Family Time

Brooks made it in Friday evening, late, and I was beyond words excited about him coming home.  I surprised him with a special evening and I got us a hotel room at the local resort here in LC so we could have some time just the two of us.  It was a relaxing evening, we got to sleep in, and then had breakfast the next morning together before heading to my parents house to see Gavin.  Gavin was just as excited as I was about getting to see Brooks.  He was waiting outside in the driveway for us and when he saw Brooks he just danced around and was all giddy. 

**Scroll down to the bottom and pause the music so you can hear Gavin.

After lots of hugs and kisses, we put our bathing suits on and headed to the pool to meet the rest of my family.  As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, we've been spending a lot time in a pool lately and having a lot of fun!  Gavin loves being in the water and swimming around in the big pool.  He has really gotten good too and even went from making you hold his hand to now getting upset if you are holding onto him.  Brooks loved getting to watch him "swim" and kick his feet and jump in the water.  Here's a picture of Gavin doing his "new thing"- for some reason he enjoys sticking his tongue out of his mouth.  I'm not quite sure where he learned this from, but I'm hoping it is a very short stage.

Here's our first family picture in a long time where EVERYONE is in the picture.  We really had a fun morning getting to visit and swim together.  The 2 babies, Audrey and Liam even swam a little.  

The 3 "big" kids were hungry!  Neve, Gavin, and David

Kimmie, David, Liz, and Neve splashing in the pool

Brooks really wanted to take one of my dad's recipes back with us to Saudi so he ended up cooking our dinner Saturday night in order to learn how to cook my dad's Smothered Chicken.  My dad gave Brooks the recipe a few months ago, which Brooks made for some of our friends one evening, however, the recipe didn't exactly turn out like my dads.  Now, Brooks knows exactly what to do the next time he makes this meal.  PS: Did you notice Brooks' beard?  This is his first time to have one since we've been married (I think) and I LOVE it! 

We got a picture with all 5 of the grand kids/cousins together and this was just too cute for words.

Liam (6 weeks), Audrey (4 months), David (14 months), Gavin (23 months), Neve (2 1/2 years)

Liam and Audrey did great during their photo shoot.  Aren't they just precious?