Welcome, Baby Austin!

It is hard to believe that a month has already passed since the birth of the littlest Barker boy, a warm welcome to the little guy that makes us a family of seven!!! We never in our wildest dreams thought we would be blessed with 5 kiddos, let alone 5 little boys :) --Oh the joys!  Even though he was a week late (which seemed like a lot longer!), we couldn't have timed it all better ourselves.  I ended up being induced with Pitocin, so I walked into the hospital with no painful contractions :).  They let me get an epidural as soon as I wanted, so I actually never felt any strong contractions or  more importantly the birth :).  Once I was checked in to the hospital and IV connected he made his appearance in about 6 1/2 hours, I would say it was the easiest birth yet :).   Come meet our sweet Austin Matthew...

Our biggest yet at 8lbs 7oz... He had an extra week to put on the pounds!

Proud daddy, not quite as timid to hold a newborn... He is an old pro ;). 

I couldn't wait to plant a kiss on him!

What a long, exciting day!

He certainly looks like a barker boy.

One proud mama even though he took his time getting here!  

Meeting the grandparents

And after a day of being born, poked at, pricked at and prodded at he got to go home!

The biggest brother was still awake and admired his littlest brother.  It seems like just yesterday that we were taking Josh home from the hospital!

Every time we bring a newborn home, Joshua has a proud sparkle to him :)... Austin, you are one lucky kiddo to have a so many proud older brothers!  

The morning after brought so much excitement as the other boys met their new brother :).  

Carter was convinced that Austin was 'HIS' baby!!!

I had to literally pry our little baby from our big baby... And I was concerned he would have jealousy issues!  

Precious little pudgy face!

One of the MANY homemade pictures/gifts from his brothers.  

Jacob's favorite part of having a new brother... The super soft baby hair!

Kyle telling us that Austin is HIS new brother!

There is no lack of love for you baby Austin!  Welcome to our family, we could not be happier!!!

Done & Done.... Waiting!

Dear Baby #5:

I write to you as I anxiously wait to meet you in person!  Thank you for allowing us to go to Joshua's first soccer game (2 days after due date) to see him score 3 points, you were a good listener to dad's pep talk about that.  Thank you also for allowing me to get my 'nesting list' DONE.  And even more for squeezing in enough time for Mike to get my 'honey do list' DONE.  This week I have enjoyed some extra one on one time with each of your brothers and the nice weather...  I am very grateful for that!  But it IS time for you to come see these things for yourself!  I have day after day walked, raked, sweeped, mopped, vacuumed, planted a couple of garden beds, packed my bag, stayed on top of laundry (because I only have 2-3 pairs of stretch pants that fit!) and organized every corner of the house that I can think of... These have been preparations for YOU :). 

Now you are six and a half days late and counting!  I just ate pineapple and chocolate to hopefully get you & my body moving...  I hope it works!  Please do your part, we can't wait to meet you :).  Joshua had a dream that he met you last night and that you had dark hair... We all want to see!  I love you so much! 

Love,

Mommy

Mike thought I was crazy for getting the spring garden ready 3 days past due date... To me, it was a check off my list and it was supposed to induce labor :).  

It wasn't very easy having you in tote while I moved dirt, dug trenches and planted plants...

 Well at least we will have garden fresh veggies soon after you finally come!

Kyle's Words

Kyle sure makes us Smile!  He is our light hearted question asker that can say just about anything in a way that either amazes us or makes us laugh!  He has a slight accent that is slowly disappearing, so I am trying to capture all his little word variations before they are corrected permanently :).  So here goes:

His original Quote that he started when he was very young:
"I love 'Love' ".

He uses the 'd' sound instead of the 't' sound for several words:
"moudan" for mountain
"buddon" for button
"curdan" for curtain
"foudan" for fountain

Any time he talks about something being HUGE, he says "Puege"

He must link words together with associations...
He calls our pastor, "Trespastor"- I am pretty sure this comes from the "forgive us our Trespasses" verse from the Lord's Prayer. 
A family friend is called PaPa Stan... Kyle has turned that into PaPa NightSTANd!

