Evening Fun

These were just some pictures of things that happen in the evenings around here. Nothing really monumental, just some of the fun things that we do.
The girls love to take turns holding Brooklyn, in this picture Aby is sitting in Grandma Andrus's old rocking chair with Brooklyn and talking to her.

Here Brooklyn is in one of the time that she plays on the floor. This usually only lasts for a few minutes unless her sisters, mom, or dad come and entertain her with toys and books.

Both Aby and Kenzie love to "play" the piano. Ryan will sit down a couple times a week and play hymns, childrens hymns, and a few other songs that he loves. The girls will crowd around the piano to sing and dance or to sit on dads lap and have him help them play a song. In this case Aby was playing "Behold twas Eventide."I can only hope that my kids will take after their dad and stick with piano a lot better than I ever did.

Here you can see Aby and Kenzie reading to Brooklyn on the floor. It doesn't matter which way she looks she will see pictures of different animals and books.

Here Brooklyn is looking at a book about river animals. I love the library there are so many books that my kids can get.

In this picture Brooklyn is smiling and you can just see how happy she is for the attention from her sisters.

Aby Swimming Lessons take one

This was Aby's first day of real swimming lessons, and she and I were both very excited. It had both good times and not so good times. The reason that this is called take one, is becuase after this lesson I was so frustrated with the lack of skills that the kids worked on and the inability of the teacher, that I transfered Aby to another class.

The class that I was able to transfer Aby into is taught by Andrew's Michelle and Aby and mom could not be happier. After a rough start at this first lesson, the next with Michelle went sooo good. Aby was able to float on her back and front by herself with Michelle. I will get pictures of the lessons with Michelle posted soon so stay tooned.
Here the teacher is talking to the kids and notice that no one has thier hair wet, including the teacher! I eventually went over and told Aby to put her head under the water.

I took this picture beacuse Aby was looking at me and the class was not working on anything anyway.

Here at the end of the lesson they finally started to do some kicks, and Aby was working hard at getting her feet out of the water. I also had to tell her to do that. Needless to say it was a very long half hour, and I was very frustrated by the end of the lesson.

Princess Kenzie

Lately Mckenzie has gotten into dress ups. I don't have very many, (in fact only one) but Aby has asked me to remidy that by getting more, in her words, "Mom we need to buy more dress up princess clothes." In these pictures Kenzie has put on the princess dress for some friends that were over, and is showing off. She was so cute, and so I took some pictures for everyone to see.
Here she is laughing at something that was said. Now if only she would stop acting like everyone should serve her and only her I think things would be better.

Picts of Brooklyn and Kenzie

Brooklyn looked so cute today that I decided to get some shots of her and give everyone a good look at how much she has grown. She will be two months on April 22 can you believe how fast time goes!! She isn't ready to compete with Spencer, but is getting some rolls on her legs and arms.

I love this shot! She is starting to smile, and you can just start to see the start of a smile here.

This is classic Mckenzie lately she loves to play outside, and will play in the grass and dirt, she isn't afraid of mud or bugs, but spiders do get the shoe treatment. She also falls down a lot, and will show you all the owies on her legs if you let her. You can see on her face that she was playing in the dirt and got hurt, (that is why the sippy cup). Check out the mud from the tear running down her face.

After drinking her milk she decided to help me make dinner. I looked over at one point to see why she had stopped talking to me, and found that she had layed down on the counter and fallen asleep.

Planting Plants

Aby and Mckenzie have taken to trying to plant all of the dead weeds in our yard (so that they will grow.) I tried explaining that the weeds were dead and that plants need dirt and water to grow, this only gave them the idea to take cups and bottles outside fill them with dirt, and put the weeds in them and then water them, thus creating a bigger mess. I finally decided that I would show them how to really plant flowers and how they grow. I decided to buy plants that were pretty close to flowering instead of planting seeds (they are 4 and 2 their attention span doesn't last long enough for seeds to grow.) we also decided to decorate the post with some foam stickers that I had gotten. The kids had a great time, and were so proud of thier flowers.
I helped Mckenzie with the stickers, but she loves her flower just the same. If you look close the white bud in the middle is just about to open, and she is so excited to see it open. You have got to love her face. Side note, when she sees pictures of herself, lately she will say "cute" I love it.

