brothers

 Love, MOM

grandpa and his little buddy

 Love, Val

wildflowers

Lady, lost in the daisies.

Love, Val

summer weekend

Cheetos dipped in ketchup.

More evidence kids are nuts

Yeah, this was a bright idea I had:  Let's play croquet!

They didn't get it.

There was high sticking, throwing of croquet balls.  They kept pulling up the wickets.

This other game was a frisbee thing. Fill a plastic bottle with water and set it on that little platform and then try to frisbee it off of there.

It would be okay with practice, pretty sure. We weren't that good at it, honestly.

But the child?  He smacked the bottle off of there by use of the croquet mallet. Then he dumped out the water.

Seriously?

Jay said, "I see you're trying.  But really you're just making a big mess and he's not impressed by any of your ideas."

That is true.

The play doh was a better idea, but he wanted more and more colors opened up.  Not sure what that plan was.  But we put the play doh through the little presses and had ribbons and squares and the little characters grew hair.

But pressing on that device to grow the hair took a lot of work and at one point I muttered, "Jesus Criminy," and Maria laughed at me.

Love, Grandma
 

happy birthday john

 These pictures Dannell took captured the end of a random busy Thursday, even though it was your birthday.

Ahhh, in the role, of all the things you mean to so many people, the one that means the most to you, no doubt about it, is being dad to these kids.

Thank you for all the years of happiness, for the laughter, for good advice and encouragement, and for putting up with all of us with the level of patience and generosity you do.

This family could never be who it is without you.

Lucky, lucky us.

Happy Birthday, with love forever, Mom and Dad and Everybody