Too Big For Our Genes!

The year isn't over yet, but we've had BIG IMPORTANT THINGS happen that I'm excited to share!

In April the biggest, best miracle of the year was the birth of our 5th grandchild, Makenna.  

How precious is she?!

 Cowboy and I (aka Papa and Nana) got to meet Makenna for the first time in Texas last month.  

By the time we saw her she was already 5 months old, 

smiling, rolling, and all those cute things that are so adorable.  

I fell very much in love with her, as she reminded me so much 

of my daughter Shelby when she was that age.  It was uncanny (and they are not technically blood related)!  

Papa couldn't get enough of her either!

Makenna was impressively patient with him teaching her to swim 

and...um...swinging her upside down!

(Men are weird!)

Mr. Frog wanted in on some action at the pool!

Speaking of pool, uh, yeah, Makenna comes from a great gene pool!  ;)

sidenote:  a couple more fun things we did in Texas:

    1. Ate a lot of TX waffles!               2. Shot stuff!                          3. Became President of the US. 

                                                                                                          (Oh, you hadn't heard???)

                                                                                                          (It was all over Twitter!)

                                                                                                          (you really should keep up!)

So the second BIG IMPORTANT THING that happened to our family this year is

that May brought the birth of our 6th grandchild, Layton.

I think he may outgrow his older 3 siblings, I dunno.

He's pretty dang cute!!!  

He lives nearby so we get to see him pretty often,

which is probably why I don't have 20 million pictures of him (like I do his cousin, Makenna).

Note to self:  Take lots more pictures of Layton!

Sure would love to spend more time with him to love & squeeze him!  *Uh Hum*  ;)

His brother and sisters are pretty excited to have him here too!

(Are these cookie cutter kids or what?)

So adorable and so much fun!!!

And of course, another amazing gene pool, right?

So, well, we do actually have even more BIG IMPORTANT THINGS 

that happened to our family this year!

And yes, it is in fact gorgeous grandbaby number seven!

We welcomed Tate in June!

Oh, he's such a doll!

He definitely gets the prize for the fullest head of hair!  It's awesome!

By the way, if you belong to this family, we don't care how old you are, 

you have to get in the swimming pool!

Sadly, shortly after Tate's birth his family moved away to Oregon, so now we will rarely get to see him.

Soooo sad!!!  He's gonna be a much bigger boy the next time I get to hold him.  :(

And so will his big brother who has been our greatest source of fun and entertainment.

Now we only have Papa to make us laugh.

Except it's not as funny when Papa has food on his face, spills salsa all 

over the table or crawls into the cabinets.  Any suggestions?

(Oh Cashen, how we miss thee!)

Tate and Cashen's parents.  Yep, more incredible genes!!

Every one of our married kids had a baby this year, 

so I don't think we'll have any more new grandbabies any time soon.

Anyway,

I'm not finished telling you about BIG IMPORTANT THINGS!

THERE'S ONE MORE!!!

our daughter Devin got her mission call to

!!!!!!!!!!HONDURAS!!!!!!!!!!

She leaves in November and we couldn't be more proud of her!!!

Devin is super awesome and I know she'll be a GREAT missionary!

I hope she can survive the lack of malls there!  ;)

So here's a recap:

3 of our kids are married

1 is on a mission in Peru

1 is about to leave for Honduras

And 5 are still at home (that number goes up and down fairly regularly)

10 kids

2 daughters-in-law

1 son-in-law

and

seven grandchildren

(with the potential for literally DOZENS more)

Oh, and of course Cowboy and me

That puts us currently at 

TWENTY TWO

If we're not already too big for our Genes

We will be before this over!

I'm just grateful that God created double ovens and deep freezers!!!

Anyone want to place a bet on how many grandchildren we'll end up with?

I'm guessing at least thirty.

AT LEAST!

WE ARE BLESSED!

What BIG IMPORTANT THINGS are going on with you this year?  

I'd love to know!!!

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