Howdy Pardner!

Last Saturday we got to go to Lex's 8th Birthday party. He had the coolest cowboy party ever.

My two adorable cow girls.

The girls thought that wearing their cowboy hats was pretty cool at firt, but later they were retired to the picnic bench. Ali's dress was really trouble that day. She kept pulling on the straps so it got all stretched out and really low. It looks rather riskay!

They had a pony at the party, Andy was his name. This was the only time that Emily got on the horse, and she did not even go anywhere. She just sat there on him long enough for me to get a picture of her.

The kids had a great time playing on the playground, they got all nice and sweaty.

Cute Isabel and Emily are best friends. Isabel loved the pony, and was all smiles.
Marianne had tons of fun games planned. They had a relay race with stick ponies, Cow Tippin' which was like bowling, a rubber band gun game, and the best of all for the last game was a snake in the boot. Ali and Emily loved this one. They stood on a picnic table and dropped rubber snakes into her boot.

Oh, and don't forget the food. She had Cafe Rio for dinner, and a bunch of fancy cookies, cupcake pops, trail mix, and the sugar crystal suckers.

Chuk E Cheese

Wednesday night we went to Chuck E Cheese with Cooper and his family. We had never been there before, let me just tell you it was quite the experience. Ali was all thrilled and excited and Emily was a little frightened by the Chukee that they had walking around.

When he walked by our table I made her get a picture with him, as you can see she was not very happy about the whole thing.

The whole gang. Matt, Cooper, Ali, Chuckee and Emily.

Ali with the robot Chuckee. She thought that he was kind of creepy and this is as close as she would get to him.

Emily really happy to be riding this horse. I think that it was her favorite thing the whole night.

Ali giving Cooper good by hugs.

Baby Sophia

We are so happy that baby Sophia gets to come over to hour house and play during the day. She is Emily's best friend during the day. All she wants to do is hold her and help me take care of her. She is such a happy little babe, we can't wait to see how her little personality changes as she gets older.

Summers' Last Harrah's

The last couple of weekends we have been trying to enjoy as much of the nice weather as we possibley could. This has included going to the lake with Nana, Jake, Jaime and Sophia. Swimming a lot and going to Lagoon A Beach.

The crazy girls gettin' cozy in a seat. Notice the Cheeto mustache on Emily, boating is just not boating without the Cheeto's.

Emily and Jake after a nice cool dip in the lake. The water this day was probably about 60*. It was soooo cold, I don't think you really got used to the water, I think that you pretty much just went numb. Ali did not participate in the swimming this particular day.

Ali relaxing on the boat. I thought this picture was funny because I caught a little bubble that she was blowing.

Emily loved hanging out with Sophia, they both took a lovely nap together in the bow of the boat.

Matt was excellent with his sweet wake boarding skills as usual. The water was so smooth. There were hardly any boats on the lake.

Next up was Jaime, she did awesome for her first time.

Then Jake was up to show us all how to marathon wakeboard. He went on the longest run ever.

Ali, Emily and the Nans.

Nana bought the girls this awesome octopus float that they love to play with in the pool.

The pool has been so dead lately. I think that people must be afraid to go swimming in September it is bizarre. The water is so nice and warm and we pretty much have the place to ourselves.

We had our last trip to Lagoon A Beach three weekends ago. It was so fun to get to go and do all of our favorites again before it is closed for the winter.

It was a little cool that day so we spent a lot of time laying out on the tubes listening to the groovy tunes.

The many faces of Emily!

Need I say more!

Saturday

On Saturday we went up to Park City and rode the Alpine Coaster. It was such a nice day. It was really windy at home, so it was nice to kind of escape the tornados in the valley and be up where it was just breezy.

Emily is into giving these really tight hugs lately. As you will notice, we all got a lot of them that day. Emily was even a trooper and walked at the outlets the whole time, and up the big hill to get to the coaster. We told her that she had to get her legs strong for dance. That made her just fine about not getting out her stroller for the day.

We had lots of time while waiting to go on the coaster, so we took lots of pictures.

Emily giving Ali a nice tight hug.

Matt and Ali excited for the ride. Ali wanted to go with Matt because she wanted to go really fast, and Emily rode with me so that Matt wouldn't feel jipped out of a ride. Except once we got going Emily was a little dare devil. We went full speed all the way down the hill.

When Matt and Ali got down, I guess she was freaking out that she wanted to go again. Matt of course told her no, but just as he was telling her no a worker handed Matt five more tickets. So we all got to go down the slide a second time, and we even have a ticket left over for another time. It was awesome. The girls thought that it was their lucky day.

Cute Girls!

More Hugs.

Emily posing on the rocks.

She thought that this was really fun, I think that she could have done it all evening.

Silly Ali pretending that she was going to fall off of the rocks.

Ali took a picture of Emily and I.

After Park City we went to Ali's favorite restaraunt. The Olive Garden. It was so windy, but they had a great time waiting outside until we could be seated. They were trying to hide from the wind in this little nooky.
And then they entertained everyone by dancing on the sidewalk.

Boondocks Baby

Last Tuesday we went to Boondocks with some friends.

Emily was so excited to have a date night with Cooper.

Ali all geared up for the go-karts.

Emily playing an intense game of race cars.

Ali and her dear Minnion friend from Despicable Me. Matt was able to hit the jackpot a couple times on our best arcade game there. Both of the girls got Minnion's and a couple other prizes.

The Highlight of the night was Ali and Emily singing karaoke. When we got there we saw the people setting up for it, and she was so excited, she was going to do it for sure. We went on the go-karts and after that, they were ready to go. Ali really wanted to sing "Undo It" or "California Gurls" but they did not have those songs. So she settled for "Tonights Gonna Be A Good Night."

Here is a sampling of her sweet karaoke skills.

1st Grade

My little Ali is in first grade this year. She is so excited and happy to go to school every day. I hope that this lasts, and does not wear off once they start to have a ton of homework.

Her favorite thing about school so far is eating in the lunch room. She has chosen to take a home lunch instead of eating the school food. She sits by Alexis, which is her friend from Kindergarten, who is also in her class this year. We have been riding bikes to and from school every day with her friend Akazia who lives across the street from us. Emily loves riding in the bike trailer along with her big sis. I think that Emily is really enjoying being the princess of the house while Ali is gone at school.

Ali and Alexis waiting for the first day to begin.

My Little Brownies

Sunday night was the big "night before school starts." We also had a party that night at the clubhouse with Gramps and everyone. The girls had a blast playing with everybody. Thanks to Kenzie, they even had an awesome game of hide and go seek.

McKenzie watched the girls on Saturday night while Matt and I went to a concert. She is the best babysitter in the whole world. My mom got to our house at 8:45 and both of the girls were sound asleep in their own beds at that time. That is a miracle at our house on a Saturday night. She even frence braided their hair. They looked so cute, but they slept to wild to have them in the next day. So this is the result of braided hair the night before. It gave their hair so much body, they thought that it was pretty cool.

The tables have turned at out house, and now Emily is my little picture taker. She loves it and will always smile for me now. On the other hand, Ali is a little stinker and makes an evil glare face and walks away. I got one picture of Ali alone the whole night.