Josiah turns 7!!!

We had a quiet family day at home for Josiah's birthday...he woke up at the crack of dawn, excited to open his presents...he got a new gameboy game and a new webkinz which he was thrilled about and spent most of the day playing. :) I cannot believe my boy is 7!
We were hoping to get him a karate uniform for his birthday (he has to pass a test first)...he's been taking lessons for a couple months now at the YMCA and is really enjoying it. He's the youngest and the smallest kid in the class and is definitely holding his own. It's amazing to be able to remember when my big kids were babies. It's such a bittersweet thing for me. Josey cried for the first six months of his life. I remember in my head how hard it was, but when it comes down to it, I don't really remember how hard it was. I remember people saying to me "this, too, shall pass" and not really believing them, and now here he is....in first grade, still the "sensitive" boy that I prayed for with a sweet heart that loves his siblings. I am excited to watch my son grow up and I am excited for this next year of his life....my prayer is that he continues to grow in his knowledge of Christ - not just with his head, but with his heart most of all.

Twin update...

Before his haircut....
and after!

Leighton was trying to grab the scissors out of my hand while I was trimming Matthias' bangs... sadly her first haircut won't be for a long while. :) Here she is showing off her tooth...although it's too far away to see. She has cut her first tooth and I think her second one is poking through today. I had a hard time deciding whether I was going to cut Matthias' hair...I knew that once it was done he would look so much more like a little boy. We have really been enjoying the twins and every stage that they are going through. I think part of it is knowing that with every stage that passes by we won't be doing it again (Lord willing). It's really helped us to be able to enjoy them in the midst of the chaos of keeping up with two infants.

Ordination and twins!

The ordination service last night was really nice...this day was one that we've been looking forward to for a long time!
The babies are growing up and we are continuing to have so much fun with them. I am on my way to drive my parents to the airport this morning....it's been a good visit.

A-ma and A-kong visit us!

My parents have been in town for a little over a week now....I was hoping to get a lot done around the house, but it's been crazier than I planned. We've gone out to eat a lot and I've gotten a few things done while leaving the kids at home. It's been a nice visit...they're leaving on Monday, which is sad, but we have plans of driving to Virginia after Christmas and I know that will come quickly. It's been in the 80's here most of the week (which is funny b/c we hear it's snowing in Virginia). Sadly, the babies had a cold at the beginning of the week that they've given to my parents...lots of coughing and sneezing going on around here.
Here is Kylie, my fashion queen, doing the cheetah outfit thing with her baby sister. :) She loves the matching thing with her sisters.

Our Thanksgiving week trip!

So, we made the trip to Georgia....we left at 5am last Saturday morning and didn't get there until 7:30ish. What was supposed to be an 8 and 1/2 hour trip ended up taking about 14 hours not only b/c of stopping to eat and use the bathroom, but we ended up having to get new rear tires on the van. It was a way long trip and so good to get there! We visited Perimeter church on Sunday morning and spent time with the Ballard's afterwards (here's Kylie with Mary Alex and the twins). It was good to catch up with seminary friends that we hadn't seen since.

We arrived in Ellijay at the mountain cabin of friends of ours (the Lassiter's) on Sunday night and spent 2 1/2 wonderful days of sleeping, talking, playing, eating...with no real schedule and no where to be. Tom and I realized that this was our first ever trip as a family where we weren't traveling home for a holiday or to see grandparents.





Here we are with the Hathaway's (more friend's from seminary) with all eight of our kids. The kids got along great and we really enjoyed being able to spend time with these good friends of ours. The weather was awesome and we spent the majority of time outside playing ball, throwing frisbee, swinging on the tree swing....actually, a lot of the time was spent either getting ready for a meal or cleaning up after a meal... :) It was a great time....thanks, Shannon and Joel, for spending it with us!!! Oh, the excitement of the week was AJ getting hit in the head with the tree swing....she ended up getting two stitches (it wasn't too bad).
The last leg of our trip was in Crossville, TN where more seminary friend's of ours live. We had Thanksgiving dinner with the Quillen's....four adults and ten kids....we were greatly outnumbered, but we had a great time! It took almost 14 hours to get home (although on the way back we drove mostly at night, arriving home at 3am). We were exhausted by the time we got back...the house is a wreck and we're still recovering from the travels, but it was such a blessing to spend time with friends that we hadn't seen (as a family) since seminary. It was nice to catch up on what the Lord is doing in their lives as well as sharing what has been going on in our lives...and beyond that to just spend time with them. Taking care of so many kids in the midst of trying to visit was hard, but the time was still refreshing to my relational heart. Whew, I'm just glad the driving is over, although it makes me not look forward to the drive to Virginia next month.

