Our friday and saturday...

We chaperoned Kylie's class field trip on friday to Lowry Park Zoo. It's crazy, it was a 1 1/2 hour drive there and 1 1/2 hour drive back and by the time they got there they only had an hour to walk around. We were able to go as a family, so we signed Kylie out afterwards and spent another couple hours looking at the animals. Leighton, especially, had a good time pointing at the animals and laughing.

I took the two girls to the library for a "princess tea party" this morning. We have had a great time going to storytime once a week....Our children's librarian really loves the kids and puts on a lot of fun events for them. I've met the majority of my stay-at-home mom friends there.

karate, walking, and a haircut!

Here is Josiah with two other kids in his karate class. He has really been enjoying his class and we are so sad now b/c his "Sensai" is headed up to N.C. for six months (his summer home). We are considering taking from the other place in town but haven't made any decisions yet. We'll miss his (and my) current teacher a lot.
Matthias is walking like a champ recently. He's probably walking seventy percent of the time....and he can't help but laugh when he walks. So, whenever I hear him laughing I know that he's walking. His newest favorite thing to do is to hold things and walk. :) Little Leighton still hasn't started. She continues to laugh when Matthias walks (maybe more responding to his laughing)....and is content to crawl over to any of us with a book in her hand to be read to.
Kylie got a haircut! She actually got several inches cut off....we've been having quite the time trying to brush tangles out of her hair in the mornings, so I'm hoping that the short hair will be helpful. Actually, AJ and I got haircuts, too...but not as drastic as Kylie.

A visit from St. Louis!

My sweet friend, Shannon, received a roundtrip plane ticket from her husband to come see me and my family for her birthday! She left her 3 boys (4, counting Joel) to come hang out with me and my 5 kids. Crazy? maybe, but I've been enjoying her company and the chance to share in reality the things that I've shared with her over the phone.
She has gotten some good girl-time....Kylie painted her fingernails and she painted AJ's fingernails.
The weather's been really nice...we've been able to spend some time outside and I'm hoping to hit the beach tomorrow before I drop her at the airport.
Here are the 3 little ones in their baby pool. I couldn't find Matthias' swimtrunks so he had to wear an ariel swim diaper. He doesn't mind as much as Tom does. :)

Anyways, THANK YOU, JOEL....for sharing your wife with me!

little man walking

We were so sure that Leighton was going to walk first, just b/c her personality seemed to indicate it...but, we were wrong. :) They are really starting to grow in who they are. Matthias is all boy. He is loving playing ball, driving matchbox cars around the floor and stacking and knocking down blocks. Leighton is our cuddle-bug, thinker. She loves having books read to her, hugging stuffed animals and hanging around her big sister (little mama)....most of all she is into EVERYTHING!! She gets into tissues, toilet paper rolls, she is climbing up onto the little kid's chairs to reach the bookshelf to pull all the books off. She crawls up to the computer a couple times a day and pushes the power button. She's a mess. :)

Twin update....

Cute, right??
How about this??

For some reason, Leighton has decided that instead of just sucking her two fingers she is going to put her pointer finger up her nose, too. We are trying hard to stop the habit, although we couldn't help but laugh the first few times. It won't be as cute when she's 3 or 4.....or 8 for that matter.
Here are my 3 boys! Matthias has taken after his daddy in loving pizza. He's also taking over some of daddy's job in eating the crust. :) He has also been walking a lot for the past couple of days. I love the waddling baby steps when they're so off-balance and fall over every couple of steps! What a fun age! (walking posts to come) :)

More Disney pics!!

The older boys rode the rock-n-roller coaster while we said hi to donald duck and walked around
the kid's cousin Micah riding the speeder bike!
In the sound booth after the drew carey sound show
playing life sized chess in the very cool playground at the resort
Joshua and Josiah in the hot tub!

Disney pics....

Kylie and her Uncle David

Sweet babies were so tired!
so was AJ....and Tom for that matter!
All the cousins!

Family Disney Trip!!

Here we all are (sorry you aren't here, Daniel)! It's been a fun couple of days of Magic Kingdom yesterday and Hollywood today....swimming, gameboy, webkinz, pool, air hockey, and t.v. in between. :) Definitely a tiring time (esp with the babies), but we've had fun riding rides and watching shows for the past couple of days. The cousins always have a great time together when we see each other, so this has been a special treat of seeing each other all week long! We'll leave orlando tomorrow....ready to get home, but sad to end our vacation.
We visited the playground today for the first time, with a life size chess game, a playground castle, and of course, swings...the babies loved swinging together...they couldn't stop laughing. Any change of scenery from their stroller they have definitely appreciated. They've been troopers this whole trip. :)
Here are the five kids outside of the Indiana Jones stunt show. I think the boys appreciated Disney Hollywood better than the Magic Kingdom. I, for one, appreciated the crowds (or lack of) compared to the Magic Kingdom.

We did have a scare today in the pool attached to our kitchen. We rented a six bedroom house for us all to stay in and it has been wonderful to all be in the same place with lots of room! Anyways, AJ went out to the pool before an adult got out with her and as I was going out the backdoor to join them I found her floundering underwater in the (not hot) hot tub. I grabbed her out, not after she had swallowed a good bit of water. Anyways, she's been not breathing quite right since. Please pray for her if you think of it. Tom and I were talking about how bad things could have been if I hadn't gone out when I did. Scary things like this really put things in perspective. Anyways, I'm so thankful she's okay.

That's all for now...I'm sure I'll post more pictures later!