Pictures of the kids

The kids and I were at my dad's today and the sun was bright, so I picked up his camera and shot some pictures of the kids. I wanted to try out some different shots with natural light, some turned out better than others some had more shadow than I want but overall they turned out great. None of them are edited yet.
Adah and Micah were more cooperative then the older kids, so I have more of them. And there are a lot of pictures here, but hey I do have 5 kids.
Enjoy!

Saturday afternoon football

That move looks illegal!

The boys huddle together

Levi making a pass

I love watching Matt and the boys play football in the backyard on Saturday afternoons! I'm more of a warm weather girl but they all love getting out there on a cold afternoon to throw, run, and tackle. Watching their games top watching any college or pro game; it's more than playing football with their dad and brothers, it's making lasting memories.

Party Picts

Here are some of the pictures from Adah's birthday party this weekend. She LOVED her cake, she held in close and scarfed it down. It was so funny watching her eat the cake, I took video but was laughing so hard the camera was shaking too much.
I still can't believe she's one!

Birthday Video

Here are the kids singing happy birthday to Adah this morning. Ignore the off key singing and mismatched pajamas:) It's cute, especially Adah's face at the end of it!

Adah's First Birthday!

Today Adah is 1! I can't believe how fast this year has gone and how much she has grown. She is a wonderfully sweet and adorable little girl. She loves to cuddle. She loves to sing and dance. She loves her brothers and sisters, even if they do bug her sometimes. It seems like she has always been here and we can't imagine her not being a part of our family.
Here are some pictures of Adah's first year!












Happy Birthday Adah!!!

Funny things kids says

After my post of some of the things my two year old Micah says, my older kids said some things that had me laughing..

Tuesdays Anna has gymnastics and we always drive by the park where Matt and I were married. We had an outdoor wedding and were married under a gazebo, so the first week we went to gymnastics and passed this park and gazebo I showed them where we got married and talked a little about it. We've passed the park every week now for several weeks and just last week, Anna (5) says to the boys, "hey guys, that's the shed where mom and dad got married!" THE SHED! I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself. I tried to explain it's called a gazebo not a shed but I was laughing too hard so I had to wait to explain it. I know it's not the most fancy thing I've seen, but it's no shed.

And the same day after gymnastics, Elijah was working on some football worksheet he made up and he comes up and asks me
"mom, where is the human weigher?"
"The what(utterly confused)? Ohhhh do you mean THE SCALE?"
"oh yeah the scale"
Can you tell we don't keep the scale out at our house?-it was banished to the closet years ago-so our kids only see it on rare occasion.
I was impressed with his description even if it took me a couple of minutes to get what he was talking about.

From the mouth of a 2 year old

Levi had a blue crown on today at our co-op as he was this weeks star of the day in his preschool class, when Micah came in for lunch upon seeing Levi he exclaimed, "LEVIII-you're a QUEEN!" Offended Levi said he was not a queen, he was a king. But Micah insisted that he was a queen. How funny those 2 year old's can be!

The other day Micah asked me a question at breakfast and Matt instinctively answered, Micah shot him a look and told him, "Daddy I was talking to mommy..not you"

Here's a conversation I had with Micah last week about Daddy-I don't even know how this topic got started.
Micah "Daddy's at bepo" (translation-home depot)
Me "No, Micah Daddy's not a bepo, Daddy's at work"
"No mommy, Daddy's not at work he's at bepo!"
"Micah, Daddy's at work today"
"No he's not he's at BEPO!"
"Micah Daddy's at work and it's time for your nap, good night"
"He's at BEEPO!"-I leave his room and shut his door and go down stairs to call Matt-not to tell him about the conversation but to check and make sure he wasn't at Home Depot. Not sure why I let a 2 year old almost convince me that his Daddy might in fact be at Home Depot, but I called to check anyways. Of course he was at work!

Brothers

I know I've posted about the girls and the bond between them and now it's the boys turn. Although I will never understand boys, I love them more than words can express. I remember one day in the early spring Matt called me over to the back door to watch the boys. All 3 boys were standing in the back yard with sticks and they were taking turns hitting the tree with the sticks. This went on for a long time, and they were prefectly happy and entertained hitting that tree with sticks. It was fun for them. Matt told me I will never understand and he's right, I don't. But I do understand the great gift we have been given with each of our boys.
They each have different personalities and are each such a blessing.
I tried to come up with some lists of words that describe each boy but the lists were never ending so I thought I'd limit it to three (but the lists could go on and on, they really are great boys).
Elijah is focused, creative, smart-he loves to read books and write his own songs
Levi is our reporter- he lets us know what's going on at all times, he's a little shy, & very sweet
Micah is a comedian- he has a way of making everyone laugh, he's smart, and a little onry (okay a lot onry)
I love watching the boys interact with one another. I look forward to all the years ahead of watching our boys grow:)

Crazy weekend

We've had some crazy weeks and weekends but this past one goes very close to the top of the list..here are some of the details of our crazy weekend...

Friday
Pick up Matt's sister Megan (she's 8) for the weekend head home and get ready for trick or treat time. Had a pretty uneventful night and the kids all had a blast. I started to feel a cold coming on so I wasn't feeling 100%

Saturday
I make breakfast and took Matt to his dad's house to help his dad and step mom pack up their house and help them move from Ohio to Georgia, we wouldn't see him until sometime Sunday when some of the kids and I drive down there to meet them.
I drop Anna and Levi off a few houses down for a costume/birthday party and head home with the other 4 kids to get lunch and naps in. I go down to the basement to get some soup shutting the door to the basement behind me..but Adah manages to open the door since it wasn't latched shut and I hear a couple of thumps, turn to see my 11 month old landing face down on the concrete floor..my heart races as I rush over to her and scoop her up, she starts screaming and I rush upstairs with her, take her clothes off the see if she has any noticeable injuries other than the cut on her face and bump of her head.. she looked fine and calmed down after just a couple of minutes, I called her doctor of course and even though she seemed okay they told me to go ahead and take her to urgent care to have her checked out. Matt was helping with the move so I called my mother in law to come over to stay with the other kids and took Adah to the urgent care, they check her out and everything was fine. I am still absolutely amazed and truly believe that it is only by the grace of God that she came out of that fall unharmed. God is so good and we are sooo thankful to Him for protecting our little girl. So after that horrible event, I still had tons of stuff to get done so I picked up Anna and Levi on the way home from urgent care from their party and headed home to get Adah, Micah, & Levi packed to spend the night at my mother in laws house, and she took them home with her for the rest of the weekend
Megan, Anna, Elijah and I ran several errands and got packed and ready for our drive down to Georgia. I made sure they were packed and showered and got them settled down for the night, I tried to go to bed at 7 PM but didn't fall asleep until after 10

Sunday
I woke at 2 am, showered, packed the van up and woke up the kids, got them in the car and hit the road. I drove 8 hours with the 3 kids making only 1 stop, they were all really good and slept a good part of the time. We got to the house in Georgia and helped clean and unload most of the truck for 4 1/2 hours then Matt & I hit the road again with Anna & Elijah heading back home. They were really sad to leave Megan and grandma & grandpa..as were we:(
but we had an 8 hour drive home again so we just couldn't stay any longer, the kids were great and it was easier this time as we could share the driving time
We made it home late and thankfully Matt's mom had brought the younger kids over and put them to bed at our house so they were fast asleep, we got the other kids to bed, talked to his mom for a while then crashed. We were both exhausted after a crazy weekend.
Maybe next weekend will be restful because this one sure wasn't

Elijah, Megan, & Anna at Megan's new house in Georgia