The children's museum....

Matthias and Grace (driving the fire truck)
Josiah and Emily (building)
Leighton and AJ (unlimited banging on the keyboard and clicking of the mouse....something they can't do at home!)
AJ and Gehrig (she just had a tortilla taken from her...so she doesn't look happy, but she really did have fun)
At DQ after spending a couple hours playing.

We've made it a habit of going to Sebring to go to their children's museum at least once a month or so, mostly with friends from the library. We went yesterday and had a great time. It was the first time in a while that I've gone with all 5 of my kids. They all have fun, but the big kids can definitely play for longer than the babies (and AJ)...so it makes for a hard dynamic when the big ones want to stay and play longer and the little ones are melting down. Just another balance I need to figure out in my search for loving all of my children well. :)

So, the funny part of the trip..... we loaded up the kids in the car (plus our friend Emily) to make the 35 minute drive over and after going 20 minutes Kylie informs me that she has forgotten her shoes! She had socks on her feet and had forgotten to put her shoes on!! I couldn't believe it. We ended up stopping by a store (my friend who was following us stayed in the parking lot with her car and mine) and I ran in to get the least expensive pair of shoes that i could find. I'm a little surprised, actually, that that hasn't happened before...and in the midst of the inconvenience I was very amused.

Our latest Japan update: We are trying to figure out all the details, but are definitely planning on visiting Japan in September for a vision trip. We haven't bought plane tickets yet, and we're not positive if it'll be just Tom and I or if the twins will come with us. Honestly, I can't imagine being away from the babies for a week...but it really might be the best thing. We have really good friends who are planning on flying down to be with our kids while we're gone (which is a total answer to prayer). We're also going to be gone over Kylie's birthday, which she has (for good reason) been upset about. I know that she'll be okay, though. Anyways, that's the latest. We'll continue to keep you updated! Thanks for checking in. :)

stuffed animal's names

My kids have always loved playing with stuffed animals....especially little tiny stuffed animals...mcdonald happy meal toy types of stuffed animals. They make clothes for them out of construction paper, string beads for necklace's for them and find all sorts of ways to dress them up and play with them. As a tribute to Kylie and Josiah....I have decided to show the blog world these very important animals and their fun names. :)

These are Kylie's friends. On the back row are her webkinz...Spot (really, Spot the Tird...she mispelled third when she typed his name into webkinz world and they won't let her change it), Karrie, and Chistina (once again she mispelled christina and so the elephant is stuck with chistina). The front row is Oma (short for Omaha...which was her name on her tag...omaha, NE), fluffington is on her back, Hasbro (name on the tag again), poofie, martha, and jewels. :)
Josiah's guys....back row webkinz: blacky, jet, sparky and front row: the twins (no names), sparkly, and spot.

I know that a post dedicated to my children's stuffed animals isn't all that interesting for most of you, but if you only knew how much time they spent with these little guys you would know how significant these toys are in the lives of my two big kids....and as a result-in my life as well. We're going to the children's museum tomorrow, so maybe I'll have more interesting pictures next time.
Have I mentioned that I've found a way to turn my blog into a book? I started editing it a while back and need to work on it a little more...this website basically downloaded my blog into book form and I can change the sizes of pictures and layout of words....I'm very excited to do this b/c I think it'll be a really neat thing for the kids to be able to look back on (since my scrapbooking days are few and far between). Very exciting stuff.

McD's with the Quillen's

This is how we started off our first semester in seminary....two kids each. :) Now, we've got our 5 and sweet baby stephanie makes 6 for our dear friends!

They were going to come down and visit us last weekend, but b/c of our stomach bug it didn't work out. So, we planned on meeting them on their last day in Orlando...but sadly the twins have had fevers so Tom stayed home with them and I drove the big kids up. We met at the supposed largest McD playland in the country....very unimpressive...instead of a huge playland it was much more chuck-e-cheese-ish with video games and such. It was nice to see the Quillen's, albeit too short. It's always fun seeing friend's kids getting older and growing up!

Leighton-kissy face

They love sitting at tables (like "big kids") and eating their snack. Here we are at the library.
Leighton loves to kiss anyone...especially her brother.
Now she's a little worried b/c she can't get her puppy out from brother's big head. We call the puppy "tinky"... which is AJ's way of saying 'stinky'...which is what the puppy is b/c of all of Leighton's drool that soaks into it.
It was another cute kiss, but my timing was off.
kissing big sister :) that's probably why we all got the stomach bug that Leighton started in our house....all the kissing that goes around here...it's a total germ-fest!

The twins....

Leighton is always so serious....Matthias has this new scrunched up nose smile whenever he is happy. He looks so much bigger than her in the picture...it doesn't help that he's sitting more forward than she is. Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that they're twins b/c they are nothing alike and I've always had a stereotype that twins are similar.

we got a new camera!

Here are the pictures i took on the way home from getting it! I'm sure I'll have more pictures to post this week. :)

a fun old pic....

I thought those of you who are not on facebook would appreciate seeing my current profile picture. I think it was my kindergarten pic, but I'm not positive. Anyways, my camera would cost 150 bucks to fix which we've decided not to pay for b/c we can get a better camera for that price than the one we had....although I am terribly sad to lose it, it was such a good one. So, I'm camera shopping and dying around the house when something cute comes up and I can't take a picture of it. I did get some video of Matthias trying to put Leighton's shoe on her foot a couple days ago...they were both cracking up at his attempts.

So, we've almost all had this stomach bug that Leighton had last sunday. Matthias seems to be the only one who has missed it...I hope that continues to be the case. I was hoping to have pictures of our visit with the Quillen's (who were supposed to spend a night in town with us this weekend) but b/c of our sick family it didn't work out (sad). Their 6 kids and our 5 would've been a fun chaotic picture to post...although I don't have a camera, so it wouldn't have happened anyways! :(

We're looking at a vision trip to Japan in September. Got passports for Tom and I and the babies...(that's a story in itself)...and just need to solidify dates and details.

We finished swim lessons last week....by the end of the week AJ was jumping in and swimming the 10 or so feet to the lifeguard. She could jump off the diving board and swim to the side! Josey was loving diving down in the deep end to retreive the rings that were being tossed down...and he and Kylie both were swimming laps (with a little difficulty, but they were making it across).

Anyways, that's us. thanks for checking in!! I'm a little lost without pictures.... hopefully we'll be back to normal in the next week or so.