Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's day to all the special men in our lives!  You all deserve a day to rest and be pampered - and to grill!  Brandon was out of town all week, so he's tired and thrilled to have a day of pampering from us.  It's just our luck - all three kids are sick!  So, we're all just taking it easy today.  Tess and Owen have double ear infections and Porter has a bronchial viral infection.  We're just crossing our fingers that Brandon and I miss the little bugs in the house.  I'm doing my usual constant cleaning to help kill the sick bugs!  

As you can see from the above picture, Brandon is making the most of today wisely!  He's got jetlag from his trip!  He went to Kansas City, MO, Baltimore, MD, Safford, VA - and a little sight seeing in Washington D.C.  I'll post some pictures from his trip in my next post.  The kids were so excited to see him after he was gone for 6 whole days.  I'll admit, I was pretty darn excited to see him too!  He got the kids T-shirts from his stay and they have both informed me they want to wear them all week long!  Porter and Owen's swimming lessons start this week.  That should be a fun experience.  We'll take lots of pictures and video clips to post on the blog.  

The highlight of my week has been tracking down some friends from my mission.  I had the opportunity to talk to a gal yesterday for almost an hour.  She was one of the young women in one of my wards, and is now all grown up!  She spent several years in London for schooling, so it totally threw me for a loop when talking - she sounded British!  I love you Diana!!

Well, I think we finally have a child whose attached to a blanket!  Baby Owen has been carrying his favorite soft blanket around the house all week.  It's kinda cute and kinda dirty at the same time.  I'm gonna have to steal it from him when he's sleeping to wash it!  It reminds me of Adam when he was little.  He had this yellow blanket that he took EVERYWHERE.  It got all ratty, and my mother just had to cut strings off as it unraveled (it was knit).  I'll never forget one day my mom decided to wash his blanket when he was up, and he was literally hanging on the washer screaming for the whole cycle.  He simply couldn't live without his blanky!  Boy, how he's grown! 

Porter and Tess had fun this week making a Father's day gift for Brandon.  They made a coat of arms type of thing.  I'll attach a picture.  They picked out stickers of all the

 fun things Brandon likes to do and put them on it.  It was a lot of fun.  We had a hayday with the glitter glue.  I'm still finding "sparkles" on my skin!  For those of you who don't know, we have a family tradition that Brandon started last year, where just before Mother's day and Father's day - we take the kids to the store and let them pick out whatever they want to give their parent for a gift.  It's funny to see what they buy.  Tess is still picking out things that she wants, Owen gets help, and Porter is getting better about thinking about what his parent would want!  So, this year, Tess got Brandon a pink Disney princess playground ball - Porter picked out a cool mesh bag with racket balls in it for when Brandon plays racket ball.  Owen picked out a T-shirt and hat that said #1 Dad!  All in all, Brandon loved his gifts.  

Well, we hope everyone has a great week!