A visit from the Jordan's!

The last time we saw the Jordan's there were 2 kids between the 4 of us. We now have 9 kids between the 4 of us! (the twins were being uncooperative in this group kid pic) It was a lot of fun to have their family spend a couple days of their spring break with us! We were even able to get a sitter to sit in the house with (mostly) sleeping kids while we went out on a double date. (what a treat!)

We went to Crater Diamond state park....about 40 acres of dirt to dig in, all the while with hopes of digging up the next diamond. :) Sadly, the Jor-bella diamond was not found...but fun was had by all (except the twins, of course). :)

Jen and I

The twins, Elizabeth and AJ playing dress up for a few minutes in the morning before my 3 bigs left for school and the Jordan's left for home.

twins before school today...wearing cute coordinating outfits from aunt joanie (which you can't see b/c they are sitting).

Easter Egg Dying 2010

So....as I was figuring out how to set up the self-timer for the first time, I realized that there was a setting that took 3 pictures in 10 seconds. And, that I could make a custom setting (4 pictures after 8 seconds at 3 second intervals...?) It was a great feature to find out about....esp with 5 kids that we're trying to have look at the camera at the same time! These 1st 3 pics are my trial shots:

And these 2 are the best of the 4 that we took of all of us!!

Our resulting eggs....sadly several of them were badly cracked after I boiled them. I ended up taking pictures for the majority of the time and got to dye 1 egg....guess we'll be eating hard-boiled egg sandwiches for the next week or so! :)

Thanks for checking in!!

twin art

for those of you who don't know the twins, how they have constructed this picture is typical of who they are. matthias' is on the left...the perfectly placed leaves and flower...the colored in nose. leighton's (my stubborn, free-spirited angel) picture is on the right and says it all. we were playing hi-ho cherry-o today and matthias was carefully cleaning up, placing all the fruits in their same colored basket. leighton proceeded to place the oranges and cherries in a red basket and matthias wouldn't have it. they are very funny kids and i love watching them grow up!

February Fun!

This winter has been fun...the twins will often ask for AJ to have a sleepover with them. They have gotten into the groove of having her sleep on the floor with them in their room on the weekends. Josiah usually ends up in the girl's room on the weekends, too. Sweet sibling friends.

AJN and AJM...there are 2 AJ's in her class, so they both put their last initial after their name on their papers.

getting ready to go outside!

We really enjoyed the 4 or so inches that we had this winter! Of course it came around the same time that our family in VA had gotten almost 3 feet... but we will definitely take what we can get. :)
We are doing well here in Arkansas! I cannot believe it is about to be March 2010!! Time is definitely flying by really quickly. We have a lot of fun things going on in the next couple of months. Cub scout activities for Josiah, Children's choir concerts for Kylie, my friend Jenn is hopefully coming in a few weeks for part of the kids' spring break, I am flying to VA in May to be in a wedding, homeschool curriculum decisions to be made.... life is definitely full. Thanks for checking in. I hope to be posting more often as Spring arrives and we get to be outside with the flowers blooming and such! I'm excited to visit some of the pretty places that I've seen in my AR friend's pictures this spring!

playing catch up (again)...Dec pics

Josiah's 9th birthday....i made a very sad attempt at a pokemon cake...at least it tasted good! :)

The kids at church one of my favorite ornaments. :)

the 3 littles playing "explorers" with their hats and parrot.

We had fun baking and decorating cookies over christmas break!

I am trying to get caught up with pictures of our goings ons.....thanks for checking in!!

ABC's by Matthias...

Some January pics...

proud panty wearers. :)

Matthias doesn't like his picture to be taken...he thinks if he closes his eyes we can't see him!

Sleepovers in each others room with new christmas sleeping bags!

Sweet girls

Josiah's snowball. He saved it to throw at Tom when he got home from work. :)

Leighton's first snow...she wasn't very happy...and she had an eye infection that day.

Matthias enjoyed cleaning the snow off the car for his Daddy!

Sweet. cold AJ

Our first snow in years....see the accumulation on the deck??