the cousins

You don't want to mess with these cousins.......

Geocaching

So for mother's day this year I got a handheld GPS....just what every mom dreams of right? jk I specifically requested it because we have wanted to try a new activity with our girls. Anyone heard of geocaching? It is basically like looking for buried treasure and we have wanted to do this for the last 3 years but we haven't had a GPS. So we have been out a couple of times since Mother's Day and the girls love it. So Saturday we headed out again to Tryon Park to look for some treasures! And look what Josey found first...... A nasty huge slug! Everyone had to get a picture taken with it but I will spare you. And then Josey was the first to find the first geocache and she also came back with a snail!

Everyone picked a little trinket and we put a few trinkets back and then everyone posed for this lovely pic.....

And then this one....

And then this one with my 2 little cupcakes.....

We hiked around for about an hour and then on our way out we stopped at this cool tree trunk and Dustin remembered that there was a geocache hidden there from the clue and he popped back there and found another one!

Here is Lilly with her turn to hold the GPS.

Maddy taking a little rest from "her aching feet".

And here is Lilly's favorite thing the water backpack. She would just suck on that thing until we finally had to give it to someone else to hold because she was lagging behind too much.

And here was Ivy the whole trip.

So I thought I would snap a few pictures of her and me and she would NOT smile in a picture....

So I thought I would be funny and take a serious picture with her......and then she smiled....are girls just born wanting to do the opposite of what their moms want them to do?

more pictures

So these are from last night when we had Julia spend the night. Josey scratched her nose and insisted on wearing a band-aid over her nostrils.....ok..... Lilly riding her bike in the perfect summer night. We had lots of kids from the court playing and the temperature was just perfect. I love these nights!

Here are the three girls, cracking me up.

They were playing some sort of adventure thing from Alice and Wonderland. They were so cute!

the sun came out......so I am blogging again

Here are the only pictures I have taken in the last.....who knows how long and I didn't even take them. Dustin and the kids snapped these shots. I need to get my camera out more but well you know.

We have started our crazy summer and I need to start taking pictures. We have started the summer swim team and swim lessons and on Thursday Maddy and Josey start rehearsals for a new play. Maddy is in Alice and Wonderland as the White Rabbit and in Snow White as the evil Queens bratty daughter Ariana. And Josey is also in Snow White as Brainy dwarf. So everyday this summer we have somewhere we need to be. So far it is okay. I don't know if I am going to burn out in a few weeks but for now we are going strong and the girls are happy.

And just because everyone is interested, I am rejoicing. For 2 nights in a row now Ivy has slept for 10 hours, awakened, ate, and then gone back to sleep for another hour or so. Can I PLEASE get a hallelujah chorus. It is just amazing how much better I can deal with children and a fairly cranky baby when you have a semi-decent amount of sleep! Of course I still go to bed too late so I don't completely feel the full affects of her change in sleep patterns but both mornings I have had to get out of bed and check on her to make sure she was breathing. I just sincerely hope that this can continue on because I have been so incredibly sleep deprived these last 4 months and frankly I haven't been coping well. It is really my older children that have been suffering and then I feel really guilty.....you know just the life cycle of a mother.

I'm getting traded in...

So this morning Lilly and I were in my bed and she was just looking at me while I was feeding the baby. All of a sudden she says, "Mom you are getting old." I replied, "Really? How can you tell?" And she said it was because of all the freckles on my face and that my face looked old. She then followed this up with this comment, "Yeah.....and when we are through with you we will trade you in for a different mommy."..........I seriously didn't know how to respond to that? Aren't little girls supposed to love their mommies and not want a different mommy? She did say then that she was scared that she wouldn't see me when I was really old and died. So I guess that was some sort of consolation......it still hurts though;)

And on a funnier note I just wanted to give you all a funny mental picture. They are putting on a stake musical this year. It is going to be "Hello Dolly". So when I saw the flier I immediately thought of my sister and how much fun we would have doing it. So I brought home the flier and we were both so excited to try out. We decided that all our kids wanted to do it too. So a couple of Saturdays ago we piled everyone in my van.....me, Rebekah, Claudia, Maddy, Josey, Georgia, Lilly and the baby (Julia was sick) and we headed over to the auditions. Here is the mental picture. I want you to picture us all lined up smallest to biggest....(why are you picturing me at the back?) waiting our turn to perform. Honestly it was hilarious! All the little girls sang "The sun will come out tomorrow" from Annie, except Lilly who insisted on singing a Taylor Swift song and being a rock star. And then Claudia sang "Part of you World" from Little Mermaid. Rebekah sang "All that jazz" from Chicago. And I sang "I dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables. Beck and I had dreams of landing the main role as a shared part! How awesome would we have been to have been co-Dollys! Alas after we all spilled out creative guts in front of the judges they informed us that because our kids were participating that we would all be in the chorus together. Becky and I looked at each other and were thinking the same thing I am sure. We were thinking WHY DID WE BRING ALL OUR STINKIN KIDS!!! jk So we are in the chorus of Hello Dolly here in October with all our little self proclaimed prodigies and it's going to be the best darn Moyes/Hatch chorus ever (because we really do make up most of the chorus).

