Slow Blogger

I am sorry that I have been a little slow in getting caught up in all the blogging. I do have a very good excuse though....I have been working hard and heavy on my basement, and as of yesterday, we are 90% finished. All of the walls are painted, the doors are in (they still need to be painted), and the carpet in the basement is finished (except for the stairs). I still have to do the final touch ups on the walls and floor boards, but other than that, I can use the basement. We are so excited, I have been waiting to get it finished so that I can put up the Christmas tree downstairs, (we are going to be recarpeting the upstairs in the next couple of weeks.) The girls are so excited to help put up the tree that I think they are going to burst.

I want to thank my family so much for helping us get this far in our basement, My mom has spend countless hours either watching the kids or helping me to paint and clean-up. My dad has been wonderful to help with the baseboards, casing, and banister. Tiffany and Tyler I wouldn't have any carpet without you, so I won't leave you out either. Thank you so much for all of your support during this project.

Brooklyn crawls

Ok finally here are some pictures of Brooklyn. She turned 9 months old on Thanksgiving day so to celebrate we had a great big feast at Grandma and Grandpa Roundy's house. Everyone ate too much except for Aby who could barely manage to get down her small amount of yams and potatoes. It has taken about 2 months of practice but Brooklyn has finally started to crawl (normally). For the first little while she would get into the crawl position and then stick her bumb up in the air and move a little bit that way. (see video at the bottem.)

Getting ready to crawl to mom in the hallway. (see the toung) it is always out, very cute!

Going her we go, this was one of the first times that she did a good crawl, now there is no stopping her.

You can get a really good picture of her tonge in this picture. she loves that tonog of hers, everyone in the ward just laughes and says that she is too cute, I happen to agree. (sorry if I misspell tonge I really don't know how to spell it at all.)

After mastering crawling she decided that she needs to walk, she now spends most of the day creeping along the furniture, and crying until someone will take her hands and walk with her.

As promised here is the video of the "teepee crawl" enjoy!

Ballet Practice

Aby has been takeing ballet lessons for the past few months, and is really enjoying it. One of my favorite things is when Aby will come home and teach Mckenzie some of the fun things that she is doing. Both of my girls have fun ballet clothing thanks to my cousin Jeanine who has two girls that are older than mine. Mckenzie loves to play in her ballet clothes and Aby loves to teach her.

On this day Aby had been learning how to do leaps in ballet as was more than happy to come home and help Kenzie learn how to do them. They were so cute and they not only practiced leaping over a yard stick, but also over a paint can, and a tupperware container. They both did very good.

Here is Mckenzie practicing turning with her arms up. Not sure of the name of this move.

My favorite is when they are just best friends. I couldn't ask for better kids!!!

Pinewood Derby

This year for the Elders Quorm party the theme was "The Pinewood Derby that you always wanted." Each of the elders was given a pinewood derby car and there was only 2 rules 1) No open flames, and 2) you could not touch the car once it was placed on the track. Ryan wanted to go all out and buy a motor and batteries to make it work, but didn't really have enough time. One of the guys that he works with suggested a very simple idea. tie a piece of string onto the front of the car and pull it down the track. So Ryan decided to take his car and turn it into a piece of cheese (hence the drilling of the holes) He painted it yellow, and it really did look like a piece of cheese. We called the car the "NIMH rider," or for the less literary inclined I nicknamed it "the big cheese." Suprisingly enough on the night of the big derby Ryan's car did really well. He placed in the top 5, and the winner was a person who had taken the propeller and engine from a modle airplane and placed it on the car. (it was pretty cool because it could go backwards up the track as fast as it did down the track.) Ryan did recieve the award for "the best finish" meaning the most interesting looking car.

Ryan at his best!

A lot of people don't get to see the Ryan and I do. Most of the time in public he is very business like and formal, however when you get him alone with his kids or other people that he is comfortable around his true personality comes shining thru. I love to watch Ryan interact with our kids, he is so funny and they love to jump in and play with him. On this particular day we had just gotten home from church, and I was trying to get lunch ready. I heard the kids start to laugh and tell daddy that he was silly. This is what I saw when I came out to see what was going on.

The final result with the help and creativity of the kids.

I am so greatful that I married this guy!

Halloween

This year for Halloween, Aby was all over it she knew what she wanted to be and had Kenzie pretending to trick-or-treat in the house as practice last July on. When the day finally arrived Aby and Kenzie were pretty darn excited. Aby was a glamorous witch (the prettiest witch possible), Kenzie was a fairy, and Brooklyn was a cat/lepord. All in all the kids looked very cute and we had a great time.
This is everyone sitting on the front porch getting ready to go and visit daddy's work. (this was the first year that we have been able to go and trick or treat there and the kids had a great time.) Everyone else that we saw thought that the kids were adorable, I have to agree even though I am biased I am pretty sure that my kids were the cutest ones.

This was after walking around the office area and trick or treating.

While I was talking to Ryan about when he would be coming home and such Aby and Kenzie snuck off and hid behide this big metal pole so that they could sneak some candy. I had told them they couldn't have any until we had eaten dinner at home.

Thanksgiving Point Halloween

A few years ago I decided that I wanted to start the tradition of going to a pumkin patch or a halloween carnival for the kids to celebrate Halloween. This year I got an advertisment for a samll fair at Thanksgiving point. (They also have a corn maze that is haunted, but I thought it might be a little much for my girls.) Ryan and I thought it would be fun to have Marlene come with us also, we are so greatful that she did it turned out to be a really fun night, very Cold, but fun.
Here is everyone dressed in coats and ready to play the games and have a great time. ( I am not pictured, someone has to take the picutres:)

One of the favorite things the kids could do was to ride a pony. This was the first thing that Aby and Keznie ran to, lucky for us the weather was so cold there were not very many people there that night, and Aby and Keznie were able to ride the pony's a few times.

I am pretty sure that when Kenzie gets a little bit older I am going to get asked for a horse. I just will hate to tell her that we cannot get one. Who knows maybe I will win the lottery before then and I will be able to buy her a horse.

This is the gang on the wagon ride. I kids had a great time except for Brooklyn who was freezing from the wind. We kept trying to get her warmer in our coats, but she wanted to see what was going on. It was really funny, but while we were on the wagon the "headless horseman" came over to say hi from the corn maze. He was on the biggest horse I had ever seen, and the kids were so amazed at the size of the horse, that they forgot to be scared.

After riding the hay ride, we went inside where the kids were able to decorate cookies and Halloween bags, while they were doing this there was a halloween movie playing. The kids had fun during this and Brooklyn was all for it because it was warm in the building.

This is a the very end when we were leaving, you can see the balloons that the kids got, we had a great time. Hopefully next year Brooklyn will be just a little bit happier and more cooperative about going somewhere.