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??

December happenings!

the kids at the chrismon program at church...the twins were not being cooperative that day.
Josiah on the cub scout float during the Sherwood Christmas parade!

after decorating the christmas tree!

Gingerbread houses at the library...so much fun!

twins being funny....pumpkin head leighton with extra matthias arms. :)

Tom's gift at the church christmas party was a hit! what a funny guy. :)

This time of year is busy as ever...still trying to keep up with the chaos of life. The kids have one more week of school and then they'll have two weeks off for Christmas/New Years and we are really looking forward to it! It will be sad to be so far away from family for Christmas, but it will also be nice to be in our house and not have the craziness of travelling and such. Thanks for checking in and I will hopefully continue to post more in the next week or so!

Thanksgiving Feasts!

Wow. It's been an insane month....I'm beginning to think that chaos and insanity is our new "normal". :) I am going to try (for the grandparents) to post more regularly b/c (as I am experiencing) these 5 kids are growing up so incredibly fast! So....here are a few pictures from our past week (and I hope to be more consistent). We are leaving (this morning) for Crossville, TN to spend Thanksgiving week with the Quillen's (dear friends from seminary)...our family of seven is descending upon their family of eight....and we will eagerly await the arrival of the Hathaway's (family of six) later in the week. 15 children and 6 adults under one roof....I am soo excited! Anyways, I will plan on posting pictures of our eventful Thanksgiving week when we get back! Thanks for checking in.....

Notice the gap in her bottom teeth?? She lost her first tooth a couple weeks ago....I can't believe it!

Boating at Lake DeGray last month!

We had a great time with church friends....almost a month ago now! Sorry to my blog-followers for being so horrible about keeping up with posting new pictures (that means you, R.M.) :) I can barely keep up with life, let alone blogging. Anyways, my parents are in town for the week and we've really enjoyed the beautiful weather and having visitors. I hope to post more....sooner rather than later!

Random Sept....

We received an early joint birthday present from Tom's mom...Thanks, Rose Marie...we've enjoyed using it several times since we bought it!
At Sherwood Fest last weekend the army recruiter had a rock wall that people could climb, so Josey and I took the first turn and Tom and Kylie went after us. It was fun!

Last Sunday afternoon the 2 big kids and I drove the 25 minutes to Pinnacle Mountain and hiked for a couple hours. We had a great time bouldering....made it 45 minutes in, ate a snack, and turned around. We're looking forward to going back sometime and actually making it to the top!

AJ's class was a part of a choir concert this past week. She was very proud of standing up front with her classmates and singing all the songs that they have been learning.

Sadly, most of our pictures were blurry or dark.

Hard to believe AJ is in Kindergarten. She's been enjoying her teacher and her class...she gets home from school and wants to "play school" with Kylie. :)