the beginnings.

so just a little while ago, i was laying on the bed watching a movie on the computer when the sirens went off. i did not think much of it because it was so nice here. sunny and bright. no bad weather all day. i honestly thought that they must be testing them or something. after a few minutes i decided to get up and see what was going on. i looked out our bedroom window and this is what i saw. 

a tornado starting to form right outside our neighborhood. i could not believe it. 

i yelled down to garran to get the kids in the pantry. 

he asked why and i said "oh there is just a tornado outside". 

we watched it for a bit and then it slowly went back up into the sky. 

it was the craziest thing. 

i know it is not a massive tornado but it was still wild. 

i always thought you needed storms for torndos. i guess not.

9 months

9 months of pure love and joy!

Ayla has been such a wonderful addition to our family.

she has blessed our lives in more ways than we could ever know. 

plus she is just about the cutest thing we have ever seen!

(Well with the exception of our other three kids!)

Family Pictures....Again

ok. well i have edited them all I am going to be able to. 

now I just have to make the cd/dvd's and get them in the mail to everyone. 

i also made a collage of them for our house and framed it. i think it came out so cute. 

I am really happy with it.

ok so here we go.

i think we will go in age order.

starting with the oldest sibling. 

this is garran's sister jerusha and her husband joe.

this is their family

(left to right)

front row: shaleigh, jadelyn, blaine, alyna, toby

back row: Joe, Jerusha, tessa, brina

Garran's sister Britt, and her husband Dennis

and here they are with their cute girls. 

Dennis, Britt, Charleigh and Piper

Garrans sister Michaela and her husband Joey

this is their family

michaela, julia, joey, alex

katie, Ben

haley

Garran and Meg

Our Crew.

Meg, Ayla, Garran

Cullan, Briea, Kael

Garran's sister Silara....

ain't she perr-ty!

and the baby of the family...

Sam

Last but not least

Grandma and Grandpa

now on to the group photos!

Siblings

Siblings and Parents

Parents, Siblings and Spouses

Grandma & Grandpa

18 Grand Kiddos

The Whole Group!!

Family Reunion Pictures Done!

They are not perfect but everyone is in them. 

I could fuss over them forever, because that is just part of my personality. However with this many kids and adults i have learned sometimes you just have to get what you can get. 

I am happy with seeing everyone together. 

I know it has been a long time since that had happened and might be a while before it happens again. 

Family Reunion

Gatlinburg TN

2011

I thought I would add one more. I fixed this one because the original looked like Grandpa had a tree sticking out of his head. I think it is a cute picture. The quality is not the same because I took it on my ipod, but still cute all the same.

like father like son.

garran is an amazing husband. sometimes I don't know if i say that enough. he is very sweet and thoughful to me. on mornings when he does not have to work, he usually will surprise me with breakfast in bed. 

(he is a very early riser. i am not. i mean I get up when the kids get up, but he is just naturally an early riser)

on that note. cullan is also an early riser, so they often are the first ones up and spend some time together in the morning. 

cullan watches everything Garran does and really looks up to him.

so on to the explanation of this picture. 

the other morning Garran left for work around 7:00am. 

I was awake but still laying in bed. I was just kind of hanging out with Ayla. Garran came in to tell me that he was leaving and that cullan was downstairs watching some cartoons.

We said good bye and he left. about 20 minutes later i hear someone banging around in the kitchen, so i decided to start heading that way.

however before i could get ayla dressed and down stairs cullan brought this to me in my room.

like father like son.

so sweet.

he said "mom, i made you breakfast!"

yogurt, a roll, and yes that is ketchup. 

ketchup is his favorite. he puts it on everything. i was not at all surprised to see it on the plate!

i showed garran this picture when he got home and i asked if he had mentioned anything to cullan about it. he said that he had not. this was a cullan original. 

i sure love my boy!!

this kid.

this kid cracks me up daily.

so Kael calls dessert "ba-zert".

so the other night garran was going to let the kids have a popsicle and he said, 

"hey do you guys want some ba-zert"

cullan looks at him and says, 

"dad, its duh-zert, its starts with DUH!"

we both were laughing so hard. not only is this kid funny, he has great comedic timing!

SurPrisE !!

last night we went to go have a surprise party for our friend Jason who was turning 30!!

seems like more and more of our friends are joining the club ;0)

anyways, i think it was a hit. i am pretty sure that he had no idea there was anything planned.

 here he is with his sister and son walking through the door. 

SURPRISE!!

 we had the party at our other friends house the Marcums, or as our kids call them, The Markers.

they have two adorable dogs. Briea fell in love with Rocky. He was so good. He would just let her love on him and follow him around.

 We had a nice time chatting and enjoying the YUMMY salsa Trisha had made.

 After dinner of course it was time for cake. Here is Jason's wife Becca bringing the cake out to him.

 it took a couple tries but he got them all out. ;0)

 here is the party crowd minus me. i don't mind taking the pictures ;0)

 after we took the group picture a few people had to leave. so when we went back inside we opened presents. can you tell how excited the boys are. they were right there wanting to help. our gift was a little different and home made. However the kids and I had a fun time putting it together.

