These are just 2 pictures that Twila sent to me that she took.  Two cute kiddos!

 

My mom wrote this poem about thier float they did for the celebration:

The Lord commanded us to go and build a float.
Why us, we asked, because we are just old folks,
Because we’re kind of crippled, our kids wondered why,

But we were courageous and this was our reply:

Chorus 

“We will go; we will do the thing the Lord commands.
We know the Lord provides a way; He wants us to obey.
We will go; we will do the thing the Lord commands.
We know the Lord provides a way; He wants us to obey.”

The bishop gave us a call and ask us to obey.
Sometimes we are tempted to choose another way.
When we were discouraged, and thought we could not try,
We were just courageous, and we did reply:

Chorus 

“We will go; we will do the thing the Lord commands.

We know the Lord provides a way; He wants me to obey
We will go; we will do the thing the Lord commands.
We know the Lord provides a way; He wants us to obey.”

Our float turned out quite good, thanks to Dad’s great plan.
Also, lots of family pitched in to make it grand.

We have many pictures that show that we did try
We’re glad we were courageous and this was our reply

Chorus 

“We will go; we will do the thing the Lord commands.

We know the Lord provides a way; He wants me to obey
We will go; we will do the thing the Lord commands.
We know the Lord provides a way; He wants us to obey.”

This Little Piggie

It is almost fair time again.  We got some picture of the kids with their pigs.  They are not the easiest to photograph!!!

 Tylinn doesn't have a pig but she LOVES animals.  She can't wait for the year she gets to have an animal in the fair.  She is the girl who yesterday I caught giving Tink a kiss on the side of Tink's face.  She just loves animals!

Gone

We said good bye to our Jessica as she headed off to EA on Saturday.  All of us think we are her favorite.  She will be missed but we look forward to weekends she gets to come home and see us!  She is such a great example to all of us!  We love you Jess!

Lunch

For the past couple of years Sarai has had lunch for the moms the first day of school.  It's great.  Bring 5 bucks and she has pizza and salad there for us.  This year the first day of school I told Bridget and Dustin I wouldn't be there for lunch. Dustin asked me where I would be.  I told him the moms party the first day of school.  He said "no mom really where are you going to be".  I guess he didn't think mom's would really have a party the first day of school!

Sisters

Last weekend we had our sisters weekend.  We stayed in Payson again this year.  Friday we went to Sedona for lunch and to see what was at the outlet mall there.  It was fun but the shops there have died out since I we lived there.

Here we are eating lunch.

 Hanging in out the room.

 Some of the pictures of hanging out in the room cannot be put on my blog....although I should because there are some I am not in - but I am not that mean!!

 Brooke was the lucky one to come to AZ this year with LeAnne. She stayed at Grandma Nena's house during our sisters time.  We had fun with her staying here during her 3 week stay.

 And back to back.  I guess I am shorter then everybody but my mom.  But not by much!!!

It was tons of fun as usual with lots of food and laughing! Can't wait until next year!

Frist Day of School

Here are my cute kidos all ready for school.  We didn't do anything too exciting this summer so we were all ready for school to start!  I did get sad when I was walking Tylinn and Kaylee into their classroom and Kaylee was telling me how much she was going to miss me.  She was a little worried going from 1/2 day Kindergarten to full day.  She did just fine as I knew she would. It is crazy having an 8th grader. Bridget is all dressed up for school, makeup and all.:(  Bridget and Dustin are way excited both of them are in Jr. High together and both in Student Council together.

Bridget 8th Grade

 Dustin 7th Grade

 Rhett Man 5th Grade - Mrs. Maner

 Tylinn 3rd Grade -  Mrs. Cronin

 Kaylee 1st Grade - Mrs. Honsinger

We had a good morning with everybody getting ready so fast.....if only every morning of school went this good!  We are excited about all the kids teachers and classes.  Dustin is way excited to be able to walk to school and home from lunch.  He is loving football and Bridget is excited to start softball today.  Rhett is looking forward to wrestling season.

