With Noah's birthday being on the first of July, it kind of makes planning parties for him really hard. Especially since we're either on vacation or getting ready to go on vacation, or just coming back from a vacation. This year, we were just getting back from our Family Reunion and then it was almost the 4th of July and we were also trying to get ready for our Pioneer Trek that we were going on the following week. So, there wasn't going to be a "party" with games and stuff for him this year. I was determined, though to make a cake and have some presents. I was torn between Mickey Mouse or Trains for his cake since he loves both. But since I've done Mickey Mouse twice, I went with trains. We had to put his birthday off for a day, so that I could get the cake made.
Opening Presents
We got him a train table with tons of trains...He was in heaven and didn't really want to open any other presents.
We did have him open one more present. (We saved the rest for the next day.) I didn't get a picture of it, but here's the video with his reaction. He also LOVES cars...he carries around two matchbox cars in his hands at all times. So, we got him this Lightning McQueen chair to sit in, so that he doesn't have to sit in the princess chairs anymore. He was so excited about this!
Nevermind about the video. I can never get the videos from my camera to work on here.
The Train Cake
When we sang Happy Birthday to him, he got all sad, and scooted off of the table and Maggie held him until it was over. Not sure why he didn't like it, but he was happy after it was over and blew out the candle on his first try.
Loving his cake...he didn't get very messy eating with his fork.
Opening the other presents the next day. He got remote control train and some more match box cars.
Our reunion went until the 29th of June, but Garrett's sister Meggin and her family had to leave on the 28th. They had to fly to California to go to a wedding on Jake's side of the family. So, we took pictures of everyone in the morning and then they left.
Jim and Georgia with all of their grandkids. 13 in total.
The original McKibben family: Savann, Georgia, Jim, Garrett, Josh and Meggin
Later that day, (cold and cloudy day), we decided to take the kids to see a movie and so we went to see Brave, which was a cute movie.
The next day, Josh and Tanya and their family left first. And the rest of us packed up and cleaned so we could be out of there by 11 am. We all headed back to our house because Savann and her family were staying a few more days with us. And since Jim and Georgia bought the house here, they decided to stay for a couple more days and leave their car parked at their new house and fly home instead. This way, they could stay and spend 4th of July with us, instead of taking 4-5 days to drive back to Ohio.
July 1st was Noah's birthday (more on that later) and Devon had gone to the store with us to pick out a present for Noah. Devon wanted Noah to open it before they had to leave for the airport that afternoon.
We all went to church, but had to leave after Sacrament meeting, to take them to the airport. We needed all the adults to go so we could pick up the two cars that Meggin and Josh left there when they came to the airport.
Later that night, we had a family home evening lesson on the creation. We took a walk and each person had a camera and was supposed to take a picture of something that Heavenly Father created on each of the days. So we had to take a picture of light/darkness, water/earth, animals, people, etc. The kids loved it because they love taking pictures. Between the 7 cameras that were being used, I bet we (mostly the younger kids) took around 500 pictures...on a 10 minute walk. It was crazy.
These are some of the pictures...
Sydney stayed with us for another two weeks because she was going on trek with us.
Today was a fun day. The morning was spent monitoring the kids while they "swam" in the hot tub. Mine didn't swim so much, but the other kids did. It was pretty hot water, but it didn't bother some of the kids. Noah desperately wanted in.
This is Amelia floating. She and her sister Celeste loved the water...so did Hannah.
My girls liked to be in it, but wouldn't go under...I think it'd be too hot for me too.
Noah finally got "in"
She'll probably kill me for including this picture, but this is Georgia getting her hair dyed by Meggin.
Later in the afternoon after all the naps were finished, we had our 2nd Annual Family Talent Show. This is Amelia, Hannah and Celeste before the show.
Maggie was the first act. She played her recital song--the Pirate one.
Lydia and Garrett actually went second, but I didn't get a picture of them because I took over filming for Garrett and forgot to snap a picture. Lydia played her piano recital song also (My Bonnie) while Garrett sang opera style to it. We have a book called "Take Me Out of the Bathtub and Other Silly Dilly Songs" that takes normal kids songs and changes the words to silly things. So, instead of singing the original words to My Bonnie, he sang about a food fight. Here's the first verse and chorus:
The yogurt flies straight from my brother, the peaches zoom toward me from sis
When she gets home I bet my mother, says we shouldn't food fight like this!