Our local zoo has a rain forest building, but he refuses to go in it calling it the "Stinky Forest". 

His questions are never simple and to the point (I wish I could think of some of them at the moment), they always leave us thinking or laughing!  We love you Kyle!

Star Wars craze

Star wars is big around here.  Somehow Josh has convinced all of his brothers to be completely obsessed with this phenomenon, even Carter goes around saying he is Yoda.  We have been slowly watching the movies since just after Christmas and we have found several great books at the library... We even found an original late 70's/early 80's radio drama that is listened to at night.  The beginner readers that they make have encouraged Josh to read like nothing else :).  He gathers the facts and can tell you just about anything you want or need to know about it.  J & K have a couple of small Star Wars Lego sets that they have built upon to create larger ships.  Right now in their play pretend world, nothing compares to Star Wars!

I love the hold system at the library... Via computer we just run a search, put a request in and pick up the borrowed books waiting there for us.  A couple of weeks ago after a pick up, Josh told me that his favorite 'store' was the library :)... Wow, I didn't think anything beat Toys r' Us in his eyes!

Christmas Break play date... They all collaborated and put together a Star Wars show for us moms.  They did a great job :)!

We happened to notice that the library had a Star Wars day... We quickly signed up for several of the free events- The boys loved it!  Meeting a Clone Trooper (you will notice Josh's serious public face, not a reflection of how much fun he had!).  

Josh was old enough to be part of the 'make your own light saber' and 'light saber training'.  

More die-hard grown up star wars fans dressed up in character for the event!

 One of the highlights for my boys... A huge display of Star Wars Lego creations, they probably spent an hour looking at it all and even got the owner to show them how many of them worked. 

"Mom, take a picture of that one- it is one of my favorites!"  -Josh

Awesome program... Light Saber training with a 'real tae kwon do master'.

Let the battles begin!

It was fun!

Mike stopped by in the afternoon with the younger boys.

J & C made a Star Wars chess set... While K & J made a Star Wars snow globe.

Hummmm, is he safe to go meet?!

Yes!  And they got to see how a Clone Trooper's gun worked too!

Carter's 2nd Birthday

As I am sitting here hugely pregnant and eagerly waiting for the newest guy to make his appearance (any day now!)- I am watching our other baby transition into a big boy literally overnight, he turned 2 yesterday :).  We had a small family cake party for him last night and he hammed up every part of it.  We sure love this happy little guy and all the personality he has! 

He loves trains... He was very excited when he saw his train mountain cake!  

The day before, he helped me make the marshmallow fondant to decorate with.

 The morning of his birthday, Kyle wanted to make him an extra special train track for him to play with.

  All day he expressed his new age like this... "How old are you Carter?" TWO!

 Our friends let us borrow this engineering set to go with his birthday theme... He loved it! Thanks C family. 

 Time for the grandparents to show up for the party!

 Party table, homemade picture cards, gifts & train tracks for everyone to play with (compliments of Kyle :).

 Presents!  He knew exactly what to do (despite all the helping hands that eagerly tried to show him what to do). 

 He also somehow knew how to play with each toy he got :).

On to the next one with help from that tongue sticking out!

 The final gift, his very own tricycle! 

 Cake time, he blew the candles out 2-3 times while we sang to him... Do you see the smoke, it was hilarious!

 Yum!

 It was so good, he needed a more efficient way to eat it all up :).

 What is better than eating your own birthday cake?  Eating them while bubbles are blowing all around you, compliments of G&G R!

 Post cake, bubble dance party!

 Learning how to use the new toys... This is perfect, it picks up the ball and then pops them out- Thanks uncle Robbie & auntie Amy, he LOVES it!

 I don't think he is excited to have his own tri, do you?!

Happy birthday to our sweet baby!  We love you!