my girls LOVE princesses, barbies, dress up.. you name it! so you can imagine their delight when their friend kaitlyn let them borrow these beautiful dresses today. they were so excited all day for bill to see them. so after their bath tonight, they went downstairs to practice their twirling and dancing and were completely SHOCKED when bill came down in his tux and asked to take them to the ball:) (AKA.. the living room) the smiles never left their faces.. and the tears never left my eyes. we are so blessed! adalyn even got in a few dances with the prince, before she was whisked away to have a dirty diaper changed:) when the ball was over, bill went back upstairs to change clothes and i overheard miley tell ella kate, "that was my BEAUTIFUL ken!!!! and he did BEAUTIFUL things for us tonight!!" ella kate asked her where her ken went and miley replied, "oh.. he died!"

 look at those juicy lips!! i could kiss them all day:) sweet levi is 8 weeks old today and just a doll!

 the latest picture of all the cousins:) and let me just clarify that this picture was a complete disaster to take.. there were many tears, meltdowns, drops and closed eyes.. so i am shocked that this one was decent:)

 adalyn loves her pigtails... actually she doesn't. she just looks like she does, but the minute bill quit restraining her arms, she yanked them out! ha! oh well, we tried:)

today we were in the car talking about our friends' baby joshua. ella kate said, "hey! we read about joshua in our bible last night!!" we did read about him, so bill started asking some questions to see if they were paying attention. first he asked him what joshua did.. jos said, "he fought the battle of jericho!!" thats right! and what did the people do while marching around the city? josiah said, "they played their trumpets!" thats right! but what else did they do?? it is something that miley is really good at. she does this all the time. ella kate and josiah IN UNISON yelled out, "whine! they whined and played their trumpets!!!" bill and i start dying laughing.. bill says, no! they didn't whine... they shouted!! just like miley likes to shout! haha.. silly kids:) ella kate says, "well, miley does shout. but she whines a lot too!" i turn to look at miley and she is sitting there with the biggest smile on her face as if saying, "yep! thats me!" :)

speaking about reading.. josiah can read. seriously. he is 4 almost 5, but has been reading for a few months. and i am not talking about beginner books with small words... he can read chapter book and even the bible. smart, smart boy!! oh, and i also wanted to remember something that happened earlier this month. we had a cook out at our church on july 4 and we made arrangements for a friend to come over and play. i told the kids and they were asking questions about when she was coming and i told them "next wednesday. not today, but the wednesday of next week." josiah said the blessing for breakfast the next morning and it went, "dear God, thank you for this great day, thank you for this cereal and thank you that maemae is coming to play at our house on wednesday july the 11th. amen." i immediately got up from the table and looked for a calender and saw that the wednesday that maemae was coming over, really was the 11th. how in the world did he know that?? geez...