A-kong's birthday celebration!

We celebrated my dad's 70th birthday yesterday. It was a real nice gathering of friends and family at a chinese restaurant. This is a picture of our whole family with my uncle benjamin and aunt susan. It's been nice to be here with the kids....we've done something almost every day, and they have been playing hard with their cousins since they only get to see each other a couple times a year.

JMU girl's yearly reunion

There are 8 of us that have tried to get together once a year since we graduated from college...most of the time there are one or two that can't make it, but several of us can usually get together. Our time was really short this year, but I was glad that we could work out schedules out to do it at all! Thanks, girls, for a sweet time of fellowship!!

we made it!

We left Wauchula at 7:30 last night and arrived in Springfield, VA at 11:30 this morning. Our drive after midnight last night was pretty rough. Tom and I would take 1 or 2 hour shifts depending on how far we could get with our eyes not drooping. We're glad to be here now and the kids have really enjoyed playing with their cousin, Josh. Tom flies out to general assembly tomorrow morning and on thursday and friday I get to gather for my yearly college girl-friend's get together! The babies have had a rough day...hopefully tomorrow will be better. :)

The past week or so has been crazy....

My poor sweet babies have been passing an eye infection back and forth to each other. Leighton started with it two weeks ago (on a monday)....it cleared up, and Matthias got it Thursday...his cleared up and Leighton had it again on that Sunday, and after that cleared up Matthias got it again this weekend. I'm thankful that it has stayed with just them...and we are doing drops for both of them even though Leighton seems clear of it recently.
It was crazy hat day at school this past friday. Josey and Kylie enjoyed picking a hat out of our dress-up box for that special day!
Matthias has been a bit aggressive with food lately. I don't know if you can tell, but both babies had about 8 or so snacks in their bowl, well, Matthias has been into grabbing them out of Leighton's bowl and putting them into his own. Poor girl just cries and cries....can't seem to understand why her brother would do such a thing! It's a lot of fun to see their personalities coming out...they are such a joy!
Bathtime for the 3 littles ones. AJ loves bathing with her babies.
We are very proud of Kylie who received a Top Cat award (kind of like a good citizenship award) for the 2nd time this school year! I cannot believe that school is over in 4 days! This year has flown by....and the kids have done really well at Wauchula Elementary School. I had thought, at one point, of homeschooling next year...but we are planning on sending them again. The twins being as young as they are was a big factor in my feeling like it wouldn't be a good fit for our family right now.

We're looking forward to our trip to Virginia next week. (although the gas prices are going to really get us) I'll be at my parent's house while Tom goes to general assembly in Texas. This week is going to be crazy with end of the year things going on...but i know it'll be fun, too!

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.