Birthday Girls

(Kyler snuck in the birthday girls picture!) Here we are another year younger! She's a turkey for sure but always and forever my best birthday present!!!

All the animals that came to the party!
It was really a wonderful and party packed day!

Christmas Morning

"his eyes are the size of the moon"
So Fun! Baby's first Christmas! He loved his toy!

Here's the little chef with her cupcake machine. She needed like a gallon of milk to wash that thing down! But so happy!

Kyler and his chess game, I've never played so much chess as in the last few days. I'm so glad it was a success!

The boys and their "inside" guns. You'll shoot your eye out!

My cute apron from Layne! Everyone was happy and we're having a great Christmas vacation! Hope everyone is having fun too!

Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving! We have so much to be grateful for! Life is good!

Creepy Liston Family

Happy Halloween Everybody! The kids had fun and of course M.J. had the funnest time dressing up. He's holding baby "blanket" (we only have one baby!) Another great year with fun times; scarecrow festival, carving pumpkins, caramel apples, and parties. We also will be visiting the dentist next week!

Fall pics

The boys just got their school photos taken, so Paige and Troy needed an update too!

Her true colors!

Sorry these are so small, I'll always be technically challenged!

Almost 5 months! It's going too fast!!!

September

September flew and October will be even faster I'm sure. Every year I forget how much I love this month!

The newest member

Oh, Kyler, he really makes me smile!

What a great day to remember!

Future prom date and always great friends!

An energetic little monster disguised as a freckled faced princess. I love you too!

Here is my joy!

"Get me out of this monkey suit!"

"Dad I'm so nervous, I don't want to be blessed"

"I don't want to get up in front of all those people"

So, in the end he basically went into a comatose state and pretended it didn't happen!

He knew Annabelle was going to be blessed so he had to be brave! Layne didn't even name him "Garfield" but stuck to Troy David and gave a beautiful blessing!

Dinner idea

Sadly, this shows my computer skills and how I don't even know how to rotate a picture! Plus, Layne is in the shower and so I 'm so lazy, I'm going to leave it like this; (so there! you have to turn your head!) Anyway... here's a great dinner idea for those fizzling out on summer recipes. A good ole tin foil hobo dinner. The kids had fun and of course ate all their food since they made it themselves. (how come it works that way?)

We did cook it in the coals but you can even bake 'em in the oven!

Enjoy! (and send some ideas for dinner my way!)

Pic of baby Troy David since Zach dressed him in his soccer clothes and thought he looked so cute, we're loving him!!!

I

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!  Layne may not teach our kids the best way to throw a football, but when I give him space, he really comes up with fun things for our family!  Like a dutch oven dinner for a saturday night...

or cooking shrinky dinks on Sun. morning.....

Or wanting to get tickets to plays.... 

Or teaching our kids how to throw knives, (see, I never would have come up with that!)

  

Not to mention all the thousands of other things he does to be a great dad!  We are lucky!  Life is good!

By the way, I have the greatest dad ever!  He is really hands on and always thinking of what I may need or want.  I  love how he simply  asks " How are you?"  And he really wants to know and cares about us!   He really loves me  and tells me that I'm his favorite!  Although he tells each of my siblings this too!  But then he'll wink and say, "but we really know who's the favorite"  (this also he does with each of us kids)  He is the first person I want when my kids are hurt or injured.  One of the best things I've ever done in my life is to get to know him during all the hours we spent training for our marathons!  I've always been proud of him and am so thankful to be his little girl!   Happy Father's Day!!

Boy meets Girl

Baby Troy has to be tough to survive miss Paige.  She is literally smothering him with kisses and love!  She's very happy he's here!

Here is the meeting of cousins Annabelle and Troy.  He couldn't resist trying on one of her adorable bows!  I hope these two have many fun times ahead playing together!!!

daddy the dentist

If you have a wiggly tooth, seriously stay away from Layne (especially if he has pliers!)

Kyler on the other hand was thrilled, as losing teeth is about his only source of income.

I've forced the boys to do summer swim team this year.  Today they had their first meet and I really had to beg, bribe, and threaten them to do their events.  (It should'nt be this hard to have fun!)  They finally gave in and did great!  I'm such a mean mom I know!!! 

Kyler coming in strong from his freestyle!

If nothing else, they're cute!

hospital days

I do hate the hospital pictures.  You think you look all good and then when you go back, you always look so tired and worn out but I had to post this one with the others since baby is so sweet and alert!

New kid in town

We're in love with a new boy!  He's name is Troy David Liston.  Born May 26th.  He weighed in at 7 lbs 14 oz and 18 1/2 inches long.  He is so sweet!  Thanks to everyone for all the help with entertaining my other kids and celebrating his welcome with us!

His first car ride, he looked so small in his carseat!

 

Our family feels complete now.

Please stay small for a while longer.  We love you!!!

No school!

I packed up the kids and headed to Hill air force base museum.  I've never been there and have talked about going so today was the day since there was no school.  We made good time and got there in an hour.  

Sometimes at museums, my kids are really ready to get out of there after 15 minutes, but today they spent 2 full hours saying, "look at this," or "take a picture of this so we don't forget it!"  It made the afternoon really fun since they all had a good time!

Of course Grandma is always ready for an adventure!

Thanks for coming along!

They had a hard time choosing their favorite planes, there were two huge rooms full of either bomber planes or fighter planes.  The boys decided the best one was the "blackbird" which is made for speed and can fly 35 miles a minute.  We liked the video on that one!

Maybe one of them will play into my secret ploy and become a pilot so I can travel! or not.  Either way, we had a great day and are ready for school in the morning!