This picture was just too cute not to put in.

Aby is so proud of her flower, she did all the stickers herself I spelled the name out and helped her place thoes, but she did all the flowers on her own. She is getting more beautiful and growing bigger each day. Her flower has already bloomed, and I think she told everyone at church about it today she was so proud. Hopefully this will help diminish the amount of weeds that get planted and placed on my table.

Sandy Aquarium Fun

This past week I had to go and pick up some pictures in Draper, and so I decided to take the kids to the aquarium. (not big, but still fun for my kids who don't know about better ones yet.) I took Karson with us, and he and my kids had a great time. I wish that I had more pictures, but my camara batteries died, and I didn't have my spare ones in the camera bag (lesson learned!!!) I did get some great pictures of the kids with the Manta Rays. They never did touch them, but had a fun time trying.
Mckenzie loved to play in the water, and would have loved to touch the rays, but her arms are just too short. This didn't stop her from trying, and playing in the water at the same time.

The kids were so great!! Karson wanted so bad to touch one of them, but when I finally got a big one to come by us he took his hand out of the water and said it was too big, and he only wanted to touch the little one. He was so cute and funny. Later at the other hands on exhibit where they let the kids touch star fish, crabs, and sea cucumbers he told Aby to go first and would then say "you touch it first Aby then I will." I got a big kick out of this. All in all the kids had a great time. We do have a year long pass so you will probably see more pictures in the future.

The Latest pictures of Brooklyn

Enjoy these lates shots of Brooklyn, the first two were Ryan taking the pictures by himself. Enjoy them.

This was the night we set the world record of three minutes with the pacifier all by herself. Do you think there is hope for her?

Early Easter

Since Easter weekend was bad for everyone in our family we decided to have Easter a week early, plus it fit nicely with conference. The kids had a lot of fun. Thank you to Mom and Dad for letting us use their back yard.
Aby did have a basket and had a lot of fun in the hunt, you can see here how happy she is and how much fun she had. I don't know where her basket is though.

Mckenzie did a great job finding the eggs with just a little bit of help from Dad.

Look at that face and smile it doesn't get any better.

4 wheeling with the Rees Family in the Dunes

Tiffany and Tyler invited our family to come with them to the Sand Dunes, and how can you refuse a chance to play in a giant sandbox? Ok the 4 wheelers were an added incentive. We really did have a great time and were greatful for mom and dad and Tiffany and Tyler for sharing their toys with us. We had a great time.

Mckenzie after a year of being afraid of them decided that 4 wheelers were cool and fun. This year the problem was getting her off and not getting her on. She never did ride this one (mom and dad wouldn't let her) but that didn't stop her from thinking that it was just her size and pretty dang cool.

I know that it may look like I didn't ride, and I took it easy but I did take a few rides with my kids and with my husband. Brooklyn however prefered to be held and fed. This is her after a lunch time feeding, she was very content.

Dad took many rides, mainly because Kenzie wouldn't get off the 4 wheelers, and someone had to help her have a fun time. (I am pretty sure he wasn't complaining about taking her out either.) The one thing that I disovered with Kenzie is she likes to explore, but not fast, you must take it nice and slow with her or she gets scared. Aby is the speed demon who love to go fast.

Andrew and Austin Decided that mom and dad needed to get a little bit muddy, and this is the result of a trip where they were the leaders and dad was the follower. I am just glad that I didn't have to clean up the 4 wheeler later. (it took several hours to clean all three of them.)

This is mom from the same trip, She was doing great and having fun until she hit a soft spot in the mud and went over the handle bars. As the story goes Austin was the first to come to her aid, and all she could say was "I can't breath." It was only later that she realized she had not only hit her ribs when she fell, but that her upper thigh hit the handle bars on the way over, you should see the bruise it is a dooozy. We are glad that she is ok, and notice that she is still smiling I think she will continue to 4 wheel.

Yes these are the culprets of the mud and the falling. Andrew and Austin, I think Andrew just likes to play in the mud personally, look at the legs and shorts. Austin is just in it for the fun, not the mud.

