A Fantastically Fabulous Family Reunion Full of Fun in Florida!

What a blast!!!! We had a great little family reunion, but were very sad my brother Scott and his family couldn't be with us. But with a son that is about to enter his SENIOR year of High School I can understand that a smaller immediate family vacation is needed! We will have to have them next time. And YES there has to be a next time because this was way too much fun! We had 21 of us in total including 2 babies that I hadn't met until this trip. Brayden is now 8 months and Max just 7 weeks old and they were the BEST little babies ever! Gavin couldn't get enough of them and always wanted to hold them :)

We had planned to stay the whole week in some cabins located in our church ranch, but when I was just there for girls camp there were tons of bugs and we were afraid the babies shouldn't be out there too long. So we only stayed there one night and the rest of the time my good friend Amy was going to let us use her house while she and her family are out in Utah visiting family. BUT plans changed because we were having WAY to much fun staying up talking, laughing, and watching the kids dance and no one wanted to leave! So instead we had all 21 people here in my little house! I can't believe it worked and that everyone was so gracious and flexible as they had to lay air mattresses out and then put them back up the next morning so we could walk around. It was great to have everyone here in my home. My house really felt like a home with Grandma sitting at the piano playing a duet with my niece Brynlie, Grandma reading to the grand kids, kids running around giggling and having fun. I enjoyed every minute of our time together! Here are TONS of pictures...you will feel like you were there after seeing all the pictures I posted. I actually think I did pretty good at only picking a few considering between my sisters and I we had almost 900 pictures :)

Here's some of the fun things we did....

Friday Gatorland

Saturday Clearwater Beach

Sunday, July 12th - I somehow convinced my family to sing I Am A Child of God with me in church :) THANKS FAMILY!

Monday, July 13th - headed to the church ranch. There was a fun RUSTIC water slide (or should I say MUD slide), canoeing, and the kids favorite CATCHING FROGS! I'm guessing they caught more than 200!

Tuesday, July 14th - played at the ranch some more.

Wednesday, July 15th - Disney World!

Thursday, July 16th - New Smyrna Beach and we celebrated my niece Savannah's 5th birthday! What a fun party!

Friday, July 17th - Rock Springs for tubing

Saturday, July 18th - The Rose resort for relaxing and togetherness and that night Matt and I had to chaperone a Stake Dance and so we took my nephew Tyson. And after all the fun things we did all week I think the dance was the highlight for him :)

Sunday Tyler and Anna and their family had to leave :( And then Kim and Morgan blessed their baby Max in our ward! How fun was that!

Monday everyone started to leave me :( And by Tuesday they were all gone....back to real life. It is WAY too quiet!

Did I mention my family got to experience many of the Florida thunderstorms!

I couldn't believe my brave little Luke wanted to go sit on the gator!

Yes this is all the men on the slide...very funny site to see them make a HUGE splash at the bottom in the mud!

I couldn't get enough of holding my cute little nephew MAX! What a sweet little babe!

Brayden was so happy the whole day!!!!!! He always had this little grin on even when it was sweltering hot and soooo humid! What a little trooper!

I'm sooo sad it's over but glad for all the fun memories we made! We missed you Scott, Becky, Danny, Devin, Kaelie, Dallen, and Karissa! We will have to do it again!

Luke's first basketball game!

Luke had his first basketball game and he was the FIRST one to make a basket! I was so excited for him. They have these poor little guys playing on a standard 10 foot high basket. Talk about challenging! But they did a great job and I was VERY proud of Matt for the great coaching! It was fun to have my family there...Grandpa was nice enough to help with the scoreboard and Luke had the biggest cheering section :)

Happy 4th of July!!!!!!!!!!!

We had such a great 4th of July...it started VERY early. I had to pick up our babysitter at 6:00 a.m. and then we went to the Watermelon Run 5K in Winter Park. What a trooper our babysitter Kim is to get up that early and then when we got there there were THOUSANDS of people and we had to park about 1/4 mile away and walk to the starting line. Little did she know she would be going the distance :) The kids had a blast doing the kids run. I was amazed at how far Luke's group ages 6 and up had to go. They probably ran 1/4 mile and he did great. And then Emma did AWESOME, even with not feeling great. She started out at the back of the pack and totally caught me off guard when she was the second person behind the lead bike! Wow she is fast! Then there's Gavin....he's not quite into the kids runs yet :) He wasn't thrilled but Matt helped him across. Fun day.

Then we went to some friends house for the rest of the day to swim and barbecue and do fireworks. I love the 4th!

Also Happy Birthday to my dear Grandpa Searle who left us about 11 years ago. I love you Grandpa and appreciate all you did for our country and our family!

Gavin was giving Emma a pep talk :)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Terribly cute twos!

Usually it's the terrible twos but Gavin is so dang cute right now that he is constantly melting my heart! Here are a few of my favorite 2 year old moments...


Tonight when we were leaving the church after the Young Womens activity Luke and Emma wanted to stay and watch Matt play basketball. So I let them and told Gavin he had to come with me. He kept saying he wanted to stay but when I got him in the car I told him he should come home with me, to which he replied "Ok let's go home and snuggle"!!!!!!!!! OOOOOOO I could squeeze him all day long!


He is so funny because he has this new fake laugh that cracks everyone around him up. My mom couldn't stop laughing when he would do it while she was here.


He plays this funny little game, that does get old after a minute, he asks where everyone is, even if they are standing right in front of him. Then when I do it back to him and ask "Where's Gavin" he says "right here" but in a voice like DUH!


The cutest is when he says "SHHHHHH" and then he tip toes around.


Sometimes he'll come up to me and say "Just give me a hug". And I love that he still loves to kiss me!

He is constantly singing...his list of songs consists of Old McDonald, Farmer in the Dell, Jingle Bells, ABC's, Bingo, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.


All the neighbor kids love to play with him and loves to chase them, tackle them, and follow them around and try to do whatever they are doing. He usually ends up getting dressed up by all of them.


Today Luke and Emma weren't home and my poor little neighbor Nicholas was so BORED that he finally came over and resorted to playing with Gavin. Gavin was in HEAVEN! Nicholas still gets so bugged with Gavin because he STILL calls him his sisters name...BROOKE! Nicholas rolls his eyes each time. :)


Gavin is in love with his little toy horses and today when I was playing with him, his horse came up to mine and said in a low voice "What are you doing?" As I'm typing it it doesn't sound funny but the way he does it cracks me up.


I love that my kisses still cure and sooth every owey that he gets! He got his tubes out today and was so good while they did it. The second one hurt while they were tugging it out and he was crying but stopped immediately after I kissed his ear :)

He is so darn smart, we got out of the car on a cloudy day and he looks up and says "It's going to rain".


Oh I love my little boy!