that he can get a better view of the "bi tu" (big truck) and "moye" (motocycles) that go by our place at breakneck speeds.

Auditioning for Happy Gilmore

Here is a shot of Stephen in his audition for Happy Gilmore. Apparently they were looking for more of a sports character and less of a home maker. Actually he has one of those horse-heads-on-a-broomstick toys and was pretending that the broom was a horse.

The lovely Barnhoorn family

Just chillin'

I'm a stud and I wear diapers... So?

I can fly!

One of Stephen's new favourite things to do is to fly. He can do it with no hands. He loves to go up and down, up and down...

Tough guy

Stephen is learning how to act tough by folding his arms.

At the Pool

At the Park

In Response to John

I got tagged by John about a month ago. I've had that hagning over my head for all this time. It has deprived me of sleep, but now that exams are over, I have some spare time and, as promised, here it is John.

How many books do you own?
Why do you have to start with the tough questions? There are 101 books on the adult bookshelf. This includes four Bibles, though. Apparently we have 174 children's books and both Janice and I have textbooks stored away in Ontario.

What book is your latest purchase?
Christian Theology, by Millard J. Erickson.

What books have you read most recently?
You are Mine, Max Lucado. I read it to Stephen tonight before he went to bed this evening.
Before that was Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, W.W. Klein, C.L. Bloomberg and R.L. Hubbard

Name five great books with impact on you:
It's unfortunate that I have trouble remembering most of the good books that I've read.
5. Intercessory Prayer, Dutch Sheets
4. The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
3. The Purpose-driven Life, Rick Warren
2. Celebration of Discipline, Richard J. Foster
1. The Bible, God

Who do you challenge to answer these same questions?
I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

Happy Birthday!!

Just wanted to say a belated happy birthday to Steph. (For those of you who don't know, Steph is Matt's girlfriend.) It was her birthday on Thursday but we didn't know. We hope you had a great time even though you're in the middle of exams. See you in June!