Sylvester and Books

Meet Sylvester, the September snowman.  

That's right, born on Sept. 27th. Luckily he didn't live long, but really?  September???  The kids were thrilled.  Me, not so much.

We've been doing a lot of this lately 'round here:

We are loving books!  Brady has really started loving to look at books and be read to.  I love how he cuddles up in my lap with a book and loves for me to talk about the pictures with him.

As for the older kids, we've been doing some reading every night before bed.  So far, since school started, I have read four chapter books out loud to them.  We've done two Magic Treehouse books, one about the Titanic and one about Hawaii. We've also read Sarah, Plain and Tall and The Boxcar Children--the first, original one.  An oldie, but a goody!  Next up: How to Eat Fried Worms.  Also, Connor and I are reading Michael Vey together.  I am loving it!  Oh ya, and he is too.  And I'm really doing it for him, right??? (Never mind that I love to read, and this is the only time I have, or am taking, to read these days.)

This fall . . .

Here's the short list of our fall so far:

--The Rendezvous. Down at Fort Bridger, they have a huge rendezvous every year during labor day weekend.  It's really fun to go down and check it out.  The kids all bought something (beads, arrowheads, wooden toys, etc.) and we enjoyed some yummy food and entertainment.  They loved the Indian dancing and the candy cannon.

waiting for the cannon . . .

candy in the air . . .

 and then the chaos!  So fun.

 Mylie was the only one that wanted to join in the circle dance.

--SCHOOL started, of course.  We now have a 4th grader, 2nd grader, and preschooler (her last year before kindergarten.)  They are all excited to be back in school and are loving their teachers.

--Volleyball.  It's been a great year so far, and I love it, and it keeps me crazy busy.  More about it in another post.

--Homecoming. Last week was homecoming, and we took the kids to some of the festivities, including stud volleyball (highly entertaining vb game played by the high school boys), pancake breakfast, parade, volleyball game, and football game.

Brady just chillin' in the gutter at the parade. A sucker in the mouth, and one in the hand. Does life get better?

--Connor's birthday.  He got to have a family party and a friend party this year, and both were great! He went with his regular, cheesecake.  It was delicious.

--My birthday.  My birthday was fabulous this year.  I got to sleep in, Tony made breakfast burritos, the girls gave me a homemade birthday card letting me know that I am "the best mom in the universt," Tony also made dinner, and he gave me these boots!  Yay!  I have wanted a pair of these so long, and can you believe after living on a ranch for 8 years that this is my first pair?!?

August

Somehow August FLEW by!  And I wasn't very good at taking pictures of our adventures.  We had my niece, Ashley's wedding and reception, which was so fun.  We went down to Provo and did Seven Peaks, Trafalga, school shopping, stayed overnight, and picnicked at Bridal Veil Falls.  We did the Butte Kicker again.  My family's team won, but in a battle!  It was a close race all the way.  And did I take a single picture of any of those things?  No.  Not one.  Darn.

I also started volleyball two weeks ago.  It has been a crazy couple weeks of two-a-day practices, capped with a 2-day tournament this weekend.  I LOVE it, so I won't complain for a moment, but it means I haven't been home much.  We have, however, tried to make a few memories right here at home during the past two weeks.  Twice, we just went out horseback riding.  Just for fun.

Brady was pretty excited getting everything ready in the horse barn.

We just took a leisurely ride out in the fields.  

Another afternoon, the kids and I went on a park tour.  We hit up every park we knew about in Bridger Valley, which turned out to be nine parks!  We only stayed 15 mins or so at each one, and had snacks in the van in between parks.  We also took a photo at each park. The kids picked the setting and the poses. We finished our tour at the Mountain View town park, where we ate Pizza Hut pizza for dinner.  It was a super fun activity!  Maybe we'll do it again sometime.

County Fair

Brady loved the fair!  And he hated the fair!  Basically, he was happy when we were looking at all the animals in the barns, and not happy whenever we weren't doing that.

He didn't spend enough time doing this, either. 

Mariah really had fun at the fair this year.  She liked playing with all the fun stuff--bouncy houses, sandboxes, train rides, etc.  She also liked the shows--marionettes, ventriloquist, hypnotist.  The only livestock shows she cared about, however, were Mylie's lamb shows.

This was Mylie's first year participating in anything at fair.  She raised a bum lamb this summer, and so we decided to enter her in a couple little lamb shows.  The first was just a kid's lamb show.  The other was the really fun one--sheep decorating.  Mylie decided she and Daisy would go as a bug catcher and a ladybug.  It turned out super cute and she had a lot of fun doing it.  She also enjoyed all the fun stuff and the shows as well.

This was Connor's second year showing and selling a market beef at the fair.  This year his steer was named Leonard Washington, after Wyoming's basketball big man.  He did a super good job with his steer this year, faithfully feeding it and working with it starting way back in December.  He sold it for a good price and loved the experience.  Of course, none of this could happen without all of Tony's hard work as well.  I am so thankful for all he did with Connor to help him be able to do 4-H.

July

July was a fabulous, full month!  We had three family reunions, I had 7 days of volleyball camps, Connor played in the little league all-star tournament in Riverton, Tony and I got away for a night to celebrate our anniversary, Brady had his first birthday, and in between it all, we were working and playing hard!  Since there really was no time for blogging, we're doing the super-condensed version, with a lot of pics but few words.  Here it goes:

Oberg Reunion at Bear Lake

 Slip 'n' Slide party with cousins

The boys at Sinks Canyon near Lander during Connor's baseball tourney

Tony splurged and took me to Grand America for our anniversary.  It was BEAUTIFUL and so nice.

The courtyard view from our 16th story King Suite. :)

Chocolate-covered strawberries were waiting in our room when we got back from dinner.

Just us--married 11 years.

Somehow this guy is a year old now!

(When you're not a pinterest Mom, you just make cupcakes and arrange them to form the number 1, and you think it's great because you aren't comparing it to what every other Mom out there did.)

He loved his cupcake!