Lots of pictures to share...

 This one cracks me up...I think Henry is trying to bite off the monkey's ear.

 Here are five of the seven kids I was watching that day.

Part of the girls' birthday celebration with my side.

Leila got an easy bake oven, she said, "Just what I've been waiting for!"

All of the cousins lined up: Stella, Norah, Zoe, Paige, Leila, Greta, Reid, and Henry

The girls don't like cake, so we made death by chocolate instead.

Stella miraculously blew out the candles on her first try, but I am quite sure she could never do it again, she is not good at aiming when she blows :)

Here are the first cookies that Leila made in her new easy bake oven!!

Henry gets more and more adventurous every day...we have to always keep an eye out for him!

Leila graduated from preschool.  She says she is now a kindergartener.  How did that happen so fast?

She loved learning with Mrs. H and Mrs. B!

The weather is warming up and we are spending more and more time outside on the swingset.

I am so thankful we put one up, the kids just love it!

Especially the sand box.  It meets all of their needs. Stella and Henry love to get messy and Leila loves to pretend to make all kinds of cakes and food!

Jer was helping Leila in the bathroom and she yells MOM!
Jer: my name is dad, how may I help you?
Me: laughing
Leila: no, I was yelling for mom.

Here we are at the Memorial Day parade.

Our kids love parades and clapping and waving to the vets was a good time!

So was spending time with Jenna!

I think I see some resemblance between these two.

After the parade we went to see Lindsey and Ben while they were in town and to congratulate Drew on graduating from Calvin.

Ken was worried about Leila's modesty, her skirt kept blowing in the wind :) The girls had fun on the beach, Stella of course managed to get her shorts soaking wet!

Jer playing goldie blox with the kids.

Another successful birthday gift, a bubble machine!  It worked great for that first day, and not again.

But they really enjoyed it while it was working!

Riding in the car the other morning...
Stella: Mama, don't go fast, I might lose my shoes.

After seeing a dog...

Stella: I just saw it, and it wasn't barfing! (barking)

The kids all love to swing!

And slide.

We had a fun Memorial Day spending time together :)

The kids have been doing a lot of wrestling together lately, and really enjoying it.
Stella: We're walk-housing! (rough-housing)

Henry filled this basket with toys in the family room, pushed it into the kitchen, and got in all by himself!

Then the girls had to get in on it too.

It is warm enough to get out the water table!

The kids could hardly wait while I scrubbed the storage grime off from it before I let them play.