The American Heritage Farm

After visiting the temple Ryan and I took the kids to visit this farm. Aby was so excited that she kept telling people we were going to visit a farm, and when we got back she would tell anyone that would listen what we did and what she saw and how much fun she had.
In this picture Ryan is playing a game that they were teaching people. You start with one stick on the back of your hand, and throw it up and then catch it, if you catch it you add another stick and throw both of them up and catch them, you keep adding sticks and throwing them and catching them until you miss a stick then you have to keep trying with the same number until you catch them all. I Know that it sounds boring, but it is actually very addicting, I had to pull Ryan away to see the rest of the farm, and the girl that was teaching the game was up to 37 sticks at one time.

This is actually a mountain man section that they have, and here Aby is petting a pelt I forgot which animal, they had several different animal pelts and let the girls feel all of them.

This was a favorite of the girls, they got to ride in a wagon pulled by horses, It wasn't a real covered wagon because they had rubber tires instead of wooden wheels, but it sure did ride a lot smoother than wagons with wooden wheels.

Kenzie Thought that she had died and gone to heaven when she was able to ride this pony around. She did great, and didn't want to get off. We almost had to leave because of the fit she threw when she found out that she didn't get to ride the pony any more.

Here is Aby on her ride, I hope that I don't have to buy a horse in the future, they cost too much money. Both of my girls really do like to ride and pet them though.

This is the petting zoo that they had, it wasn't very big but did have some fun animals to pet, how many people can say they have pet a turkey. They also had geese, ducks, chickens, and goats to pet.

Kenzie decided that since the turkey had been so nice to let her pet him that she would give the turkey her shoe to eat. This turned out not to be the best idea that she had.

You can barely see but there is our friend the turkey right in front of the bench. After Kenzie tried to feed the turkey her shoe the turkey really did think that they had food, so it cornered the girls on this bench and kept trying to peck at them. Aby thinking that she was about to be a turkey's lunch backed up onto the bench and started to say to the turkey "I am not food, I am not food." She wasn't very quiet about it either she was yelling it at the turkey. I was laughing so hard that it took me a minute to calm down and chase away the turkey. After that we felt we should leave before any other birds decied to make us their snack.

The Logan Temple

On Saturday morning of the Sullivan Family Reunion We had some time to go and do stuff as our family. So Ryan and I took the kids up to visit the Logan Temple. It was currently being cleaned so no one was there except a few other people who were just visiting the grounds. It never ceases to amaze me how much peace you can feel just by stepping onto the Temple grounds. Even Aby felt it, as we were walking around the grounds she looked at Ryan and I and said mom "It feels so nice here I love it." I am so glad that I could share that with her. I hope that her testimony of the gosple will continue to grow in strength, and that she will always be able to feel the peace that the sprit brings.
This is just a great picture of the Temple.

Here are my three little blessings in front of some flowers. Kenzie really wanted to hold Brooklyn, and we are very grateful that all went well.

This is that back of the Temple looking down on the valley. and We are sitting in front of the temple doors. I was very beautiful to look out onto the valley.

I am always being accused of not letting people take my picture, and I have been told to put it on the blog. So that is why this picture is here. I think Brooklyn was trying to figure out how to get ahold of one of the flowers.

Sullivan Family Reunion(Friday)

The Tanna and Merlin Sullivan Family reunion was held this past weekend on July 12, 13, and 14th. Many of the family members were able to attend, and it was a lot of fun. We were very sad that Jen and Ang were not able to get a flight out. I want to you know that you were missed and that you are loved. The reunion was held in Logan Utah. (A place that has special meaning to me because I lived there for 3 years, and graduated from the University there.) It is always fun to go back and relive old memories, and visit favorite sights. Great Grandma and Grandpa were very generous, and paid for eveyone who wanted to stay in the Westen Inn. This allowed us to have access to downtown Logan, and a pool.
On our first monring there we took a trip out to Richmond and visited the Peppridge Farms cookie factory. Here you can see Aby, Kenzie, and Kaylee all ready and excited to go inside and see/taste all the cookies. This turned out to be a lot of fun, and I have a lot of cookies to prove it...does anyone need any cookies?????

Later that day for lunch my sweet wonderful husband took pity on me and took me to the Bluebird restarant. This is a special place for my family. This is the resterant where my grandma and grandpa Andrus had dinner after they were married. I believe that due to circumstanses beyond control, both my grandma's parents had died the month previous to their wedding, and no one else was able to attend the ceremony. ( I will check my facts and change the story if I need to.) Anyway I really wanted to eat at this place to remember my grandparents. All would have been great except that Aby spiked a fever, and we had to pack up and leave pretty soon after we got there. I was glad that they Tylonal worked and she was up and running again by that evening.

The evening past time was swimming and playing games. Here you can see Ryan and he was swimming with the girls. (he played games later while I put the girls to bed, and worked on my RS lesson that I had to give on Sunday.)

Kenzie loves to play with daddy in the water.

Here are Keznie, Aby, and Grandma Sullivan playing in tube. Kenzie decided that she liked the tube a lot better than her life-jacket. I cannot say that I blame her, she doesn't weigh enough for her to get a regular life-jacket and the one that she has flips her onto her back.

