Bits of July

Saturday July 9th

 My father-in-law, Jim, is in the YM presidency in his ward in Yamhill.  Their youth group had an activity to go ride horses.  He knows of Maggie's great love of horses, so invited her to come on their activity.  She was beyond thrilled!

 Some of the group.  I guess they had to split up and ride in two separate groups since there weren't enough horses, so she didn't get to ride with grandpa Jim.  

 That's one happy girl!!

 It was beautiful scenery!!

When they returned, Jim went with the next group.   

 Isn't he cute?  He's the best!

Monday July 11th

 Garrett playing Pokemon with Noah.  He is so patient to play with him, because I have no clue what's going on in that game.  I've tried, but I just don't get it and don't ever really want to learn!  Ha! Noah sure loves it though.  

 Kids playing on our long boards...I don't think they'll ever stand up and try to ride them the correct way, but at least they are outside and playing.  

 Tuesday July 12th

 Today was a day spent with friends... This is Brooke and Paige.  They've been friends since they were like 3 I think.  They are so cute together.  Today they were taking pictures of the things they like to do together and were planning to put the pictures in a book.  Not sure if they ever did, but it was a cute idea.  

 These pictures were all at Brooke's house.  

 This is their cute friend Lily.  

 Having a picnic

 Playing piano

and doing their nails.

 Maggie went on a group date to Chic-fil-a.  I guess if they dressed up like cows they got something for free, so that's what their date was.  Pretty cute...I can't remember if they did anything else or not.

 And Bella had her friends Lauryn, Katie and Brooklynn over and played on the trampoline.  

 I sure love my kids' good friends!

 These other things happened in July too, but I will post about them later because there are a lot of pictures...

Posts to come:

 Our stake had it's 2nd trek and it was the 2nd time to be Ma and Pa McKibben.  That was quite the adventure!! July 13-16th.

 We drove to Utah on the 18th and 19th, and then had a Hansen family reunion in Yellowstone from July 20th-26th.  

Garrett had to fly back home the next day, but we stayed in Utah till August 6th.  On July 30th, we spent the day at Bear Lake.  It was a fun and busy month!!

Finishing up June

Friday June 17

The first day of summer break and we headed to the stake center to participate in a stake activity girls activity for Paige and Bella.  (Paige also brought her friend Ella)  It was a super hero theme and their decorations were seriously cute!

I stayed as a parent helper.  They had some classes and some crafts and played this team work game.  I think the girls had a lot of fun.  The picture above is Bella and her team working against Paige and her team.  (below)

Taking pictures with the back drops. 

This was one of the classes and I loved the things she talked about and how we needed to recharge our batteries by doing the basic things we've been commanded. 

Saturday June 18th

Grandma Georgia found a place where we could go and feed baby calves.  My kids were so excited about this.  (well, all except Lydia)  The Passey's came too! It was pretty cute! Sorry there are so many pictures!

Maggie was in hog heaven!  

These were even newer baby cows that could only drink milk.

They still seemed so hungry even after all the milk was gone...this one was sucking Maggie's fingers.

baby pigs

We stopped at a fun old fashioned burger joint on the way home, then Amelia spent the night with us that night. 

Sunday June 19th

Father's Day

I had to speak in Sacrament meeting on father's in the scriptures.  

After church, we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's to celebrate Father's day.

I always get Garrett some kind of "dad" t-shirt for Father's day.  I never know what else to get him.  This year was a "Walking Dad" (dead) shirt.  

Ha ha!!

Miss Hazel playing in a bucket of water.  She's too cute!

Kids playing frisbee with their cousins.

Bella and Paige love playing with and taking care of Hazel.

Grandpa Jim and half of his grand kids

all the dads and their kids

Monday June 20th

I went in to see a cardiologist for an echocardiogram because my mom has something called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  She had to have heart surgery back in 2015 to get it repaired.  It can be genetic, so since I was going on trek next month, I wanted to make sure that I didn't have it.  I also had Maggie and Lydia get the same test done since they were also going on trek (and Maggie played basketball).  We all came back with a clean bill of health, so that's good, but you do need to get tested about every two years to make sure it doesn't develop later.  

Tuesday June 21st

BJ the Clown

We love going to see BJ the clown!  We try to see him every summer at the library when they kick off the summer reading program.  We don't go to a lot of the other shows, sometimes the Reptile man, but everyone loves BJ!

I love watching my kids laugh!

Me and my Mr.  

Sorry about the crazy hair...I was still letting it dry before I fixed it for the day.  

Later that night for mutual, the young men were helping with an Eagle Scout project.  They were spreading mulch around this garden area where Nicholas, (the scout) had built the fence and the flower boxes and the arbor.  It turned out really nice.  It is at my kids school, too.

Garrett took the younger three with him to "help" and take pictures.  

all the young men (and leaders) that helped that night

Wednesday June 22nd

I started painting my craft cabinet.  I keep it in our front room, but since we just painted those walls brown, I wanted to paint the cabinet a cream color so there wasn't so much brown in that room.  It took about 3 days to paint it all, so I was glad when that was done!

 Here is a before picture of the cabinet...

...and after picture.  I like how it stands out!

Jim and Georgia offered to take the kids overnight since school was out. So later in the day, I drove them over to Yamhill for a sleepover.   Garrett and I went out for dinner and then went to see "Now you see me 2" that night.  It was nice having a night off!

Friday June 24th

Garrett took the younger four kids over to his parents house to set up a tent and then slept in the backyard.  The Passey's put up a tent, too.  (They were still living with Jim and Georgia while they were getting housing figured out up in Washington, where they were moving.)

Maggie and I didn't really want to do that, so instead we went to a movie.  We went to see, "Me Before You".  We went to a theater where they have the reclining seats--it was so nice!

Saturday June 25th

The morning after the campout...I think they all had fun, although I don't think they slept very well.  

Later that evening, we went out with Jim and Georgia and Meggin.  For Mother's Day, Garrett got his mom tickets to one of those Murder Mystery plays.  We've been to one before with some friends and it was pretty fun.  This one wasn't that great.  For starters, the hardly gave us any food.  Our entree was just a piece of fish or chicken.  Nothing else, no sides.  It was really weird.  We had bread as an appetizer and maybe some vegetables, too, but nothing with the meat.  

Sunday June 26th

After church, we had everyone come over to our house for dinner.  The cousins played and the adults just talked.  Pretty casual evening. 

Celeste, Paige, Amelia and Noah

Thursday June 30th

Noah loses another tooth!!

I also get sick this day with a fever, chills, aches and a cough.  I pretty much live off of advil for the next four busy days--Noah's birthday party, teaching primary, and 4th of July!! Who has time to be sick?!