This picture is just for Monica, Yes I did put my 6 week old Brooklyn down on the ground with a blanket, and you will notice that she is happy. (don't freak out she was only down there for a few minutes.)
Aby and Mckenzie have fallen in love with Michelle, and if Andrew were not engaged to her they would probably tell him to move out so they could adopt her as their sister. Here they are playing in the sand building no not a sand castle as you might think, but the Salt Lake Temple. If you look close you can see the similarities.

Kenzie the Beauty Queen

Other than just being really cute and funny there is no purpose to these pictures. I came upstairs one night and Kenzie was dressed up in her swimsuit with princess heals, and her corn dog. I couldn't get mad at her because I was laughing to hard, and the only thing I could think of was here is the next Miss America corn dog and all.

Aby Turns 4!!!

Aby turned 4 years old on March 22, 2007, and according to Karson he and Aby are now twins. This year I was brave, and gave Aby a party with her friends. This was a little bit more work than I first expected. Even though I kept the number of kids very small and limited it was still a lot of work. Aby however was thrilled, since it was one of the only things that she wanted for her birthday. She had a lot of fun and still talks about her "friend party."
We Started the party by playing some games with balloons, this quickly ended as most of the kids didn't understand how to keep the balloons up in the air, and got board.

The activity that the kids liked the most was painting their small easter egg baskets that I had given them for their treat bags. Before this we had an easter egg hunt and the kids thought that it was great.

Aby finished her basket rather quickly, and wanted to jump so she did while the rest of her friends finished their baskets. In fact it took a lot of convincing to get her to come over for this picture.

When all of the baskets were done all of the kids decided that they wanted to jump or swing. The way that our back yard is set up we have combined it with the neighbors so that we have more room. The ward joke is you will know when we start feuding because we will put up a new fence.

After painting we went inside for cake and ice cream. I had some toys the kids could play with also, and they had a great time. It was funny but after the party and everyone had left I started to clean up and realized that all of the kids ate the frosting and not the cake....oh to be a kid again.

Opening the presents with some of her friends around. The present she is opening is from Brooke the one flipping her pony tails. It was a really cute magnet story set with a Dora theme.

This is Aby showing off one of the presents that she got from mom and dad. A new pair of Tennis shoes. (the others were a size too small.) She loves them. She also got a pair of pink crock sandalls, but at the time one of them was lost I found it a few days later behind the toilet while I was cleaning. How it got there is still a mystery to me, and why Aby didn't know where to find it only she can tell.

At the end of the party I got everyone together for a group shot the boy in the front is our back door neighbor and one of Aby's best friends, they play together almost everyday. He is really much closer to Kenzie's age, (21/2) but is very advanced and prefers to play with Aby, although he also loves to play with Kenzie. The other kids are Lexi, Brooke, Aby, Maddi, Keashea,(the resident drama queen.) and Kenzie.

Because Ryan had a release the night of Aby's birthday, we waited until Sunday to give Aby her present from Mom and Dad I am definatly a Roundy when it comes to wrapping, but it was rather big! Ryan was getting ready to leave for some training in San Fransico that day so we had to wake her up from a nap, that explains the drugged look.

When she saw what was under the blanket she was much more awake and happier. Aby has wanted a princess table with a chair for her and a chair for Kenzie since about a week before Christmas. I finally found one that we could afford on the internet.

Aby and Kenzie love the table and chairs.

Spring has arrived at the Sullivan Household

our family was most likely the most excited for spring to arrive as it had been a long winter. I didn't really let the kids go outside a lot because everytime I let Mckenzie outside I ended up in the doctors office the next week with bronchitis, and had to put her back on the Nebulizer. So needless to say even if they had to wear jackets and coats outside, the snow was gone and my kids were going to play. The Trampoline was added to our yard thanks to Grandma Roundy who gave it to Aby and Mckenzie for Christmas. The kids love it and play on it daily. It and the bikes have been my salvation this spring.

Ryan and Mckenzie playing on the trampoline. Kenzie had a great time and Ryan got lots of good excersize. I am so greatful for the small moments that Ryan gets to spend with his kids, they love him so much and he is such a wonderful daddy to them.

I call this the movie star photo, we found some sun glasses for Aby and she is the coolest kid on the block with them on.

Aby is learning to ride the scooter that Santa gave her for Christmas, she isn't as good at Braden and Karson yet, but she is doing pretty good. She was thrilled to finally get a chance to ride it outside on the front sidewalk.