School's In

O.k. so I have been such a blog slacker. I have so much to catch up on, but we will start with the first day of school. All my kids are excited to be back in school, all except Sadie. We are at a new school this year, so we won't have to change schools when we move. Kamryn has lots of friends and a great teacher, so he thinks his new school is pretty great. Derek's best friend Nikolas is at his school (not in his class, but at recess), so he likes that. He likes his teacher, and he loves eating lunch at school. Usually when I ask him about school he will tell me what he ate for lunch. Brynli is glad to be in Kindergarten. She has an excellent teacher. She loves that she knows her teacher. Mrs. Pierce is our next door neighbor. Brynli was also excited to meet a new friend on the first day of school. She is so funny. When I asked her how her first day of school was she said, "It was fun, I met a friend named Ashley, but I didn't learn to read yet." I guess she expects immediate results from school. Sadie doesn't love all the kids going to school. She likes her one-on-one time with Brynli in the morning, but she misses the kids when they are all at school. When we dropped Brynli off the first day, Sadie cried the whole way home. Then she kept saying it was time to pick Brynli up. I'm grateful for the routine again. The quiet house is nice and it stays much cleaner. I don't love going to the school 3 times a day for drop-off or pick-up of kids, but they'll be able to ride a bus when we move, so that will be nice. I can't believe how big all my kids are getting. it seems like I really notice how much they've grown in a year when I take school pictures.

Tie Breaker

Well the ultrasound results are in and the girls win! Everyone is pretty excited except Kamryn, he really wanted a brother. Derek is glad because a sister means he doesn't have to share a room any time soon. Brynli and Sadie are excited for another sister, and to all share a room. Mom and dad are grateful that everything looked healthy, and that there is only one little girl. (My kids all kept saying that it was twins, a girl and a boy.)

24th of July

We had our annual Mansfield family camp over the weekend of July 24th. We went to Flaming Gorge to enjoy family, camping, boating, and fishing. We had a great time as usual. Most everyone headed up the mountain on Thursday evening, but our family didn't head up until Friday morning. Kamryn was a little disappointed about missing out on the early morning skiing, so we left early Friday morning and stopped at Steineker to ski on our way to Flaming Gorge. Wyatt and Kamryn were the only ones who wanted to get in the water that early. They did get some good skiing in. Kamryn is really doing well on the slalom ski.

We got up to our campsite before breakfast, set up our tent, and were ready for the day. It was kind of nice to put up our tent in the daylight. Friday and Saturday afternoon we went to the lake to play. The weather wasn't great (as usual at Flaming Gorge) but we still had a great time. I didn't get too many pictures because I didn't always have my camera with me. The surf was the favorite boating toy. Megan, Kevin, and even Grandpa had fun on the surf. Meggie and Mikey enjoyed the wakeboard, and Stephanie had fun with the kneeboard. I was able to surf without the rope for the first time, and Kamryn and Wyatt practiced there great skills on the surf board.

Saturday evening Grandpa and Wyatt took the kids fishing. All of the kids caught at least one fish. Kamryn even caught a fish with his homemade fishing pole. Wyatt had Brynli and Derek kiss there fish. Brynli didn't want to get to close, but she puckered up pretty good. All the kids came back to camp pretty excited about there fishing trip. They brought back about 4 fish that we cooked up. I think all the kids even tried some. Sadie realized that she really liked fish.
The kids also enjoyed just playing at camp. It is always fun to play with cousins, a little dirt doesn't hurt either. All in all it was a great weekend, even if we did all come home sick. We are already looking forward to next years family camp.

Construction

I've had a few requests for pictures of the construction of our new home.

FRONT VIEW

BACK VIEW

ENTRY

GREAT ROOM

MASTER BEDROOM: you can't see the view from this picture, but it is amazing!

KITCHEN

It's been exciting, fun, and stressful building a house. Everything is on schedule, and hopefully we will be moving in the end of October or first of November.

