Piper is walking

Today the twins are 11 months old - crazy how fast this past year has gone. Piper has been attempting to walk for the last couple of weeks - I caught a couple of these attempts on the camera. Paige is right behind her - she is a little more cautious than her sister - where Piper just lunges and then tries to keep up with her legs, Paige tries to get perfect balance before she moves her legs. Here are the video's - in the second video it looks like Piper is trying to choke on one of the kids dental floss tubes - she didn't though. I just had to give her something to hold to distract her so I could get back to take the video - and of course anything that is in her hands goes straight into the mouth. Enjoy!!!

Lemonade time again

The boys have been begging my mom to let them have another lemonade stand at her house. She finally told them that they could do it when it was summer games soccer time - that was this past week. This might be the last lemonade stand we have however. We (meaning mainly Miles) had a hard time splitting the money equally - the kids all thought that they were doing most of the work and thus meant that they needed most of the money. They really had a great time though - until the end. Here are the cute kids with their cousins - (Katie and Abby didn't really help with the lemonade - they just helped eat the cookies)

Fishing

My dad took the boys fishing Thursday - I got a picture of them as they were leaving. Miles got a new fishing pole for his birthday and was excited to try it out. They each caught 2-3 fish (pretty good for only a couple hours at the lake). As soon as they got home, Ethan went up to Grandpa's to clean the fish - YUCK!!! He also proudly helped grandpa cook the fish later that night and came in very excited to tell me that fish eyes turn completely white when they are cooked (my dad did a "pre-cook" of the fish before he took the bones out - we did NOT eat fish with their heads still attached). I took a picture of Ethan and the fish he cooked, but it somehow got deleted - I am sad. Here are some other pictures though - Ethan got out his "fishing hat" that morning to wear, but it was too tight. He tried it on a baby though and it fit just right - it was so cute that I had to get a few pictures with hats and the twins. I could not get a picture of both of the twins in hats - I promise it is harder than it looks.

Here is Paige

and Piper

"My kids will never..."

We went to the park yesterday - at 10:00 in the morning. By that time I had already practiced the piano with two boys, taken one to swim team (and picked him up), got breakfast for all 5 kids, bathed two babies, watered the lawn and put a load of clothes in to wash. As I pulled up to the park, I noticed what I had NOT done - get Abby ready for the day. I was not about to go back home however - so yes, she went out in public looking like this.
To my credit, the dress is clean, although it is a couple sizes too small (she is going through as stage right now where she will only wear dresses). Her hair is still half braided from the swimming pool visit the day before and her legs are showing off her artistic work from that morning. Now for the shoes - for some reason, Abby opts to wear two different shoes even when she can find matching shoes, so it is not too uncommon to see a style like this on her (in fact, I was lucky this day that the shoes were on the right feet). A few years ago I would have sworn that my kids would never go out in public looking like this - I guess I will have to eat those words:)

Caleb's home!!!

Caleb came home Tuesday - we were all excited to have him back. The kids and I decorated my parents lawn with a few signs - as I was staking them in the ground Miles noticed that it read "COME HOME CALEB". The kids thought it was funny and so we took a few pictures, however, I forgot to take a picture when we finished the signs - it really read - "WELCOME HOME CALEB".
We met him at the airport that night - Paige is missing from this picture (I don't wake up sleeping babies even to see Uncle Caleb's airplane land). Caleb was an incredible missionary - he is a great example to all of us. We love you "Uncle Caleb" and are glad you are home (especially Abby - she asks to go play with "Aunt Caleb" at least once a day - I will correct her soon on the gender differences between aunts and uncles - but it is too fun to laugh at right now).