Brooklyn's accomplishments

Brooklyn is growing up, and I am not so sure that I like this plan. I enjoy that she is interacting more with me and her sisters, and her dad (that is her favorite), but I miss some of the small baby things that she used to do. Oh well you can't cry over spilled milk, and I am always very proud and excited over each new accomplishment. I would much rather have her making progress than not. I am so blessed with wonderful children.
Brooklyn accually started to learn to roll over at the beginnign of July, but has only become very proficient in rolling back to front and front to back across a room in the past few days. It is amazing how far and fast she can go.

She was not happy to be stuck in the blanket that the girls left out on the floor.

This is her latest trick that she is perfecting. In the past week she has started to sit up by herself and not fall over. She is still a little bit wobbly at times, but for the most part has mastered this skill.

Tea Party

I knew it would happen, I just don't think that I was prepared for it to happen yet. Aby and Kenzie have started to play "dinner" on thier princess table. They will get out all of my pans and cooking utinsels, and cook food. In this picture they had cooked eggs. This day Aby had a friend over (Maddi Ball) and Aby and Kenzie cooked eggs for her to eat. Aby always starts the meals with a prayer. (not a pretend one either) It is so great to see them growing up. Aby has such a strong spirit with her, and is always such an example to me.
Here they are after teh prayer and starting to eat. You can just see Mckenzie in the corner of the picture. Aby is always very nice and lets Kenzie play with her and her friends when they come over.

This picture was taken a different day, but Aby and Kenzie are both still enjoying thier egg feast. I am so glad that they are such good friends.

Friends!

Aby Kenzie and our neighbor Josh were playing dress up the other day, and all of them were having such a fun time. Aby is the mom (queen) and Kenzie is the princess. Josh needed a costume, and so i took out my old graduation robe, and made him the judge. We are so blessed to live next to such wonderful neighbors.

Daddy's little helper

This picture was too cute to pass up. We had been swimming at the Rec Center earlier in the evening, and all of us were very tired. Ryan however, decided that he was going to fix the leaking tap in the tub. (for those of you who wonder, Ryan has had to replace the valves on our hot and cold water taps in the tub several times. This is becuase when we had our soft water softener installed they did it wrong, and we have been dealing with it ever since.) He has gotten really good at doing this over the past few years, and you can see here that the Mckenzie loves to help. Ryan is usually really good natured about explaining what he is doing to the girls, and letting them help give him the tools. My girls love to play with daddy and his tools. (who needs boys my girls can learn to fix things:)
This was too cute just look at her grin. The sad part was after I took this picture she wanted to see it and was so excited that she tripped over the tool chest and bonked her head on the cupboards.

Bountiful Parade

Ryan and I and our kids were able to go and watch the Bountiful Pioneer day parade with Marlene, Tiffany, and Nate. Thanks to Tiffany who had the presence of mind to put out a blanket earlier that day, we actually had some really good seats. The parade was fun but really long. I have to say that I think my favorite part was the fact that the IHC nurses (we were in front of the IHC building) kept coming and giving us free water bottles so that we would stay hidrated. Ok that bands and the floats were really good too.
This is everyone just before the parade started. If you will look close you will see that Ryan is being his true self. It just doesn't get any better than that folks.

Tiffany was nice enough to bring licorice for everyone to enjoy. Brooklyn loved every minute of it. Daddy wasn't so sure that he enjoyed every minute of it. By the tim Brooklyn finished her piece of licorice she was covered in red and was sticky everywhere, but she was a happy girl.

Near the very end of the parade on the floats was that was coming by was giving out stuffed animals. Aby must have smiled the right way or something because on of the parade people from the float came over and put this bear in her arms. He wanted to make sure that she got it. Aby was so excited, and when we got home she told me that she wanted to name him "Teddy." When I sent the girls to get ready for bed, and went to check on them I had to laugh because Aby had taken off the clothes, hung them up in the closet, and put the shoes on the shelf with the other shoes. (this from the same girl that i cannot convince to put her clothes in the laundry hamper at the end of the day.)