Matthias crawling

It's been a while since I've posted, but for some reason I haven't been able to post pictures... and that is more than half the fun of posting! Anyways, here's a recent clip of Matthias on his second or third day of crawling. He really looks like a little elephant....one hand, than another....and then he pushes off with both knees. Sooo cute. It's a little crazy to have these two little babies all over the house. It also figures that the week that Matthias learns to crawl, Leighton is beginning to pull herself up on furniture. I think (since she was born a minute after her brother) that she is trying to prove herself by being a step ahead of him in anything she can. :) Other than babies underfoot all day, there's not too much going on. We have passed a cold through our whole family but Josiah. We're heading to the mountains of Georgia on Saturday for some fun vacation with seminary friends. Hopefully I'll have pictures of that up in a couple weeks.

Lemons and Trick-or-treating!

So, I had a little bit of time on friday...and had great plans of dusting the floor while the three little kids were napping b/c the two littlest ones kept on trying to eat the hair/dust balls that kept getting stuck to their toes. Anyways, a friend of mine has a friend with a lemon tree...so she brought me a big bag of lemons, so instead of doing something productive I ended up taking artsy pictures of lemons. :) Oh, and I made fresh lemonade which actually tasted really good!
Here they are...AJ the pirate, Josiah the spy, Matthias the pumpkin, Leighton the deckhand, and Kylie the chinadoll. Okay, so we had quite the cultural experience this weekend... it seems that they have a tradition here to move trick-or-treating to the saturday before halloween if halloween falls on a weekday/school-night. I had talked to a neighbor a while back about halloween and she had forewarned me that our neighborhood usually gets hit pretty hard. We ended up getting four bags of candy (those really big bags with a good mixture of different things)...there is no real way to explain how trick-or-treating went on saturday night...I think it's definitely something that you need to experience to understand. Anyways, we got the kids all ready and after we took the picture of them outside we realized that a few of our neighbors were setting up lawn chairs at the end of their driveways with their candy buckets....thinking that that was a good idea, we set up at the end of our carport. Tom took the kids around first (all five) and I sat with a book and the candy and waited. I got a good number of kids, nothing overwhelming. Trucks and cars were driving by with kids hopping out at the houses. After Tom came back, I ended up taking the kids out. They had learned that people don't knock on doors in the neighborhood. If you are going to hand out candy you sit in your driveway...otherwise the kids will skip your house (no knocking/ringing doorbells???). By the time I had gotten back to our house there was a line of kids from where Tom was sitting (almost under our carport) all the way down past our mailbox. There were seriously at least thirty kids in that line. It was insane. We had gone through our 15 to 20 pounds of candy in about an hour and a half or so. What we found out from a neighbor later is that we are one of a handful of neighborhoods in the whole county (there are a lot of houses in 'the country'), so people literally come from everywhere to the few neighborhoods in town. There's a church in town that does a fall festival every year...I think we'll be going there next year. :)

My boys

Here are my boys. Josiah has a neat friendship with the twins...he definitely entertains them with his crazy dancing and peek-a-booing. Matthias is still my happy go lucky baby...he's got a crazy wild tuft of hair for his bangs (I don't know where the curly wave came from, but it's adorable)... I think he's getting to the point where he's realizing that Leighton has it better off than he does by being able to get around. He's rocking on his hands and knees, but can't move forward quite yet. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when they're both moving...and I know it'll be here before I know it. What fun! :)

Leighton and her growl

In the past couple of weeks Leighton has really started to consistently growl when she is happy. She'll wake up in the morning growling...she'll crawl around growling (yes, she is crawling)... she'll growl in between bites of baby food. She has always had a deep cute throaty voice ever since she was born, but this growling thing is so adorable. Just today and yesterday she has realized the freedom that she has gained in being able to crawl. I found her in the bathroom this morning... and she spent a good part of the afternoon under the kitchen table, crawling around picking up cheerios that she had dropped after lunch (and growling).

