funny story

As we were coming home from a family Halloween trip to Thanksgiving Point the other night I had a very interesting conversation with Mckenzie in the car. I was trying to see who was awake and who was asleep, here is the conversation:

M (me): Kenzie are you awake?
K (kenzie: NO

M: are you asleep?
K: No

M: are you alive?
K: No

Aby: Yes you are!!!
K: No I not

M: are you breathing?
K: No

By the time that the conversation was finished I was laughing and the kids were confused about what I was talking about.

Fall Fun

Fall is a wonderful season when it is not raining. This past week has been a wonderful one, their has been lots of sun and very resonable temperatures. Because we haven't had any rain for a few days the leaves in the front of my house have dried out and more had started falling. Aby and Kenzie wanted to play in the leaves on day, so I got out the rakes and outside we went. I can remember as a small girl wanting to run and jump in a big pile of leaves, and I cannot ever remember having enough leaves at one time to do that. Because of that I am greatful that my children have that chance. The maple leaves that fall are big enough that the piles are large and very soft.
Here you can see Kenzie raking her leaves around a halloween bucket. The kids actually were real troopers, and rakes most of the leaves into the piles with my help.

After making big piles of leaves what else can you do but have a good old fashioned leaf fight with eachother.

Kenzie loved to lay down and be buried in the leaves. I call this shot "where's Kenzie." She had a great time, but when I went to change her diaper later we found a great big pile of leaves where they shouldn't have been.

"Ready...Set...Jump..." What can I say the kids played like this for over and hour. They had a great time.

Near the end I put Brooklyn in the leaves with the girls and she thought they were pretty good and was having a fun time, until Aby and Kenzie tried to cover her with the leaves. She didn't think that was fun at all.

This is one of my favorite shots of Brooklyn in the leaves just exploring and trying to figure out what they are. Yes she did try to eat them, and did get a few into her mouth.

New Camera!!!

I finally got a new Camera. It is great, I got a Cannon Powershot A720 IS and I love it. I have been playing around with it for a few days, and here are some fun pictures that you can enjoy.
Here is Brooklyn and all her spoils, The girls like to make sure that she has plenty of toys to play with. Brooklyn is growing up so fast, she is 8 months old today, and has been ready to crawl for the past few weeks all she needs to do is move her hands, I am not sure that I am ready to help her learn that trip yet. I kinda like the limited mobility for the time being.

One of our neighbors is remodeling their basement, and gave the girls this kitchen play set. As you can see the girls love it. I think it might replace to old one that we have. The neigbors also gave us a new kitchen table it Ryan will go and get it.

I love the Image Stabliziation my kids like to jump off the couch into the bean bag, and here you can see Kenzie mid jump. They are so funny to watch.

This is one of Aby right before she landed on the bean bag.

Lost time

I will have to appologize for the lack of entries for the past few weeks. They have been very fun and very busy, but the main reason for the lack is that my camera broke a few weeks ago, so I didn't have any pictures. I finally decided that I would write down some of the memories and funny things that have happened over the past few weeks.

Andrew and Michelle were married in the Bountiful Temple on October 11, 2007. It was so wonderful to be able to go and share in that wonderful experiance with them. My fondest memoy is of the night before when both families were able to attend an endowment session as Michelle took out her endowments. My wonderful husband made is in the nick of time (ok they did hold the session for 5 minutes), and almost my entire family was there with their spouses. The only ones missing were Anthony and Sarah, who were flying in from California at the time. The day of the wedding was wonderful, and we enjoyed being with the family.

That night at the reception Ryan and I and our kids did leave a little bit early, because we were so exhausted. When we got home and got into bed I was excited to get a good nights sleep. Boy was I wrong... at about 12:00 that night Aby woke me up crying and yelling for me. She had to go to the bathroom, so I helped her off the top bunk and took her to the bathroom. Then I went back to be telling her to turn off the light when she was done. A few minutes later I hear crying and she is calling my name. I went in to see what was wrong, and there was poop in her underware, on the toilet, and her leg. Needless to say she had an accident. So I cleaned her up and the poop got some clean underware out, and disposed of the dirty ones. Then as I was tucking her back into bed Brooklyn started to cry, all the noise had woken her up.....so after a midnight snack and some rocking I finally made it back to my bed. Then around 1:00 in the moring I heard Kenzie crying, after finally deciding that she was not going to come into my room and lay down by me like she usually does I went in to check on her...she had thrown up all over her pillow and pajamas, and hair. So I clean up her bed gave her a quick bath, and rocked her back to sleep. At this point I was sure that nothing else could go wrong.....At 3:30 that same morning Kenzie threw up again, and I had to repete the process. After that I was able to sleep until Ryan was off for work. Interestingly enough he claims to have not heard any of the goings on that night.

