McKibben Family Blog: August 2014

Friday, August 29, 2014

Wrapping up June

June 15th

Father's Day

We invited Jim and Georgia over for dinner after church to celebrate Father's Day. After dinner, we opened cards and gifts.

I think this picture is so cute of Noah showing his card to grandpa.

And this one is so cute too!

Grandpa laughing at the cute card that Paige created.

Garrett opening his presents.

June 20th and 21st

Maggie was able to go to a Youth Conference this weekend with some of her friends. It was Friday evening and all day Saturday. Hank Smith was the main speaker for the event. (He's an LDS speaker/author and is really funny--according to Maggie.) I've never heard him speak, but I really want to. They also had a service project and maybe a dance? I can't remember. Supposedly there were people there taking pictures, but I still haven't been able to access the pictures. I hope I can one day, but for now there are no pictures. She had a great time!

Also on those two days, we had a garage sale. We sold lots of old bikes and outside toys and all of our strollers. Our garage never looked so empty now that we got rid of those things. We sold a few other things too, but getting rid of all my strollers was hard for some reason. I kept thinking we should keep one, just in case we went some where and Noah would need a ride. I've had strollers for 14 years, so its weird to not have one. Moving on to a new stage in life, I guess.

June 24th

The day after Noah's birthday party, Maggie left for Girls Camp. This was her first year going. Technically, it should've been her third year. But, they had trek during the first year, and then last year we were in Yellowstone. She was able to be in the same cabin with her friend Emma, so she was really happy about that. They went from Tuesday to Saturday.

This was the morning that they were leaving. Emma, Maggie and Rebecca.

all the girls loading their stuff into the truck--as I was leaving.

She took this at camp. I love pictures and so I told her that she better take a lot of pictures for me so I could see all that she did. Well, she didn't listen to me and took about 5 total for the whole week. So, we have no pictures from that either, unless I can get some from some of the other leaders that went. I'm still working on that.

This is one that someone had posted on facebook. Cute friends--Emma, Maggie and Shay.

That was 3 weekends in a row that Maggie was busy with church things. I love it though. All of those activities are so good and uplifting. I wouldn't want her any place else. Well, except maybe at home with me. :)

June 30

Noah got a birthday package from grandma and grandpa Hansen in the mail that day.

He got this awesome plush Spider man toy that he loves to sleep with.

And he also got these cool Super hero figures. He's just getting into super heroes. He thinks they are pretty awesome, though.

That evening, we took Noah out for his birthday dinner, since we would be on a plane the next day. We took him to Red Robins. These are the waitresses that are about to sing to him. We told them to not sing too loudly because last year, they were pretty loud and it freaked him out quite a bit. He was pretty bashful about it.

Finally, onto July and our Sabbatical!!

Friday, August 8, 2014

Chase is on the case...

Since we were starting our Sabbatical vacation on July 1st--Noah's birthday--we had Noah's 4th birthday party a week early. The theme for his party this year is from his favorite TV show, 'Paw Patrol'. It's about 6 rescue dogs that help the town they live in, called Adventure Bay, with whatever problems they have. It's a cute show. His favorite characters are Chase, Marshall and Rubble. Chase is the police dog, Marshall is the fire dog and Rubble is the construction dog. It's a fairly new show and it was kind of hard to find games and decorations for it. So, I had to be a little creative. Actually, they had quite a few things on the Nick Jr. website, so that was pretty helpful.

The invitation I made.

Chase

Marshall and Rubble

The pups and their sayings...

Rocky, Skye and Zuma

I had Lydia make our welcome sign

and draw paw prints on the driveway and porch.

Our first game to play after the 3 friends arrived was "Fetch" of course. When Noah has these friends over to play on play dates, they have played dogs and fetch many times. So I knew they would like this game.

Here they come...

I love this picture!

They were so funny.

Our next game was "Pin the Badge on Marshall"

spinning the birthday boy around

Pinning on his badge

Cooper's turn

Ethan's turn

Trevor's

Trevor

And Bella.

Then next game was 'Dog Bone Relay'

On one side of the room, they each had a dog bowl with 8 bones in it. On the other side of the room, they each had an empty dog bowl. The object was to get all their bones from one dog bowl, to the other one using their mouths to carry the bones.

Trevor, who is such a cutie--and is a year younger--picked all of his bones up and carried them to his other dog bowl with his hands and then sat there watching the other boys. I had to laugh at how cute he was.

still working...

showing me all of his bones.

finishing up.

We took a break to eat some snacks. Dog bone shaped peanut butter sandwiches, and cheese, grapes and cheese balls with graham cracker Scooby doo snacks. They each got to eat out of a dog bowl.

After their tummies were full, we headed outside for the next game.

This one was called 'Dog Toy Wars'. I saw this on a different blog using garbage of all things. So, I just substituted the garbage with dog toys. The object is to have the least amount of toys on your side before 3 minutes are up. I thought boys would love being able to throw things--but 3 minutes was a really long time. We did it twice and shortened the time.

Cooper and Noah

...against the Brown boys

When they were done with this, we headed out to the backyard for an obstacle course.

Our obstacle course was all about saving the Mayor's chicken, Chickaletta from a den of hungry animals.

They first had to walk this balance beam--just a piece of wood, then go to the ladder and climb up a little ways. Then they had to spray the hose and knock down a bucket with the stream of water.

Then they had to hop through our 4 battered hula hoops.

Then they came to the red cones. Inititally, they were going to crawl through them while bushing a ball with their noses. But, our grass was so dead that Noah said it hurt to crawl on it. So, then I quickly changed plans and had them walk through the cones carrying a marshmallow on a spoon. I let them eat the marshmallow when they were done.

Then they had to crawl under the pool noodles.

Crawl through the tunnel and then get to the "den" of wild animals before they got Chickeletta. I was hoping to have some kind of cave for them to crawl into, but couldn't find anything to make it work.

Trevor was up first. I love how he flipped his hat around.

jumping through the hoops like a pro

And he found Chickaletta like it was no big deal. I love his expression!! What a character!

Cooper walking the balance beam.

squirting the hose

The other 3 waiting their turns.

He found her! If you squeezed her tummy, she clucked like a chicken.

Noah's turn

Notice how he doesn't crawl on his knees.

looking for her

Success!!

And Ethan's turn

I love this picture. Victory!!

They all had such a fun time with this. They each did it 2 or 3 times.

It was pretty hot out, so we headed inside for our last activity.

Since the Paw Patrol Pups are all about helping out and rescuing other pets, I thought it would be fun for the boys to go to a rescue shelter and adopt a puppy. Not for real--I'm sure the other parents would kill me if I sent their boys home with a puppy or something. :)

We had our own rescue shelter where they could pick their own stuffed puppy, give it a name and get an adoption certificate, get a collar, a toy and sack of dog food. (just pretzel sticks and cocoa puffs=Kibbles 'n' Bits)

Noah picking out his dog. Paige and Bella were some great helpers for the party.

signing his name on his certificate.

I think he named his puppy Chase. Come to think of it, I think they all did. Except maybe Trevor. But I can't think of what he named his.

I planned the party for 3 hours, even though I didn't think it would last that long. I just wanted them to be able to have some play time doing whatever they wanted.

I had Garrett make me a dog house. I wanted one that was big enough so that they all could go in and play in together.

This was the doghouse.

I took this at the beginning.

and then remembered that I had ordered these hats from Oriental trading co. They were slightly too big, but they still liked them anyways.

Playing in the dog house between games.

Then it was time for CAKE! I love this cake--it totally looks like dog food to me--and it was so easy!! It's just a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and cocoa puffs on top.