Happy Father's Day!

It has been a quiet day. After church I made fluffy pancakes with homemade blackberry syrup, then we all hung around together and watched movies. Later in the afternoon, Jack, Matt, and the girls took Kyle to baseball practice. When they got home, I rounded Jack and the kids up for an impromptu picture... messy heads, dirty baseball shirts, holey-kneed jeans and all.


Seeing seven of my favorite people in the world together brings to mind many of the reasons I love watching Jack in action as a dad. With nearly eighteen years under our belts, there are so many daddy moments I can look back on and smile about.

- Watching him feed a smiley baby Matt as he played with him.

- His rocking Jessica to sleep every night when she was little and didn't want to go to bed.

- Deciding to name our baby, if it was a boy, "Chet" when I asked him if he wanted some clam chowder.

- Him teaching our babies to walk and giving them all special nicknames.

- Seeing him get down on his knees as he came home from work while the kids flung themselves into his arms.

- Watching him work with the kids in their different sports.


- Remembering him sitting by my bedside for nearly 12 hours with a newborn Beth as I faded in and out of consciousness trying to recover from her delivery.

-Watching him continue to rock Beth to sleep every night for the next two years because she was the last baby.

Those, of course, are just the tip of the iceburg. Jack is, and always has been, a very involved dad. There have been lots of happy moments, lots of emotionally difficult moments, lots of mistakes, and lots of rewards.

And there have been lots and lots of funny moments. Times where he teases one of the kids and they all end up squealing and giggling. Times where he does things like this....


just because it makes Matt do things like this. And then we all end up laughing hysterically...


and things like messy heads and holey jeans don't matter at all because we are a family where he is the dad and we are all together, and while life isn't perfect by any means, it is good.

Happy Father's Day, Jack. We love you very much.