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!

Love

So, maybe when you think of Valentines day, your thoughts turn to hearts, candy, flowers, love...but what about the Monster Truck Show?  Well, that's what these boys decided to do for the afternoon and they had a great time.  They went with grandpa, and of course uncle Jake and Brady who drummed up the whole idea!  They came home with stories and were very excited so it was a successful day!  Sadly, Paige and I had to respectfully decline the invitation to go!

 

Here's all the lone girls without a date for Valentines, while the men were away!  We did have fun and really, there is nobody quite like a sister!  You can have no real plans and silly the afternoon away!  (of course mom has now transformed into being our sista too!) 

 

We ended with a nice "romantic" dinner for the family and a double hitter of movies.  I'm always nervous cooking for Layne's dad but Layne and I won his praise!  I was sad to see this fun day end!  I love you!  (you people know who you are!) JoJo