Homecoming Parade!

On Friday the kids got out of school early for the homecoming day parade downtown... 2:30 in the afternoon. It started with all the emergency vehicles of the town driving down Main St. with their sirens blaring and then went to marching bands, class floats, football teams, and cheerleading squads. Everyone was throwing out candy to the kids watching. (Leighton and Matthias missed most of it b/c of naptime) It was definitely a fun small town experience. :)

Seeing the Baggett's in Orlando....

We went up to Orlando yesterday and met up with Dave and Chip Baggett who are vacationing in Orlando with Chip's parents. It was a sweet and chaotic time for dinner and playing at the pool with their family. It's been a nice treat to see several friends here and there who have been in Florida for one reason or another. It has definitely helped the homesickness to see friends. The Baggett's are in fundraising mode to plant a multi-cultural church in Philadelphia....we're excited to see how God is going to use their family....please pray for them when you think of them!

Family Pics...

We've had a fun time together this weekend. It's a four day weekend, so the kids got to stay up late for the past few nights and they just love having the time to play past their normal bedtime. There's not a lot new going on with us lately...just trying to keep up with kids in school and babies that are almost mobile. Matthias is moving backwards very quickly....so, he can't quite control where he ends up, but he's definitely getting around. Leighton is reaching and scooting on her bottom and will rock on her hands and knees every once in a while, but nothing consistent yet. The five kids are such a blessing to us. They all get along great...the babies love the big kids and the big kids are a huge help with the babies. AJ picks beads up off the ground and tells me that she's found a 'choking hazard'. It's going to be quite something when the two of them are crawling around everywhere. We're off to Busch Gardens on tuesday (a teacher workday), so that will be a treat!

The inside of our house...

I've been waiting for my house to be in order to take pictures of it to show off, but I have come to a realization that it's never going to be in order....soooo, I went ahead and took pictures this morning (it is especially disorganized right now). It's mostly a post for the mother's to see! :)

the living room
the living room the other direction (and dining area)
the twin's room
the three big kid's room
the kitchen.

I don't have shots of the den, master bedroom or bathrooms, but this gives you an idea. We have really enjoyed our house, it's been a relaxing, nice place for us to be (which is nice since I'm home most days with the three little kids).

Sibling relationships....

Okay....This is typical of playtime in the house lately. I sit the babies facing each other about a foot apart and pile a bunch of toys between them and give each of them a toy to hold and play with. Inevitably, Leighton ends up wanting whatever Matthias is playing with, so she'll drop her toy and grab his...so he takes a different one...and she'll drop the one she has and grab that new one that he got. When all is said and done, she ends up with a pile of toys in her lap....or a pile of toys that she has flung aside because she's seen a toy that she'd rather have (as illustrated by this picture and the line of toys off to Leighton's left). Most of the time I leave the room for a minute and come back to a pile of toys in Leighton's lap and Matthias crying b/c he doesn't have anything to play with. What is this telling me for their future relationship??

Bathtime x 2

Here is the promised picture...two babies bathing in the double sink...how perfect! They had their six month appointments yesterday. Matthias is weighing in at 20# 6oz, 27 1/4 inches and Leighton is 15# 12oz, 25 1/4 inches. They are looking and doing great!

Another sunset picture and bathtime!

I thought that the lighting was very cool in this sunset shot. Before our move here we really hadn't spent any time at the beach. (once at ocean city when K and J were 2 and 1) It really is beautiful. I do miss the mountains, but there are some days that, b/c the sky is so huge, the clouds are unending and beautiful!

