Twelve years old

I can't believe that I have a 12 year old. Kamryn had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and is now 12. It all seems so crazy to me. It seems like just yesterday that I became a mother. Now I am the mother of a young man who holds the priesthood. It was really neat as he received the priesthood and then to watch him pass the sacrament for the first time on Easter Sunday.  It may make me feel a little old, but I couldn't be more proud of Kamryn. He is a great son and I am glad to be his mom. 

We had a birthday party at our house for all our family. It was complete with one of Melanie's amazing cakes. Here Kamryn poses with his ipod touch cake. He loved it! It amazingly had many of the same aps that Kamryn has. 

 Here is a  close-up of the detail on the aps. 

 And here is even more of a close-up of the Angry Birds ap. Melanie is just amazing.

 Here is a picture of Kamryn modeling his new helmet and riding pants.

 And here he is with no arms! How is he going to ride his motorcycle now?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAMRYN!

March

Here it is the end of April and I didn't even blog about anything that happened in March. I didn't take many pictures, and I don't write everything on my calendar, so I'm sure that I will miss something. I started the month of March off with a girls weekend with my mom and sisters. It is always a good time when I get together with my mom and sisters.  We stayed at mom's house and went through old pictures. It was a lot of fun to reminisce about our younger years. I also did some reminiscing about my grandma last month as I prepared a talk for our Relief Society activity. I was asked to talk about what I had learned from my mother and grandmother. It was fun to think back as I prepared my talk. Not so fun to give the talk, but fun to prepare it. 

In March we also went on a field trip to the dinosaur museum with Sadie's preschool class. These are about the only pictures that I took this month.  Do you see how she is quite outnumbered. For most of the year in preschool she was the only girl with 5 boys. One of the boys dropped out so we did add another girl for the last couple of months, but she missed the museum field trip. Good thing Sadie likes the boys. She has done just fine with all those boys. They've needed her to keep them in line. It's been a really fun preschool. Sadie loves it and wants to go everyday. 

Wyatt was able to go to the OMD concert in March. He went with two of his high school buddies, Chase and Aaron. Wyatt said that as he stood in line waiting to get into the concert, he looked around and wondered where all the young people were. How come everyone was older? Then he had the realization that he was just as old as most of the other people there. I think it is funny how this happens. We watch the people around us age, but we don't really realize that we are aging too. Well, there was March in a nutshell. April has been much busier, I guess I better get busy blogging about it.

What's Aubrey been up to

Aubrey is growing and at such a fun stage. It seems like most of the pictures I have taken lately are of her. Sometimes she makes messes and gets into trouble (more often than not), but she is so cute and it is so fun to see her little personality develop.

Aubrey is definitely a climber. She loves to climb onto my island and also on my table. She likes to just sit up there and play.  She thinks she's pretty neat when she climbs onto something.  The scariest part is she tries to run from me when I try to take her off. She also likes to make her body go limp. It is a full time job watching her, and keeping her from climbing. I have tried pushing in the stools or chairs thinking that she wouldn't be able to climb if they are pushed in, but then she just gets herself stuck on the stool (see picture below). I try to move the stools into the pantry when not in use, but don't always remember. Luckily we have not had any accidents. This is one phase I hope she grows out of. 

Another thing Aubrey totally loves is shoes. Not her own shoes (she takes them off every chance she gets) but any other shoes she sees. She has actually learned to walk pretty good in big shoes.  Here are a few pictures I have taken of her in various shoes.

She has decided that she likes Sadie's shoes the best. I think it is because she can put them on all by herself and they stay on while she walks.

Another thing Aubrey loves to do is get into the pantry and get food (usually cereal) all by herself. Usually she brings it to me, but sometimes she decides to just help herself right there in the pantry. She doesn't say very much or talk very good, but she can communicate quite well. When she is hungry she leads me to the pantry or fridge. When she is thirsty she goes and gets a cup and brings it to me.  For everything else she wants she just points and grunts.

We moved her to a big girl bed the other day. It makes her seem so big, but it has been a great move. She hated her crib and had gotten to where she wouldn't sleep in it at all. She was sleeping in our bed every night.  Since we put her in a toddler bed, she sleeps in her own bed. Yeah!

She really does think she is big. She likes to feed herself and she wants to eat at the bar with the other kids. She does a pretty good job feeding herself, but I usually still make her eat in her highchair. Another cute thing she does is fold her arms when we pray. We just have to mention it's time for prayer and she folds her arms. It's amazing how much kids just pick up on their own. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of this. We usually don't have the camera ready when we are praying and I can't seem to trick her into folding her arms for the camera. Anyway my baby is growing up too fast. We are enjoying her and all the cute things she does, but I wish she would just slow down a little.

Off Road

It may look like I have been doing some fun offroading with my car, but no, I've just been going to and from my house each day. This time of year when the temperature starts to warm up and the snow starts to melt, the road to my house becomes a muddy mess. This year it seems especially bad. The ruts are deep and the mud doesn't show much sign of drying out any time soon.  

Birthdays

Brynli and Wyatt's birthdays are 1 day apart, so they always get to share a birthday celebration. Brynli thinks it is great that her birthday is 1 day after her dad's, and I think Wyatt likes it too. I can't believe that my little Brynli is 7 years old. Wow how time flies. I won't say how old Wyatt is, but Brynli was a great present for his 30th birthday.