Food fight! Food fight!
There's food on the counter and chairs! And chairs!
Food fight! Food fight!
There's tons of meat loaf in my hair!
If you can imagine Garrett singing this in an opera voice, it was really quite funny and Lydia did a fabulous job playing the piano while laughing.
Paige was next and she sung the song from Tangled, called "When will My Life Begin?" She was really cute singing it!
Then Devon played a song on the piano while Savann sang along.
Josh and his family did a skit that was about a cooking show. It was a spoof on a tv show on Food Network called Sweet Genius. I had never heard of it before, but their skit was quite funny. They had 3 contestants and each contestant was given one or two ingredients and a theme I think and then had to come up with a dessert with those items. They did a great job and they were all hilarious. They each had really funny names and of course I can't remember what they were.
Hannah and Caleb
Caleb and Tanya
Bella's talent was reading the book "Brown Bear Brown Bear". She can't read yet, but she knows all the words from memory. Her doing anything is really cute!
Sydney played her guitar and sang the song "Breakeven" by the Script.
Meggin, Jake and their kids did a robot dance.
They are a dancing family!
Then their girls sang a few songs and did a few cute dances. They really liked being in the spotlight!
Jim and Georgia were up next. Theirs was really cute. They did it to the song, "Kiss the girl" from Little Mermaid. Georgia was on one end of the room sitting and then Jim came "swimming" in trying to dance his way over to the cute crab. He was working up his nerve to Kiss the girl.
Finally getting his kiss!
Alyssa played her guitar. Her song was a Taylor Swift song and I want to say that it was the one from Hunger Games, but I'm not sure. She really has a talent on the guitar. She is awesome!
Our skit was next. I really don't think what we did was talent, but it was fun anyway. We didn't come up with our idea until the night before the talent show. Weeks before the reunion we kept saying we needed to come up with something, but just couldn't think of anything. It was getting closer, so we just had to pick something. So Garrett is a huge Adele fan and he is also a huge fan of SNL. He had seen this skit on SNL about Adele's song, "Someone Like You" and of course thought it was hilarious. So we decided to use that, but changed the words to fit our experiences at the reunion. If you haven't seen the skit, you should find it on youtube because it is really funny. Garrett, me and Lydia each had situations that made us upset and in each of those, we turned on the song and had a good cry.
Garrett didn't get to eat Brazilian beans and rice that Meggin was going to make, but didn't.
I wanted to watch "The Time Traveller's Wife" one night, but the guys decided to watch a different movie.
And Lydia was upset because I kept making her take baths and she hates taking baths.
I'm sure this sounds extrememly weird if you haven't seen the skit, and I think most of Garrett's family was a little confused at what we were doing. Oh well. We were laughing at ourselves while we were acting it out because we had seen the skit.
Crying...
Singing the song at the end
So here's the skit, that I just found on youtube...not the best copy, but at least you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about.
Moving on...
Savann was next and did the story, "Going on a bear hunt...", getting everyone involved.
Then Devon played another song on the piano
Hannah and Tanya sang a cute little song
Then Caleb sang a song
The last act was Georgia reading a story called "Rindercella" that switched letters in words and twisted around the story of Cinderella. It was pretty cute.
After the talent show was over, we headed down to the beach for a fire and hot dogs on the beach. It was fun, but windy and cold. Darn Oregon beaches...I just wanted some hot weather! :)
Devon, Caleb and Paige
Garrett playing frisbee with Noah on his shoulders.
Bella, Celeste and Amelia
The Readers, Sydney and Maggie
Meggin, Savann, Jim and Georgia
Josh, Garrett and Jacob playing frisbee
Lydia and Devon playing in the sand
Lydia, Caleb and Devon
Noah walking up and down the "stream"
They did this for awhile before Noah started throwing rocks in the water
These girls were so funny...out near the waves singing songs at the top of their lungs. So cute!
