Dishing Soup...

Spencer's brother, Aaron, and his wife, Emily, along with their 5 kiddos, Victoria, Madelena, Emma, Elijah & Malachi, were just in town for a couple of weeks visiting from Uruguay. They arrived the last week of June (while Spencer and I were still on vacation in Hawaii) and Emily and the kids just left last week; Aaron will be sticking around for another week or so for business matters.

Since they've been in Uruguay now for a couple of years and only make it to the states for a visit once every year, the Campbell's like to organize a lot of get togethers- particularly for the kids, so that they can spend time with their cousins they don't get to see too often. Aaron's boys are about the same age as Noah and Ian. Elijah is 4 1/2 years old and Malachi is 3 1/2, just a few months younger than Noah. Poor Ian kept being mistaken by Malachi for being older than he really is- I'm pretty sure Malachi didn't understand half the time why Ian wouldn't just talk back to him! It didn't help when I tried to explain to Malachi that Ian's still a baby and still learning to talk. The kid just barely turned two, but he's already bigger than Malachi!

While the Campbell's were in town, we made a trip to the Dinosaur Museum with them; a trip to Chuck E. Cheese (which I won't lie- I used to LOVE the place as a kid, but now it just grosses me out- the food, the games, and that ball pit! Ball pits freak me out cuz there's always some kid that pees in them and I'm afraid of finding a poo log in one too!), a night of pizza, karaoke and dancing; a fiesta at the park that carried on for 18 hours! (we didn't mean to be party poopers, but we left after 3 hours) and TWO sleep overs with all the boy cousins at Grandma and Grandpa Campbell's house.

And of course... since it's a rare treat to actually have ALL of the Campbell Clan together at one place and during one time, Linda made us take some family pictures (solely for the intention of using one of these pictures for her Christmas cards she'd be sending out to a thousand family and friends this upcoming Christmas). We took 100 pictures. No joke, I'm not exaggerating, we took 100 pictures and this was the BEST group shot we took...

Okay... so sure, Spencer and Emma both have their eyes closed and Noah, LINDA, Ian, Elijah, Malachi and Cohen are all looking at something other than the camera; but other than those few individuals I named, the rest of us look good... that is if you consider being fat and swollen from pregnancy kinda cute- I'm ENORMOUS and I HATE to think that this is how I'll see myself for the next year any time I have to look at one of Linda's Christmas cards or family calendars she has made for us.

Out of 100 pictures, that was the BEST family picture we took as a family, but with any luck, Linda will probably forget about it and send out this picture in Christmas cards instead...

it's our WORST one!

Not 1 person was paying attention to the photographer. Noah's bugging Ian, Les is restraining Elijah from going "a wall" (just kidding), Megan and I are fixing our blouses/cardigan, Spencer and John are worried about Elijah going "a wall", Malachi absolutely REFUSES to look in the camera's direction... better yet, Laura and Aaron, two of Linda's OWN children, aren't even present IN the picture! My bets remain the same though; out of 100 pictures, I'll bet you Linda puts this one on her Christmas card and not the first picture I showed you.

Les and Linda also wanted just a picture with all of their grandchildren. With the exception of the 1 I'm carrying in my tummy, this would be all of them, minus Emily standing in the back row holding Malachi who's weeping over her shoulder.

(the kids who's names are in blue belong to Aaron & Emily, and the other 3 who's names are in green belong to us).