The next morning Kenzie said she was doing good, so it was off to the sand dunes for a day of 4 wheeling with my family. We had a great time, and Aby made her first solo ride on one of the smaller 4 wheelers. She loved every minute of it and is excited to go back and ride again. Thank you to my family for letting us come and play with their toys.

Aby Ballet

I asked Aby what 2 things she really wanted to do this school year. The first was soccer and the second was ballet. We are very blessed because there is a ballet school in Centerville that is very reasonably priced, and I was able to sign Aby up for beginner ballet. This has been a wonderful experiance for her and she loves to go and dance. The best part is when she gets home she will teach Kenzie some of the things that she has learned. It is so much fun to see her teaching and helping Kenzie. (I may be a little biased, but I think she got the teacher gene.)

Here Aby is in the circle and they are playing a game sashaying around the circle with the music. It is fun to watch, because the circle never stays the same size or shape.

This is one of the times that the kids were practicing moving in partners to the music. The teacher calls it "step step down." It is really the waltz movements. Aby is in the Down part of the practice.

This was right after they finished the bird dance for the first time. You can see part of the "Bird Dance" if you watch the video. It is really cute. I can't ge the video to center on the page sorry. I hope that you enjoy watching it anyway.

Kenzie Gets a Haircut

Last Saturday was a very busy day for me. I had a lot of errands to run, and I needed to get to a baby shower and Karsons Birthday party. So I left Ryan in charge of Aby and Kenzie while I was running around to different stores in the morning. When I got home later that day I called the girls into the bathroom to do thier hair. As I was brushing Mckenzie's hair I noticed that there were chunck of hair that were missing around her ears and the front of her face. My sweet Kenzie had decided to cut her own hair. Now to my credit I did not scream at her, instead I calmly asked her if she had cut her own hair. The conversation went as follows:

mom: Kenzie did you cut your own hair?
kenzie: yes (with a smile on her face)

mom: Why did you cut your hair?
Kenzie: I had to get the snarls out mom (duhhh...)

mom: ohhhh I see.

As you can see from the pictures we did have to cut off quite a bit of her hair to get it to look normal again. I am very grateful to have a good friend in my ward who cuts hair. She cut the hair to her neck line, and the feathered it around her face adding bangs for the really short hairs in front. All in all Kenzie is a classic beauty who looks like a little pixie with this haircut, and I am not sure that I will let it get long again. She really looks very very cute.

Who can get mad at a face like that. She does know however, that she is never ever to cut her own hair again. If you ask her who cuts her hair, she will say "only Randi!"

Finishing the Basement

Ahhh we are finally finishing our Basement. It has taken a lot of years, and planning to get it figured out but we are doing it. We hired out the framing, plumbing, and sheetrock (mudding and sanding included). Ryan and I (with help from a wonderful family) will do the electrical, painting, and finishwork. Tyler will lay the carpet.
The first thing that had to be done was to get everything that we had put into the unfinished part of the basement into the garage, or finished room. We call this room the Cathedral of The Sullivan's, and Yes is goes from floor to cealing. Including putting stuff into the middle of the couches. It really was a work of art.

The First thing to go were the walls surrounding the stairs, then we turned the stairs around, and had them go down into the great room instead of hitting the dead end of the storage room. The only scary part was keeing the girls away from the "big hole" in the ground. We put up a gate in the hallway, and were very vigilant. The hole was there for just over 2 weeks.

During that time the framing was finished in the Basement, and the electrical work was started. Tyler and Ryan were my hero's during this time. Tyler gave up a few evenings of family time to come and help us with the stuff that Ryan couldn't do. Ryan spent a few very late (4:30 am) nights finishing up and running wire, phone, and T.V. cables. In the above picture you are looking at the future laundry room, and the stairs going up.

In this picture you can see the great room, and the future bedroom. At the end of the hall you can see is a small bathroom. (I am so excited to get a second bathroom.)

This is Ryan working on one of the nights with the power cords. He is such a wonderful guy, and put in so much work.

Grandpa not to be left out spend two saturday's and a few week night working on my new banister. It is wonderful and very sturdy. Here Kenzie is watching him cut and measure for the end Newell.

Ahhh finally the sheetrock and my basement is starting to take shape for real. This is the hallway leading to the batheroom and the door to the bedroom.

You can see now the hallway and the laundry room. You cannot really tell from this picture but that is only a small pillar at the end of the stairs, and then they are open and we will put in a banister. I love open spaces.

This is my new Banister, Grandpa did a great job. I don't have to worry about my kids anymore. We will paint this Banister white to match the trim and molding on the walls in the upstairs family room.

This is another view of the banister that Grandpa did, and yes I really did buy that much cereal at the store. When I was carrying the boxes down the stairs (which still only consist of a 2 x 4 nailed in) I tripped and fell down the last 4 stairs I wasn't hurt that bad but I did get a few really impressive bruises.