Ada's 7th Birthday

For Ada's birthday this year, we all met up at Collin's house for a little party.




After the party, we all went to Coney Island.

The whole family went, including Audrey's mom and her brother and his family. We had such a great time!

I just love this picture of Dallas.

I've been wanting to take Ty on one of these slides since the June Jamboree. We didn't get to do it then because it started storming shortly after we got there, so I was so happy to get to take him on it at Coney Island. He loved it. We went on it about 10 times. Then we went on the Titl-A-Whirl with me, Justin, Ty and Owen all in one car. It must have been too much weight because the momentum spun our car around like crazy, and I about puked! I guess I'm too old for that crap now.

This was Dallas' first ride on a carousel.

We ended the day on the Ferris Wheel.

Getting a New Cousin

After putting her mommy through 31 looooong hours of labor, my precious little niece finally arrived. Ellie Shayne Marshall

Aug 23, 2010

7 lbs. 1 oz.

20 inches

The proud new parents

Cousins meeting for the first time

Don't look so happy about it, Dallas!

Playing Catch Up

So I've been seriously remiss in posting on here, so I'll be catching up the last half of the summer here. Let's see...we left off at about State Fair time, so here are the highlights of the fair. I was supposed to get a filling at the dentist that day, but this sounded like so much more fun (obviously), so I cancelled and went and ate junk food at the fair instead. Priorities, priorities....They don't say, "Doctors make the worst patients" for nothing.

Petting the goats

3 boys enjoying an elephant earOne...

Two...

Three!

Dallas' 6 Month Photos

My little guy sure is growing up in a hurry. He has 4 teeth now and is starting to crawl. It's still sort of an army crawl, but he's officially mobile.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Here are a few of Ty's latest funny sayings:

The other day I was getting ready to take the boys to meet Justin and go to the State Fair. I told Ty maybe we'd see some horses and cows there. His response was, "No! I want to see walleyes!" Fortunately, the DNR barn did have walleyes, so he wasn't disappointed.

Earlier that same day he was dancing around the living room and he told me wanted to do a party. I asked him what kind of party, and he said, "A You Sing party." So I sang him some songs and he danced and we had a party.

This morning when he woke up he asked me to go get him minnows. I told him we didn't have any and he said that they were in daddy's boat. When I told him those minnows were all gone, he cried for about ten minutes and said over and over, "I want cuddle minnows." Then we put Robin Hood on TV and he forgot about the minnows. These would be the same minnows that he got a kick out of kissing on vacation. Yuck.

Ty was jumping on his bed and he told me to do it too. I told him I couldn't because my leg hurt, and he said, "I fix it. Put it on saw." So he takes me over to his tool bench and has me put my leg on the grinder and "fixes it."

This one takes the cake. One night when we were in Wisconsin we were trying to put Ty to bed. Let me set the stage here by saying that he didn't take a nap this particular day and also stayed up late watching movies. So when his movie was finally over and Daddy said, "No more movies. It's bedtime" you can imagine the bedlam that ensued. He screamed and screamed and screamed. NOOOO, NOOOOO, NOOOOOO!!!! After about what seemed like hours (but was probably more like 15 minutes) of Justin holding him and trying to calm him down as he's screaming NOOOO (and let me add here that I'm very proud of Justin...he kept his cool the whole way through) Justin said, "Ty, you have to calm down. You're going to scare the bears." Ty's response was, "NNOOOOO....WHAT?" I wish I could put his tone of voice on here because it was sooo funny, like "What?? What bears?? There are bears here?? And I'm scaring them??" Unfortunately, his curiosity only lasted a second before it was right back to NOOOOO, but it was an excellent comic relief at a moment when it was desperately needed, trust me.

Wisconsin 2010

This was a bit of a strange year in Wisconsin, as not very many people were able to go. Mammaw and Pappaw didn't go because of Mammaw's recent health problems. Trist and Elisha didn't go because Trista is about ready to pop, and Collin and Audrey couldn't go either. So the first week we were there it was us and Mom and Jim. The second week was us, Peggy, David and Brent. Justin's dad came for a few days as well. Here are some of the highlights.

Ty had fun watching this stick bug who would show up periodically in different places.

The boys watched several movies. Thomas the Train and "Cucumber" (Veggie Tales) were the most popular.

Ty's casting skills really took off during this trip. I guess it's all the extra practice, but one day it was like it just clicked with him and he was casting as well as an adult would. He makes his mommy and daddy so proud.

Dallas learned how to clap his hands during the second week of vacation, and he also started to make his first real attempts at crawling. He hasn't gotten much movement yet, but he started getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth. It won't be long now...




We visited the Iron River Fish Hatchery. Ty liked seeing all the fish swimming around in the tanks.

We've discovered that the key to keeping the minnows alive is to put them in the kiddie pool. That serves 2 purposes, actually...keeps them alive and serves as great little kid entertainment. Even Dallas took a swim with the minnows. They all kept hiding under his back. I was afraid I was going to find a minnow in his clothes when I changed him.

Ty spent quite a bit of time fishing off the dock. He didn't catch much since his lure doesn't have hooks on it. We bobber fished with him some and he caught a few blue gills and one northern that had latched on to one of his blue gills.

Dallas and his pet fish.




Ty and his pet rock.

The fishermen went for quantity this year instead of quality. There were lots and lots of fish caught, but nothing of extraordinary size. We didn't keep much, either...enough to have fish a few nights for dinner and that was about it. We still have enough fish in the freezer for the fish fry's for the next 2 years, so we didn't plan to keep much anyway.

As you can see, Dallas really enjoyed his first year in Wisconsin...it's a good thing because he has a minimum of 17 more years of going up there ahead of him. Can't wait to see him out on the boat with his daddy and big brother.

Until next year...

Silly Boys