McKibben Family Blog: Grandma Simper

July 27th
Today was Sunday, so we went to church in the morning (sacrament meeting). Then we ate lunch and I blogged for awhile. Everyone kinda did their own thing.

This is Bella and Cora. Bells wanted Cora to come to church with us, so she offered to let Cora wear one of her dresses, since my sister Megan didn't have room to pack church clothes. Aren't they sweet?

Noah and Iris playing together. I love the look on Noah's face.

Bella and Mailei playing Lego Friends

Iris and Paigey hanging out

After awhile my dad was offering tractor rides to all of the kids. It's funny that none of the boys wanted to go, but the cute little girls did. So they rode around in the tractor with Grandpa.

Bella, Iris, Grandpa and Cora

A view from the back. They had a great time in there. It was air-conditioned, so they were quite comfortable.

The Barn

Megan and Tad were up there to help grab the windows from dad when he lifted them up in the tractor. He was getting things ready to start working the next day.

Lift hard kids! (inside joke with my family)

After awhile Emmett came out and joined the girls

Getting some ipad time while we made dinner. That night we had bbq chicken, potato salad and corn for dinner. I made a brownie pudding for dessert. After we got the kids in bed we watched 'The Great Outdoors'. A Hansen family favorite!

July 28th

This was kind of a lazy day doing laundry and cleaning and making dinner. Plus a little blogging in there, too.

The kids are watching a movie that we used to watch when we were little. It's called "For the Love of Willadean". It's not really a full length movie--just two short episodes, but we all loved it as kids. I've been looking for it forever and I finally found it online somewhere, so I brought it for us all to watch.

Maggie sitting in the barn, reading.

Such a cute picture! She loves the barn so much!

Garrett and I made dinner that night. We made halibut bits, broccoli salad and rice. I think we just talked and hung out or read that night.

July 29th

Today I didn't take many pictures. Megan's friend came in the morning. I was doing laundry and reading. After lunch, Megan and I started working on some Halloween Trick-or-Treat bags. We bought the material for them the previous summer, but never got around to making them. Garrett took Noah, Bella, Paige, Colin and Micah to see the new Planes movie. So, we kept sewing. We had fajitas for dinner and watched "Bourne Legacy" that night.

July 30th

After breakfast, mom brought out some sticker crafts for the kids to work on. The kids love doing crafts with grandma.

After that, we had Maggie and Lydia babysit while Megan, mom, Solviej and I all went out to some fabric/quilt stores and to lunch. It was so fun to see all the fun things in the stores--especially the Halloween things.

We found this quilt we loved. So we bought supplies for it. It will probably be a year before we get around to starting that one, too!

Garrett had bought a zip line at Cabella's for our yard and decided to put it up here. One end was attached to the barn and the other to the tractor. Here he's pushing Micah on it.

Micah again while the other kids patiently wait for their turn.

Colin's face says it all. He loved it!

Super Noah!!

Cora's turn

Bella

The guys working on the barn

The kids had a blast playing in the mud. They said that they were making potions--like in Harry Potter, with the mud. They were a mess! We continued to work on our bags. After dinner we watched "Bourne Identity".

July 31st

Today was spent sewing, playing in the mud, and ziplining.

Sewing in mom's sewing room

Dad and uncle Alan working hard--making the wall for the stairs.

Solviej knitting while we sew

Maggie was going to make a bunting/banner and was picking fabrics. These boys--Emmett and Noah had a great time running and jumping over them while carrying their matching Trick-or-Treat bags.

After dinner, we went outside and dad built us a fire.

Solviej, Alan, mom, Dad, me, Garrett and Maggie

Noah, Bella, Colin, Cora. The kids love playing outside and running around.

Chasing each other

Cooking s'mores.

And tonight, we watched "Bourne Ultimatum" Good movies!

August 1st

The kids spent their morning watching tv shows in Tad and Solviej's room. Megan was packing because she and her kids and my mom were leaving to go back to their house in NC. My mom was going with to watch the kids while she was going to a painting workshop for a week. My sister is seriously talented--she's a great painter.

This is the painting that she was working on at her workshop.

Pictures before they left. Me, Megs and mom

Me, Megs, Mom and Solviej

Me, Tad and Megs

The rest of the grandkids

After they left, Maggie babysat while Garrett and I went to lunch at a Brazilian place (Gaucho Grill) for lunch. It was really good! Garrett loves going there.