Here are some pictures of our celebration at Grandma's house. Notice the darling cake that Melanie made. She is so talented and all my kids are so excited to see what she is going to do next.

 Here Brynli is opening her presents from Grandma & Grandpa. She was so excited to get a password journal. I guess that makes her feel really big.

 Here are some pictures of our birthday celebration at home. Poor Brynli was sick on her birthday. She was trying to pretend that she wasn't too bad, but I could tell that she really didn't feel good. She still wanted to open her presents and go get ice cream. 

 Brynli went ice skating at one of her friends parties about a month ago and ever since then she has wanted to go ice skating for her birthday. She wanted to just go as a family. All the kids were super excited because they have all wanted to go ice skating all winter long. They all had a great time. By the end of the night they could all skate unassisted. Sadie was pretty excited about that. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked because I stayed outside the glass and watched with Aubrey and I sent Kamryn in with my camera. I am glad for the 3 pictures that I did get. And I am glad that everyone had such a good time. I just wish it didn't have to be so cold.

Wyatt and I went for a snowmobile ride for his birthday. It had been awhile since I had been snowmobiling. I forgot how fun it is. I'm sure Wyatt gets a better ride when he goes with the boys, but we still had a great time. Sorry, no pictures, we were too busy riding. 

January

January usually comes and goes with no pictures taken, and not really anything much happening. At least compared to December, January seems like a very slow month.  This year I decided to document what we did in January. I had to go back to my calendar and see what we did, because I didn't take many pictures.

First of all I started this Get Fit Challenge at the beginning of January.  In this challenge there are 4 teams with 9 or 10 on each team. Each person earns points each day for their team by eating plenty of fruits & vegetables, drinking lots of water, exercising, not eating sweets, not eating after nine, and supporting one another as a group. We also have extra challenges each week that we can earn points for and we earn points for any weight that we may lose. We do get one day each week that we don't count points, so we can eat whatever we like. This really is what makes it possible for me to go the rest of the week without ice cream or other treats. Knowing I can have them at least once a week. It has been a lot of fun and a good motivator for me to be more healthy. I've done pretty good with it, and it seems like I feel a lot better as I eat more healthy and exercise regularly. I've lost a little weight, but not as much as I would like too. But being healthy is really my goal, not weight loss.

One event that we did in January that I actually got pictures of was Cub Scout Pack Meeting. Derek was awarded his Bobcat badge in January. He earned it quite awhile ago, but with the Pinewood Derby, and the holidays they didn't give out awards until this pack meeting.                                                                                                                                            

The middle of January we had a fun surprise visit from my mom & dad and Jodi & Keyli. My mom & dad had been trying to come out to Vernal since Aubrey's birthday in December, but the weather was either not good, or they had other things going on. Vernal gets so cold in the winter and they really didn't want to come out here and freeze, or drive when it was storming. They finally made it out and they brought Jodi and Keyli with them. It was a lot of fun having them here. The kids absolutely loved it. Keyli rolled over for the first time while they were here. It was fun to see her, even if her daddy missed it.  I didn't even take very many pictures of their visit. I do have a couple to share thanks in part to Jodi.

Here are all the girls in their pj's.

Aubrey thought it was pretty fun to sit in Keyli's bouncer and play.

I don't have any other pictures, but we did a few more things in January.  Kamryn and Wyatt went on the Klondike Scout Camp. It doesn't sound very fun to me to camp in the middle of winter, but I guess they had a good time and they didn't freeze too much (even if they had, I don't think they would have admitted it).  The boys also took a trip to the slopes to go snowboarding and a trip up the mountain with the snowmobiles, and of course had a great time on both occasions. The whole family went to a ward pinewood derby. Anyone who wanted to could enter a car. Each of our kids, except Aubrey, entered a car. There wasn't a whole lot of people there, but the Mansfields swept the competition. Our 4 cars took the first four places. The kids all thought it was great and had a lot of fun. Derek and Brynli started indoor soccer last month and Wyatt and I got to go to a Peter Breinholt concert. We saw him in concert when we were in college, and I really like his music, so I was pretty excited that he came to Vernal, and excited to be able to get away for an evening a go on a date with my husband. So we really did have a pretty good January.

Look's who's one!

My sweet little Aubrey turned one the end of December. I can't believe how fast she has grown. It always amazes me how much they learn in their first year. 

Here is a bunch of pictures of her birthday party. 

Opening presents

The Cake

Another cute creation by my talented sister-in-law Melanie. 

Thanks again Mel!

She didn't have a clue what she was suppose to do with the candle.

I just love watching my kids dig into their cake on their first birthday. (That's why I have so many pictures). Aubrey had a lot of fun with her cake. She ate a little, but mostly just enjoyed playing in it.

Look what a good sharer she is. She's trying to feed Brynli her cake.

Here she is with her new rocking horse that she got for her birthday. It was so funny watching her try to figure out how to get on it. 

"should I come in from the back?"

"maybe I should try the side"

oh look, she finally figured it out. 

Happy Birthday my cute Aubrey!