more pictures

These are in total backwards order but I am so behind I don't even want to worry about it right now. I finally got Dustin to figure out how to get my pictures onto my computer again. Unfortunately I don't have many to look at as things around here have been TOTALLY CRAZY! I haven't even THOUGHT about pulling my camera out for the last couple of weeks as we had so many people living here. It was fun to have our cousins so close but Beck and I soon realized that it just wasn't going to work! Too many kids under one roof! So they moved out on Saturday and I think everyone in much happier with the current situation. Especially since we are only a few miles down the road. It was so funny when they were driving away last night though because my girls were just BAWLING! I think they weren't understanding that they are here to stay and they aren't driving home to California. But here are some pictures of things that were have been going on the last month......

Josey at the temple Maddy at the temple

Here are the girls after their talent show performances. They both did amazing....of course!

Here is Maddy in her little skit she did.

And here is Josey in the same skit.

Here they are getting ready to take the stage

Here is Maddy singing "Fireflies". I wish I could have taken some better pictures but they just weren't coming out well! She was so brave and did such a good job. At the end all the students starting singing along and I wasn't sure how she was going to handle it. I wasn't sure if it would throw her off make her upset or something but she was such a natural performer and just said, "Everyone join me!" And she had the whole school singing together. It was so cute and I was so proud of her!

And here is Josey singing "Wake Up". I was so proud of her also. I love watching my girls get up there and perform because they love to do it and.....really so do I! They are so brave to get up there in front of the whole school. I am always afraid that they are going to choke but they are so good under pressure! They did great!

I was able to get a couple shots of Josey at the dress rehearsal but then they ran out of time before Maddy had a turn.

This is Ivy from just a few days ago. She is changing so much!

She has the worst cold and I feel so bad for her. It is so horrible when they are trying to nurse and they can't breathe out of their nose. I can't wait until this goes away!

These are from like a month ago! Here is Ivy getting acquainted with Maddy's cat. She loves that she has figured out how to grab things and put them directly in her mouth. She is already such a busy baby it is so weird. She's just constantly looking for stimulation! I am fearful for her toddler years. Maddy was a baby like this and she was SOOOOOO "full of energy" I liked to say. She was exhausting and I have a feeling Ivy is going to be very similar.

My rock star with the crazy hair.

This is so funny. So recently a little girl in Josey's class broke her leg requiring her to be in a wheelchair for a few weeks. So, since then Josey has been OBSESSED with having a broken leg/arm. So was so obsessed that she started wrapping her legs and arms like they were broken and finding anything she could to make crutches out of. This then progressed to using the stroller like it was a wheelchair. She would just beg me to go along with her story that she had really hurt herself. I thought this was harmless until I heard that the neighbors really thought she had dislocated her shoulder and severely sprained her ankle and they thought that she was just using a scarf as a sling and pushing herself around in a stroller cause she was so badly injured! She would just sit and watch her friends jumping on the trampoline to keep up the charade! She has been obsessed! We had to finally put a stop to it after 3 weeks. It was quite funny though.

I think Ivy is going to be a big thinker....she already has the position down.

These pictures are from Mt.Hood about a month ago. We went up hoping to head over to the lake only to be halted by lots of snow still on the roads. We ended having to help these people get their van unstuck for like a half hour and then we just headed home. Great fun!

This picture cracks me up though because I LOVE what Maddy is wearing. If you can blow it up you HAVE to see her outfit......hilarious

why did we have so many kids?

That is what my sister and I keep asking each other. Well I do have pictures but my camera software isn't working on my computer so no pictures today. But I just needed to update......does anyone want a couple of kids? Cause right now we have more than our fair share wreaking havoc throughout the house. We have a 12 yr old, a 10 yr old, a 9 yr old, an 8 yr old, a 5 yr old, a 4 yr old, a 3 yr old, a 1 yr old, and a 3 month old........and here is the correct response to reading all those ages under one roof.......AAAAAHHHHHH! WOW! I think we are starting to figure out how to manage everyone but the worst is bedtime and any meals. Do you know how much it costs to feed 9 children and 4 adults breakfast lunch and dinner?! Seriously! I need to take some pictures of everyones rooms because there just seems to be beds EVERYWHERE upstairs. We have 4 in one room, 3 in another room, Becky and Ryan and the baby in their room and our baby in our room with us as well. Everyone is sleeping really well......that was a joke. We are having fun though and the kids are in heaven, most of the time, unless they are fighting and hitting and yelling, I mean we do have 5 under the age of 5 so that is bound to happen. I am just getting nervous when school gets out in a week cause even getting rid a few older ones during the day is a tremendous help. Heaven help us.