Stormy Aytes

A few weeks ago while Taylor was spending the day/night with Hope I got a call from her begging for a pet bunny. Her friend Kaleigh's bunny had babies and there was only a few left. After thinking it over for a day or so and talking to Kym about what all was required when having a bunny as a pet we relented. Taylor was so excited and Caleb and Madison caught the "excitement bug" also. The would ask every day if we were getting the bunny that day. Well today was the day! Hope picked Taylor up from VBS and they went to purchase the bunny's hutch and all the stuff that goes with a bunny and then they went to get the actual bunny. They came home a few hours later and Taylor hasn't stopped smiling yet. The other 2 were pretty excited too, Madison even held the bunny and gave it a kiss :)

The kids checking out the bunnies. This is the black one that we ended up not keeping.


Putting the hutch together


Here is Stormy




Taylor and Stormy


I love the look on Caleb's face :)


Madison couldn't stop giggling :)

Smokey Mountain Trip with the Tomlinson's

Two weekends ago we had the pleasure of taking a mini vacation with our wonderful friends Aaron, Amy and their 2 girls Clara and Coy and also Amy's niece Kaleigh. We have vacationed with them before except normally it is a parents only trip, well except Coy who has accompanied us due to either being in the womb or nursing both of which make it hard to leave her at home :) Taylor was so excited to learn that Kaleigh was coming as that gave her a play mate. I have to give credit where it is due as we were able to take this "vacation" thanks to Matt's parents timeshare. They booked 5 days at the resort but were only able to use 2 of them b/c they were keeping 1 of the grandsons for a week and therefore had to go home.

We had the most relaxing weekend of movie watching, talking, swimming and eating. We normally have eaten out once on previous trips but with 6 kids under the age of 9 we opted to eat all our meals in since we had a huge kitchen.

Madison being silly


Kaleigh and Taylor enjoying the indoor pool right after we got there


Aaron and Coy enjoying the pool...or at least Aaron was, Coy warmed up to it later.


My little fish going all over the pool :)


Me and my little boy...the only proof I was there was this picture!


The Tomlinson family (I think this should be their Christmas card photo)


Sweet baby Coy loved the little pool


Aaron being goofy :)


Caleb, Kaleigh and Taylor enjoying the hot tub


Matt and Caleb doing a little male bonding in the hot tub :)


We had the baby pool all to ourselves most of the time


Matt and Madison playing in the pool


Aaron giving Clara and Madison a "ride" around the baby pool


Clara playing in Coy's float...Madison and Clara loved sitting in this baby float :)

Dollywood

Last week we were thrilled to be able to spend a day with some long time friends who were up here vacationing from Memphis. We met up with them at Dollywood on Tuesday and enjoyed spending the whole day with them. Our kids had a wonderful time together and acted like they had been best friends for ever when in fact they have only meet each other a few times and never have spent more than a few hours total together :) That is kids for you though. I have known Jennifer and John all my life, we grew up going to school and church together. Kaitlyn and Taylor are 6 months apart as are Kyle and Caleb. If she only had one that was Madison's age it would be perfect but Madison enjoyed playing with Susan and Shane's little girl Jade who is almost 3 (we last saw Jade when she was only a few weeks old and they came up here for a UT football game). Anyway here are a few pictures from our day together, I wish I had more but our camera acted up on us and froze up....luckily Matt got it working once we were home but we missed out on some cute shots. They will just have to come back so we can re-enact the day, hint hint Jennifer :)

Taylor shooting people with water guns on the River Battle ride


Caleb, Kyle and John having a blast shooting people


Madison was trying to do what the bigger kids but wasn't quite big enough :)


Trying to get a photo of all the kids....it didn't work to well :)


The Little Loggers area is one of the kids favorite places to cool off by playing in the water.







Enjoying cooling off in Dolly's Imagination Forest