Some random things...

Almost every day Josiah comes home from school with his shoes FULL of sand. The playground at school has sand (instead of mulch or pebbles) as its ground and so after recess his shoes fill up. I, personally, would be very bothered with the amount of sand that he has in his shoes, but he says that he doesn't notice it.
It's hard to get a good perspective on just how much sand there is in each shoe...but there's a lot. :)
AJ fell asleep like this yesterday. :)

Want to hear about my week? Here's a link.

Ladies banquet (2 weeks ago)

Tom got me flowers for mother's day. They were beautiful!


There was a ladies banquet at church two weeks ago where the men of the church served dinner to the ladies of the church (and anyone they invited). I invited a couple friends and their daughters and we enjoyed a yummy meal of stuffed shrimp...it was very nice.

Kylie's Piano Recital!

Kylie's piano recital was last week and I am only now getting to posting this picture. She won the prize for most memorized measures in the beginning level. She played "ode to joy" for her recital piece. Despite not liking to practice (i never liked to practice piano) she loves taking lessons and has done really well this year.

Matthias' 1 year pics!

And here's the boy. There were a couple of them together, but they weren't being all that cooperative. Thanks Lisa, I love them!!

Leighton's 1 year pics...

My friend, Lisa, took some pictures of the twins at one year old...they turned out adorably!! Here are a few of the girl....

My Dancing Twins...

Matthias is hilarious! He does this over and over a couple times a day. :) Kind of looks like he's doing a hand jive.

Little Leighton watched her brother for a while and decided to try it. So cute. :)

Our Disney day....

at the foot of splash mountain
Flat Phoebe came to Disney with us....we would have rather had un-flat Phoebe with us, but we got some cute pictures with her flat version! :)
in Minnie Mouse's house
trapped with Zurg!

This was our second trip to The Magic Kingdom and I feel like we've learned a bit having been twice now. (Anyone going anytime soon e-mail me and I'll give you what pointers I can) It was definitely less crowded then when we went with family in April, but it was still very crowded. AJ's favorite ride was the Dumbo ride. They all loved the Haunted Mansion again...Josiah enjoyed Space Mountain....Buzz Lightyear was a hit. There's a place called the Laugh Floor which is a Monsters, Inc. show...it was lot of fun, and AJ ended up being chosen to be "Boo" in the little skit, which was really cute. It was a fun family day, I'm glad that we could go.

Leighton walking!!!

Leighton started walking today!! She has been standing and walking along furniture more than crawling recently, but tonight was the first time that she's stood up on her own and really wanted to walk. So exciting!! She was so proud of herself, too. She and Matthias are going to spend the day (tomorrow) with Belva and Joe from church while we go to Disney...she could be running by the time we get back! :)

Babies eating...

The babies consistently are not eating the same things. Matthias goes for the fruit (apples, pear, bananas, peaches, etc...) (when he wants a banana he points and says "ooo, ooo, ooo", it just happens to be the way he asks for something, but it is so monkey!) and Leighton prefers vegetables (asparagus, broccolli, green beans, avacado, etc...) Either way, they're big eaters and enjoy mealtime a lot.

A couple in the church are going to watch them on thursday and we're going to take the older 3 back up to Disney for the day! It'll be nice to not have the babies (they slowed us down a bit and were a lot of work)...and we're excited to try and get to some of the rides that we didn't get to during spring break.

A hospitality blog...

My friend, Kelly, has started a hospitality blog and asked me to be a contributor. I am so honored and excited about blogging about things that I have learned in the realm of hospitality and to learn from fellow hospitality bloggers! Check it out! http://www.thewarmwelcome.blogspot.com/

A link to a good post...

For anyone who is interested, here's a link to a post called "10 commandments for Email communications". There have been a handful of times in the past couple of months that I have either encountered or heard from friends of e-mails that have been hurtful or misinterpreted, communication that could or should have been done in person...this post is an encouragement to me in the midst of so much e-mail communication.

fun sunglasses....

Here are a couple pictures of the babies and their sunglasses. Matthias is also wearing a cute outfit that some ladies got together and bought for the babies at my baby shower last year. Sadly, the coordinating outfit that is for Leighton is way too big. :( Matthias has had a rash around his mouth for over a month now...it looks like he's just eaten strawberries all the time. I've talked to the doctor several times and we are in the midst of trying to rule out allergies to certain foods (I'm just now starting a food diary to see when it coincides with flaring up more than normal). Thankfully it doesn't bother him at all. Anyways, thanks friends for all your comments! I like the reference to trolling, Angie, definitely fits my profile. :)

Karate and MMO!

Josiah got his stripe!!! He was working really hard on his circle block kata and was really hoping that he would earn his stripe before Sensai left for NC....and he did! (for those who don't know it goes white belt, then add a stripe, yellow belt, add a stripe, green belt, add a stripe, and on through brown to black...i think that's all the colors) We are really proud of how well he did these past six months in the karate class and look forward to November when his teacher will be back.
One of the things that we've done this past year is a Mom's Morning Out program, trying to provide a chance for stay at home mom's in the community to get a couple hours without their preschool-aged kid. These four were the consistent kids that came most 1st and 3rd friday mornings and our last one was today. AJ had a blast spending time with her friends and getting out of the house. It was a bit of a break for me, although, having the twins around still kept me busy. :)

We've been trying to make several decisions lately...one of them is to homeschool or not (i'm leaning against it, but am still considering it) another is whether we continue on with one vehicle or try to get a 2nd vehicle. I'm actually a bit surprised that we've lasted as long as we have on just the van....it is definitely starting to get a little harder trying to figure out when I'm going to have the car and when I'm stuck at home....now, there aren't a lot of places to go in town...but just the fact that I couldn't go if I wanted to gives me a little bit of cabin fever. We're also looking towards the future and what the next step might be. Please pray with us as we try to figure out what is best for our family...and what the Lord might be calling us to.

Btw-I love it when you guys comment on my blog. Tom thinks I'm ridiculous to check for comments as many times a day as I do...it really is an encouragement to me that there are people who love our family and want to hear what's going on with us! So....if you have a minute, feel free just to say hi! :)