Sleepy Girl

Sadie doesn't take consistent or regular naps anymore. Sometimes she gets so tired she falls asleep in unusual places. Here is a couple I found her in this last week.

(She had drooled on her blue marker, and had a blue face when she woke up.)

Where did June go?

Wow! I can't believe how fast this month has gone by. I have really neglected my poor blog. We have been really busy, and I'll warn you this is a long post. So what have we done this summer? Well the kids hadn't even been out of school for two days, when they were begging to go to the lake. That is our favorite thing to do in the summertime. So after finishing their chores we spent the afternoon on the beach. It was a great way to start the summer off, and the kids had a blast.

Derek and Brynli finished off their soccer season. They both had a lot of fun playing.


Brynli was on the same team with her cousin Allison. She was way excited about that.
We don't want to forget Sadie. She was a great spectator at all the soccer games.
The weather has been kind of crazy and so we got a slow start to our summer boating. We have managed to get to the lake a few times. The weather hasn't always been perfect, but we always have fun at the lake. On this trip we let the kids practice driving the boat. They all think they are pretty big when they drive the boat.


Sadie liked driving the boat, until she turned a little sharp and went a little too fast, and splashed herself with water.




Sadie also decided that she wanted to try the kneeboard. Wyatt sat on the swim deck and held her close to the boat. Then I drove very slow so she could get the feel of it. Here she is ready to go.
Here she is while I am going. She didn't seem to like it much. Maybe it was just that cold water.
Wyatt decided to try out lawnmower racing. That is the only way he could get the lawn mowed, since the next rainstorm is surely on it's way.
We all headed to Cedar City to watch Kamryn play soccer in the summer games. It was his teams first tournament of the year, and they didn't do so hot, but it was still a lot of fun.
Here he is at the opening ceremonies. They have all the athletes walk around the track. Then they have a concert and fireworks. Kamryn loves this part of the summer games.
Here are the rest of us enjoying the show. You can't tell from the picture, but Sadie was really jamming out. She was really liking the band. We all had a fun time.

On our way home from Cedar City, we stopped in Lehi for a visit. We went with my sister Janet and her family to a Stake Family Fun day. My kids had a blast. They were able to jump, slide, dunk, eat, and get their faces painted. They especially loved being with their cousins. I especially loved that it was all free. What a great activity for families. Thanks Janet for inviting us to enjoy the day with you.




Sadie was a little apprehensive about getting her face painted. She had to start with her arm. Then she decided it was o.k. to paint her face.


The reason we stopped in Lehi was to go to my grandpa's 95th birthday. Wow! 95 years is quite an accomplishment. It was great to spend the evening with my grandpa, and to visit with so many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins that I don't see very often.
I loved this picture of grandpa eating his cake with all the kids around him.
So after we returned home from our trip to Cedar City and Lehi I spent a couple of days doing laundry and then headed back to Lehi for another soccer tournament in Salt Lake. During the tournament the kids were able to go on a special tour of the REAL stadium. They thought that was pretty neat.
This tournament went a little better than the one in Cedar City. Kamryn's team was undefeated and took first place. They were pretty excited to win. They only had one goal scored on them the whole tournament. Kamryn must be a pretty awesome defender.


Another thing that has kept us busy this month is T-ball. Derek and Brynli both played T-ball and were on the same team. They had a lot of fun. Brynli is such a girl. She loved playing, but she was more worried about what kind of outfit she got to wear, and she always had to use the pink bat. She really wanted a pink glove too, but they don't make pink gloves for lefties in her size (at least not anywhere in Vernal).


And of course building our house has also kept us busy this month. There are so many decisions to make, and we have to make sure those contractors are staying on task. They are doing great and it seems to be moving quickly. I haven't taken any recent pictures, but the trusses are now up. It is so fun to watch the progress, and to just go up there and enjoy our view. We are really excited for the finished product.

As you can see, we haven't been sitting around this summer. We probably did more that we just didn't take pictures of. We have had fun, and I'm sure that there is more fun to be had. Hopefully it just won't take me so long next time to blog.