Solviej took her kids plus Bella and Paige to the swimming pool for a couple of hours. I finished my last halloween bag and started on a Christmas Quilt that was in the middle of.

Here are my bags. Aren't they fun?

Noah, Mailei and Iris playing on the couch pillows.

Maggie got a migraine after dinner and spent the night in bed. We used Frankinsence on her and I think she slept all night--until 5 am at least.

Everyone kinda did their own thing that night--Garrett, Tad, Lydia and Micah watched tv shows like Treehouse Masters and Deadliest Catch, Solviej went to bed early, Charee and Andy were at a Motley Crue concert, and I watched episodes of 24. Dad went to bed early, too.

Aug. 2nd

My parents have lots of mice on their property, which is why they got 2 cats. My dad says that their cats are worthless at chasing mice. My uncle Alan's dog, Lulu loves to catch mice and play with them though. My nieces found this mouse in the barn amongst some wood. I think it was scared to death between the dog, cats and all the kids. It pretty much stayed in that spot and died sometime that day. My two little nieces were watching it like a hawk before it died.

Later that morning, I was working on my quilt and realized that I didn't have something I needed so I had to go to JoAnns and another store--for the fun of it, since I was out. I also had to stop at the grocery store to get some things for dinner. It was a nice little outing by myself.

In the afternoon, Tad and Solviej and their kids went down to Salt Lake to walk around Temple Square and do some other things. I was up in the sewing room working on my quilt. Garrett took the kids out for rides on the razor.

Maggie driving again. Garrett also took Maggie up into the mountains to have a little shooting practice. She didn't like it very much. She's like me and doesn't like to shoot guns.

Later that night, we all went out to eat at Maddox for dinner. They have THE best rolls. So good!

Garrett took Maggie to see the 2nd Captain America that night.

Aug. 3rd

Sunday again and went to Sacrament Meeting. We were leaving the next day, so I was busy doing laundry and packing. We were headed to California so I needed to make sure that all of our clothes were clean. In the afternoon I continued to sew and was able to finish the top of my quilt. Garrett took Paige out on the Razor and also took her shooting up in the mountains. She, unlike Maggie really likes to shoot and has pretty good aim. I had started to help my sister Charee and my dad get dinner ready, but Noah came to me and said he didn't feel very good. So, he sat down on my lap for a bit and fell asleep. He was definitely coming down with something. When he woke up, he had a fever of 101.

Poor kid--so unlike him to fall asleep in the middle of the day.

That night, I didn't know if it was a stomach thing or what, but I decided to move him into the room that Megan had been using and I slept in there too. Originally, he was on the top floor and Garrett and I were down in the basement, so I couldn't hear him at all. But since he was coming down with something, I knew he'd be up in the middle of the night. So, I wanted to be where I could hear him and help him. He had a very restless night--he had his fever all night long, but never threw up or anything.

Aug. 4th

Noah and I were able to sleep in till about 9:30, which was good. Noah seemed to be much better the rest of the day!! But then, Bella started getting a fever and had a stomach ache. So, I put oils on her and had her try to rest on the couch while we finished up the packing. We left around 1 pm and we headed to Provo.

I had Garrett drive through Perry on our way to Provo so that I could see my Grandma Simper's house. I was showing the kids and little did I know that Lydia took pictures of them. I'm so glad she did. It's been quite a few years since I've been by there. My grandma passed away in 1998 I think, so it's been quite awhile since I've been inside.

This was my Uncle Alan's house. He used to live right next door to my grandma.

And this was my Aunt Janice's house. They lived right across the street. She passed away in 1995 in a car accident. It was so fun to come and visit because all of my relatives were right here together. I think it made my mom pretty sad that they were all right here together and she was far away in Texas. Alan and Janice are her brother and sister. Many good memories in those houses!

Bella was feeling a little bit better, so we went to the WILK, looked around the BYU Bookstore and had lunch there. Then we got back in the car and drove down to St. George where we were staying the night. Bella's stomach ache and fever were gone, but she and Noah both had a sore throat and Bella's ear was hurting. We got to St. George about 8:30 and grabbed some Costa Vida and went to our hotel and went straight to bed.