Here are Matthias and Leighton's first baths in the sink. If i wasn't in a rush and had an extra set of hands I would've bathed them both at once (stay tuned for that future picture). One thing that I thought when we received our huge double sink was that it would be perfect for bathing twins! Anyways, they were a little confused at why they were where, but they seemed to enjoy it. They have their 6 month check-up and shots on thursday so I look forward to posting their stats. AJ had a belated 3 year well-check today....they ended it with drawing blood which they say is routine for a well-check here. (none of my other kids have ever had blood drawn routinely)...anyways, it was a sad experience...I spent all morning telling AJ that she wasn't going to have a shot and then I have to hold her down for the nurse to draw the blood (which I think is worse than a shot). I tried to put myself in her little pink shoes and just wondered what she was thinking....knowing that she was totally confused as to why this nice lady was hurting her. It also made me think about how life is really a lot like that. Things happen and we wonder why they happen...the doctor has reasons for allowing AJ's blood to be drawn...and God (in His sovereignty) has reasons for allowing what He does. It was pretty simple for AJ...after some tears, some hugging, and a McD happy meal - life was moving on and the trial of her blood draw was a thing of the past. I feel like I know a lot of families that are struggling with cancer or some health issue recently...they are experiencing firsthand what it means to be a fallen person in a broken world and truly it just stinks. And yet, there is a hope that cannot come from themselves. I am constantly reminded of the fact that we have a God that delights to give us His Spirit....that in and of ourselves we do not have what it takes to live. But the beauty of it is that we don't have to live on our own! Well....

I'm not sure how I got here from a picture of twins in the sink, but that's what a blog is for, right? Thanks for listening or, rather, reading!

We said goodbye to Anna today....

It was very sad....we really only know life in Florida with Anna around, so not having her around is going to take some getting used to. She was definitely a huge blessing to us with the babies... and the kids... we got a date every thursday evening this summer (there aren't a lot of people we'd trust all 5 of our kids to at once)... we didn't do many dishes this summer, either. But, beyond the fact that she was so helpful was the comfort of having someone around who knows me and who could be a support in the midst of a new place. This summer was a special treat...I am grateful to God for my friend Anna. :)
We had a fun summer of food....anyone who knows Anna knows that she can enjoy and appreciate food. :) We had a spinach salad almost every day for lunch....pizza once a week... and we were able to make some fun things to bring to the wednesday night potluck that our church has every week.
It was a good thing we had salad every day b/c we also had ice cream almost every night. We tried a whole realm of brands...splurging for Ben & Jerry's pints one night. My favorites ended up being the Edy's chocolate chip cookie dough "loaded" version, and the Blue Bell brand Mint Chocolate Chip. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be eating ice cream every night anymore (it was a social thing)...but it was fun while it lasted!

Art and Children...

Here is a picture of the sunset from our evening at the beach a few weeks ago. It was beautiful to see the sun going down behind the clouds and the birds flying by. Wish we could watch the sunset like that every night!
This picture is taken for my friend, Amy. Water with crushed ice and lemon...need I say more?
Kylie turned 8 this past Wednesday. It was a pretty quiet birthday since we're still getting to know people in town, no big party or anything, but still a celebration! 8 years old...it's hard to believe.
Our little babies are growing up, too. Matthias and Leighton are enjoying being able to sit up to see the world. If they're too close to each other they will steal each other's toys, or topple over onto one another....but all in all they really enjoy living life from a sitting position. :)

Littlest Leighton

Here's my shout out to Miss Jenn! My friend, Jenn, got this outfit for Kylie 8 years ago...and now Leighton is able to wear it! Such a baby doll. :)

Labor Day weekend fun!

Here's how we spent Sunday evening....this was our third trip to the beach this summer and by far the best! We left the house around 4pm instead of 9 or 10am...got there when the beach wasn't too crowded (for a holiday weekend), the sun wasn't too hot (the sunset was beautiful stay tuned for artsy pic to come at a later blog), the babies were happy to be in their back and front pack, all in all it was a lot of fun. We met the Weaver's again and just enjoyed the fresh air, sand, and conversation! We also found out that our kids don't like Twinkies...what kind of kid doesn't like twinkies??
Here are our eating babies....believe it or not Matthias eats twice as much and twice as fast. I give Leighton half a spoonful and then Matthias two full spoonfuls, by the time I get back to Leighton she's almost ready for her next bite. :) Poor boy is sporting a pink flower bib b/c pink seems to be the dominant bib color in the house. :)
The kids played pirates yesterday...AJ makes a cute one.
Matthias enjoys television....and he's getting to where he can sit up for a little bit. He did tip over the other day and his nose landed on a duplo-block.
Sweet Leighton....they wanted her to be a pirate, too...so here she is! She actually looks more like a football player with a doo-rag to me. :)

FYI...my husband, Tom, has started a blog (click on his name to see it). I told him that he would make a good blogger....just to warn you he babbles a lot and might not have as many pictures....but you will definitely be amused. He's a funny guy....with deep thoughts.