Remember the Alamo part 2

FLAG DAY!

We were there the week of 4th of July... and one of the days the whole family, cousins, aunts, uncles and all wore FLAG shirts for the family picture on the lake...

This is Bruce's dad and his siblings...

such great people!

Lovin the pics from flag day and all the cousins...

LOOK, its us!!

And look, its Uncle Steve-O and 2 Spacklings....

18 Flag shirts + 18 Grandkids =

Remember the Alamo part 3

See, we really did go to the Alamo on the last day...

We did a tour of downtown San Antonio with Bruce's sister RayeAnn and family... the fish in the stream around the Alamo were HUGE!

Rayeann, Uncle Steve-O (and his mom) and their 5 kids, "The Spacklings"... Jessica the Bestica, Nate the Great, Gabe the Babe, Coley-Boley and Luke I am your father.

We forgot to bring our stroller with us to Texas. It was all fine until this day. Touring downtown San Antonio and the Alamo while holding our 2 year old Sophie was so hard. The Riverwalk was beautiful, and eating at Countyline BBQ was yummy but it was SO darn hot and humid outside. It would have been a TOTALLY different day had we had a stroller!!! We needed to go somewhere inside. We went the this museum below to escape the heat and it was really cool. I wished we could have stayed longer... but being in this museum without a stroller for Sophie was so hard too. REMEMBER YOUR STROLLERS PEOPLE!

aaaand, the Wax Museum next door.

Our kids had never been to Texas, nor I... and it was really neat to see a new place. Though it was hot and humid, Texas was beautiful! Loved hanging out with Bruce's family... so fun to have grandkids all the same ages for lots of cousin fun. It was a long drive that we did through the night on the way there and back, with a crying baby UGH, and came home exhausted. (We got to the motel on the way there at 4am. And we got home on the way back at 6am.) But so thankful to have been able to go!

Ants

This was a real conversation I overheard yesterday before we went to the Cleggs for dinner...

Dallin had been playing with a magnifying glass FOREVER yesterday burning stuff outside, then he came inside the house and said:

Dallin: Hey Emma, come outside with me and lets burn ants

Emma: No, thats mean

Bruce: Oh but then they'd be cooked and you could eat them

Emma: I've already eaten ants

Dallin: But not cooked ones! Come on, lets see what they taste like

Me: NO, YOU CANNOT EAT ANTS!

Bruce: Why not, it won't hurt them

Me: Because its WEIRD!!!!

Emma: We promise we won't tell the Cleggs we did

Me: NO, its weird!!

Bruce: Cherryl, just because you didn't grow up with any boys around and don't know what boys do, doesn't mean you shouldn't let our kids.

SERIOUSLY, I have tried to be such a good mom and still, my family is all weird!!!

CHEERIO

Ashlin cracked me up today. Her and her friends were making a video for a history assignment about the Boston Tea Party. (They could have just made a poster, but oh no, they wanted to make a video)

Ashlin rummaged through our house and coordinated a conglomeration of crazy things in order to come up with this British/New England attire.

She did pretty good, especially considering she's wearing grey sweat pants with white tights and a belt, a ruffly shirt under her little brothers church vest, and a Mickey Mouse Pirate hat that says "Captain Dallin" on the back... ha ha ha.

Cookie Emergency

Yesterday the kids had a half day. I was laying on the couch napping when the phone rang... it was my neighbor one street up... she was having a COOKIE EMERGENCY. She was like out of breath and telling me how she was driving her son to a doctor appt and running late and needed me to go to her house and take cookies out of the oven right away because the timer was going off in like ONE minute... with another batch 8 minutes behind that. I was like half awake, so confused, but didn't have time to ask questions and just jumped in my car.

I have never been called out on such a cookie crisis.

After breaking in her house how she told me to, I cracked up that her counter was COVERED in cookies, like over 100, but you can't see them all in this photo.

She was really calling our house to have her son Isaac take care of it, but him and Dallin had left to get slushies from Circle K... which left just me to take control of the crisis. ha ha. (And considering she's the Relief Society Pres, how could I argue?)

I am all over dramas associated with cookies.

Thanks Cleggs!

Dallin and Bruce were so excited to go to root on the Sun Devils football last week. As Dallin and Bruce left for the game, I had to remind Dallin that BOTH Bruce and I went to ASU and BOTH Bruce and I had full-ride scholarships there. He barely believed me that I did too, he thinks of me as so JUST a mom. (Before finishing, I left my scholarship after Bruce and I were married, to move to Colorado for him to go to Vet school) So I didn't finish my degree, but I can still brag on that I had a scholarship, right? Maybe some day...

They had WAY a lot of fun, Dallin caught some of the players gloves and talked about it all night. Thanks Tim and Alisa... Bruce and Dallin are shoppin for black, for friday!

Family Dynamics

I really did always want a big family, but I really did picture my kids being closer in age then they came. My oldest is right now 16 and my youngest, only 2...

A few nights ago I asked Ashlin to put Sophie's pajamas on while I tucked the other kids in bed. The entire time I was putting the other kids in bed I could hear Ashlin and Sophie in my bedroom laughing and laughing, Ashlin was tickling her or something. I had to sneak by the door and peak to see how cute they were and watch them for a few minutes. It made me so happy. I can really see what a blessing it is for our older children to have little-bitty siblings. They have so many opportunities to serve. Yet they still all beg to take care of Sophie, I am so thankful. Somehow, through all our chaos, I think they are learning great lessons in selflessness. So its good, even though its different then I had pictured.

AND P.S.

Lily is a READER now!!!!

Every day Lily and I have been working together in our FIRST READER books, learning how to sound out words. On friday I was doing the dishes and Lily came in to the kitchen carrying the above "I See My Dad" book. She was SO excited and told me "I CAN READ ALL BY MYSELF!". She read me the whole book perfectly, sounding all the words out on her own while I did the dishes. She was SO proud. It almost made me cry. And after she read it to me like 3 times in a row, she said she wanted to call Ashlin and tell her. So she called Ashlin's cell phone and told her she read her first book all by herself, and I could hear Ashlin squealing on the other end, telling her how proud she was. :)