July 4th

Monica and Aaron and their family were here on the 4th of July, so we spent the day as a big Roundy family. The day started with the Centerville parade, I wish that I had remembered my camera, because all of the kids were so cute. The parade was a lot of fun to watch, even Brooklyn enjoyed most of it only forcing mom to dissapear once for a short snack. It was funny to watch Aby and Kenzie they would get so excited about the floats and cars that they would forget to get the candy, Ryan and I had to keep reminding them to pick up the candy, luckily for us Braden and Karson got to most of the candy first. That afternoon We all packed up and headed for Morgan to Tylers Grandparents, they have a pool in their back yard, and we spent a few hours playing in the water. The day was capped off with dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Roundy's house, and a trip to the Davis High fireworks which I must say were incredable.
Here you can see Aby and daddy getting ready to go off the diving board.

Daddy goes first.

Next comes Aby, who thanks to some wonderful teachers (michelle) and lots of time spent in the water has completely overcome here fear of the water.

It took some convincing, but Ryan finally got Mckenzie off the diving board also. She is not so sure about this swimming thing at least when the water is deep, she is a fish when mom is around, or she can touch.

This is Mckenzie taking a cookie break, just don't tell Aby there were cookies and frosting by the time she finally was convinced to get out of the pool all the cookies were gone.

Here are the few the proud the last remaining in the pool, the rest of us gave up and got dressed. It was only later that night that Ryan and I realized he should have been the one to get out not me. The sunblock either didn't work very good, or came off, but he was really burned, and by the next day had blisters on both of his sholders. They were very sore, and It has only been this last week that he has finally stopped pealing and being in pain. We will be very careful in the future to have Ryan wear a shirt.

Quick catch you up on life

I know that it has been a few weeks scince I wrote, so I am going to give you a quick run down on what has been going on. (of course I will highlight the funny stories.)

My sister Monica and her kids flew into town for a few weeks at the end of June, and the first week of July, (this of course was a big factor in the Blog delay happening.) My kids were so excited to see Dominick and Kambree (sorry if I spelled the names wrong Mo) We had such a great time with them and made some very memorable memories. Aby still likes to talk about when Dominick came and played with her octopus sprinkler and star pool. She would like Dominick to know that he is invited whenever he wants. We spent one day at the new rec center pool, and Aby and Dominick turned into fish, everytime that I turned around I swear one of them was jumping into the water, going down a slide, or going underwater. (I would have pictures, but I forgot to take my camera out of the bag. (That is typical of me.)
Kenzie had a lot of fun with Kambree, and keeps asking when we are going to visit her "friend Kambree again." Of course Brooklyn loved everyone around her, and she was well loved in return.

Ok I have two funny stories to tell you about. The first on is my potty training attempt with my 2 and 1/2 year old Mckenzie. I was very determined that she would learn to go potty. She of course if very very content to stay in a diaper. If I ask her about going potty she just says "I go in biper" So I decided that this would come to an end. On Monday the 16th I "lost" all of her dipers, and put her in panties. The little stinker found a diaper and carried it around crying "I want my biper on." I did not give in, I told her that she needed to be a big girl....more crying I little I not a big girl." Finally the crying stopped and we were playing on the floor, i asked to do you need to go potty, she looks at me and says no. I checked her pants and they were wet the little stinker had peeed on the floor. Needless to say after a little bit more tantrum and crying i gave in and my little girl is still wearing a "biper."

The second story is one of my wonderful husband as he fixed the garage door that I broke on accident. This took much longer than we thought that it would, and when he was finally done, and went to open the door.....it would not open. After a few minute of humming and hawing he figured out that in staightening the door he had made it so it would not make it past a piece of wood. After figuring this out and fixing this problem he was able to get the door to open. I am so grateful, it really sucks when you cannot use the automatic garage door opener.

Brooklyn's firsts

Brooklyn turned 4 months old on June 22, and I was so excited to give her some rice cereal in hopes that she would sleep through the night???? Well I wish that I could say things had turned out that great, but.....after eating a few spoonfulls of the cereal, Brooklyn started to gag on it, so I thined it out and even that didn't help, she continued to gag. So being a good mother I quit feeding her the cereal and decided to wait a little bit longer before starting up with it again. I am pretty sure that Brooklyn is happy with that decision.

This picture is up close and person, Brooklyn did do a great job of eating off the spoon, she only would spit out a small amount.

In this picture, you can see that Brooklyn is on her side. She did this all by herself, and is getting closer to turning over onto her stomach all the time. As we watch her I am just amazed at how big she has gotten and how smart that she is.

F.H.E. play

For Family Home Evening one night I decided that we were going to put on a play instead of doing something boring. We are starting the Book of Mormon over again, and so the play we did was an angel telling Lehi to pack up his family and leave Jeruselum before he was killed. I should have know we would have problems when I asked Aby to be Nephi, and she said "mom... Nephi is a boy and I am a girl." So I decided to make her that angel. (don't tell her that the angel was probably a boy also.) Kenize didn't want to be in the play, and so Brooklyn became Sariah, and Ryan the good sport agreed to be Lehi. The play was very short, and I had to play Nephi, Sam, Lamen, and Lemual but the girls did seem to have fun doing it. (I think that next time I will try to have more people help out.) Anyway as the Angel Aby pretended to tell Lehi to leave, and then she was shy so she ran away. Lehi always the good one picked up Sariah and pretended to get ready to leave. After finishing the play we read about this in the girls picture Book of Mormon's, and then watched the movie. Aby did say that she had fun.
The Cast: Aby as the angel, Ryan as Lehi, and Brooklyn as Sariah

Here is our faithful angel telling Lehi that he must leave Jeruselum or he will be killed.

Here is Lehi and Sariah leaving Jeruselum for the safety of the wilderness. We had a great Family Home Evening that night.