I saw a version of this online and thought it was cute. Its our family, wishing Jason Happy 30th! The kids thought it was Hilarious!

 After presents we all just sat around and chatted for a little longer. It was nice to get to just hang out and let the kids play. I feel like we rarely get together with friends.

see, this just proves how much fun we had. Ayla just passed right out while Trisha was holding her. 

Thanks so much for such a fun evening friends!!

ps. Happy 30th Jason!

just a few more.

I am still catching up on family reunion pictures. I took the family pictures down because i was not done working on them. i will repost them when i have finished them.

anyways i just wanted to post about some of the crazy things we saw while in Tennessee!

this fella was outside our front door one morning. 

i think he was even bigger in real life. 

have i mentioned i hate spiders!!

we also were lucky enough to see the illusive "Big Mouth Frog" while we were there.

i did not get a picture, but i did get a video. i am keeping it safe since i hear it is pretty rare to see one. ;0)

on the day we were all leaving to go home, we stopped with garran's sister Britt and her husband Dennis here.

Dennis had been really excited about trying this the whole trip. so we wanted to go and watch!

Here is a link to him Zorbing down the hill!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rykIHOdMMpg

It was pretty fun to watch.

After this we left for the long drive home.

Party time!!

Thursday was also a special day because it was Aunt Silara's Birthday!

Uncle Dennis made her a special cake and we all got to sing Happy Birthday to her.

 Here she is with the cake that Dennis made.

 Dennis and Silara with the yummy cake.

It was a rainbow cake. Silara got a huge piece because she was the birthday girl!!

Jadelyn also had a birthday two days after the family reunion. We sang to her the same way the day that we all left, however i did not have my camera out, so i missed it. ;0(

Clingman Dome & Mingus Mill

~CLINGMANS DOME~

on thursday we caravanned through the mountains to Clingmans Dome. it is the highest point on the Appalachian trail.

 here was a snap shot of where we started. have i mentioned how much i LOVE the mountains.

 here are a few of the kids at the base of the hike. from where we parked it was a half mile hike pretty much straight up hill.

 some of our group coming up the trail.

 grandma took a turn carrying ayla up the mountain. ayla was enjoying the ride! grandma said at one point she was pulling her hair like a pony. "getty up!" 

 They had different areas to stop and rest along the way. Here are Uncle Joey, Julia and Alex taking a breather.

 even though Ayla was not walking, i guess she decided she needed to steal grandpas walking stick.

 woo hoo! we made it to the top. doesn't everyone look so excited! 

 same with this group. i think everyone was enjoying the view. it was cloudy but still pretty.

 kael and alayna. kael decided he was going to marry her. we will have to discuss how cousins work later. ;0)

 toby and cullan. 

ok. cullan followed toby around all week. he is still talking about him. he wanted to wear his phineas and ferb shirt this day because he say that toby was wearing one also. i thought it was really cute. 

 i wanted to get a family picture with the beautiful mountains behind us. this was the best we could do. this was after we came back down the mountain. oh well. after 5 shots i gave up. At least everyone is in the picture, right?

 Ayla was such a good baby the whole time. Just happy as can be. She did not complain one bit. she would just ride in her back pack and smiled and squealed the whole time.

 Garran and I. (any Ayla)

 see. such a happy baby! i love those teeth!

 Aunt Britt and Brina hanging out after we got back down to the bottom.

 tessa, aunt jerusha, garran and ayla

 cullan walking down the mountain with me.

 aunt jerusha, uncle joe and jadelyn. the "caboosees" as cullan calls them.

 Grandma and Grandpa

coming back down the mountain.

we had a little trouble with our breaks on the way down the mountain. it is not hard for that to happen driving up and down those steep hills. so we had to pull over for a bit and rest them. i was worried about causing more damage if we continued on, so we just waited and gave them a little rest. while we waited the group moved on to the picnic area. we met up with them later and had some lunch and then moved on to our  next destination.

~MINGUS MILL~

mingus mill was a fun little farm. it was set up to show how things were done a long long time ago! it was fun for the kids to be able to run around. they had animals on the farm that were running around and in pins. it was great.

this was the family house. it was not very big, but i am sure it served their purpose just fine. 

kael was so funny. we were checking this house out together. i said, "Kael, what do you think of this house?" he said, "it is old. we can not have this house it is just to old".

 Kael by the kitchen.

 here are charleigh and breia checking out the chicken coup.

 can you imagine working your farm every day with this view. i am sure it did not make the work any easier but at least you would have a nice view.

 garran and I trying to get a picture together. at the last minute ayla decided to join us. 

 more shots of their view.

 the back part of the farm from a distance.

i have so many pictures from our trip, i could never blog them all. i might just post one big album on facebook. we will have to wait and see. this was our last full day in the mountains, but we still had a lot to do. more post to come!!