This is the Place Monument

We went to the This is the Place Monument on July 20, 2007. Anthony and Sarah are in town and they wanted to go and see it. Tiffany and I had not been since we were little kids, and we were amazed at how they had changed it and how big it had gotten. I am very glad that Grandma got a year long pass, and we will have to go back and visit the places that we didn't get to. I hope that when we go back it will not be quite so hot either, we did pick a day that was 100 plus degrees. Oh well I guess that is what we get for livin' in Utah.
Here is the whole gang in front of one of the many statues that depict how the pioneers traveled across the wilderness. As you can see the kids are excited and ready to go. It only got better when they realized that they would get to ride on a train to get to the houses. You can only imagine how excited they got.

This picture is taken in one of the upper bedrooms in Brigham Young's Forest house, I was really quite impressed with how large and roomy this house was. Nothing like I remembered the other pioneer houses being. Now the story as to why Aby is lying on the ground. I wanted someone in the room when I took the picture, I actually wanted her to stand by the window, but when I said come stand here she decided that she wanted to lay down on the ground and pose, it was so cute that I couldn't resist just taking the picure.

This is the whole gang (me included) in front of Brigham Youngs house. It was a pink house, and had a wrap around porch, interestingly enough, at the time that we were there they were setting up for a wedding reception to take place later that day. What a unique spot for a reception. Here are Aby, Bryn, and Kenzie in the school house. It took Aby a few minutes to warm up to sitting in the desk, but she got right to drawing as soon as she figured out that there was chalk and a chalk board. On a side note I was teasing Braden, and asked him if this looked like his classroom, and he thought that I was nuts and said "no way!"

As our last activity we went on a wagon ride, the kids loved it. The day was not really very busy, and so we were able to take our time and enjoy the ride.

This is how most of us felt at the end of the morning. The only difference was that we didn't have a stroller to sleep in. These two are just too cute for their own good. I also think that the size difference is funny. However keep in mind that Brooklyn is only 5 months whereas Spencer is almost 8 months old.

My Accomplishment

There are no pictues that accomany the next story, but rest assured it really did happen, and I have witnesses to will testify to the truth of it.

On Saturday afternoon of the Sullivan reunion everyone was supposed to meet at willow park, this park was approximately 2 miles from the hotel at the start of Logan, I knew where is was so I didn't worry about anything. Ryan and I had taken the girls swimming, and were playing in the pool. The girls got tired, and so I decided to take them back to the room and get them ready to go to the park. Ryan was still playing with his brothers, so he didn't come. After getting the girls dressed, they were bored and so I thought i will take them on a walk. There was a huge sidewalk sale going on main street where all the stores had stuff out. I thought that it would be fun to walk through the sales. I told Ryan that I was going to start going down main street toward the park, and asked him to pick me up on his way. He agreed!!!

I started down main street, and it was only 101 degrees outside, I had the girls in the stroller, and we were haveing a great time looking at all the things to buy and walking around. I kept looking for the van and trying to stay where Ryan could see me. Pretty soon we were out of shops, and still no Ryan. I didn't want to start walking back because I might miss Ryan and he wouldn't be looking for me on the other side of the road. So I kept walking, pretty soon I was at the end of Logan, and turning to go down the road that led to the park. I was finally able to read Marlene on her cell phone, and asked where Ryan was (thinking that he was looking for me and couldn't find me...hahahah) He was just getting into the shower. I laughed and asked her to lead him to the park, and that I would meet them there.

Later on the way back to the hotel I made Ryan clock exactly how many miles I had walked, and it was 1.8 miles to the park. But that is not the end of the story, while i was walking to the park I came upon some really nice dress shirts for a great price. So after getting back to the hotel and eating dinner we piled the kids into the stroller again and walked back down main street to look at the shirts. The end total I walked a total of 2.2 miles and that doesn't include walking around the farm. I am pretty darn proud of myself.