11 Years Old

Our Mr. Rhett Man turned 11 last week.  He loved what he got for his birthday.

His most favorite thing was his survival knife that he wanted.  He got a few things that he his going to need for his camp outs now that he is a boy scout.

 I met Kelli in Payson to get Brooke and Bridget who had been down in Mesa for a while.  I took Rhett with me so we could do a little grocery shopping and go to lunch.  He picked Mackeys for lunch.  On our way home we stopped at Patricks Pond and met the Maners, Horns and other McLaws' there for a cookout and crawdad fishing.

 It was so much fun!  The kids caught tons of crawdads.  I decided if you don't care about eating fish, crawdads are the way to go.  They caught 100s of them.

 Rhett with Jessica.  These two love each other (I guess we all love Jessica).  Too bad she isn't 8 or 9 years younger!!

 Had our yummy hamburgers and hot dogs.

 Then on to smores.

It was a really fun day.  Rhett said the next day over and over how much fun he had for his birthday.  So if the birthday boy is happy it is a success. 

Rhett is a very happy boy.  He is always (well almost always) willing and happy to help with anything.  We are so grateful to have Rhett in our family!

Not sure

Hmm not too sure who these girls are or where they came from......

It must be time for school to start!!

Pioneer Celebration

Saturday was the usual Pioneer Day Celebration in Snowflake.  The morning started out with Bruce running the 10k there.  I didn't have my camera with me.  I didn't want to run it and didn't have time to get me and the kids all ready so Bruce ran it.  Rhett, Tylinn and I went to the finish line.  Bruce did awesome as usual running it with a 7.22 min mile.  He ended up 6th overall and 3rd in his age group.

Next were the kids races at the church.  These pic didn't turn out too good.  Here is Kaylee....

 Tylinn's race.  She is in the white shirt.

 And Rhett Man in the white shirt.

 My mom and dad were asked to do a family float in the parade.  They weren't very excited about it at all but the bishop asked so they accepted.  They had all the grand kids ride on it.  They thought it was great to be in the parade this year. 

 The float was really cute.  It was this cloud with snowflakes coming down.  On the back it said "What a Storm".

It was a very different year having all of our kids on the float so there were only very few little ones even watching it with us.  I told my mom I was going to tell their bishop that they need to do that a float every year so grandma and grandpa can take care of kids during the parade. 

After the parade it was back to G & G's house.  Bruce and I ended up coming home that afternoon and leaving the kids there.  We came home to help Scott and Amanda move.  They moved into the Tenney's house in our neighborhood.  The kids stayed there with all the cousins and spent the night. Bruce and I  met them at church the next morning.

Flake Rodeo

Last Friday we were fortunate to attend the annual Flake Family Rodeo, which is all the decendents of William Jordan Flake.  It is the same thing year after year but the kids love it year after year, which is understandable because I remember loving going to this rodeo.  This year was  little different with Reed having a broken leg our family didn't even have a horse at the rodeo.  Reed is the cowboy in the family and does the roping so anything the kids did this year was without a horse.  The kids running their races.  No wonder the Flakes are such fast runners, they have had years and years of practice at all the reunions (ha ha!)

 They did the boot race where the kids took off their boots and put them in a big pile, went back to the starting line and they said go.  The first kid to go down, get their boots/shoes on and run back across the line won.  Here is Tylinn trying to get her boot on.

 Dustin and Rhett (both in red) heading down to find their shoes.

 Dustin ended up taking 2nd in this race.  If he would have had his shoes all the way on he could have ran faster and won but it's hard to run with your shoes only half way on!!

 Rhett Man had a hard time finding his shoes.  I guess somebody took off with his so it took him a while to find them.

 Rhett and Austin and Dustin and Taylor did the stick keg race.

Dustin and Taylor got 4th place in this and Rhett and Austin got 2nd.  It was fun rodeo.  They did really good this year to get the kids involved.  We have got to keep these little ones excited about this rodeo so they can carry on the tradition.