First Day of School

School has officially begun. Haylee has been asking for weeks when school would start and when I would tell her she would say "your killing me Mom" because it just wasn't soon enough for her. Here they are all ready to go. Miss Ashtyn headed off to Third grade today. Her teacher is Mr. LeFevre. She is wearing a special outfit that she got to pick out on her Grandma McGarry date this year. Little Haylee is in 1st grade, which may as well be her Senior year with her personality. She is in Miss Christensen's class which is fun because her teacher taught Scott in 1st grade and me in 3rd grade. The kids waiting at the bus stop. The neighborhood kids at the bus stop. Notice how Haylee and Tyson are holding hands, soo cute! I love that that kids get a long so well in our neighborhood. Finally the bus came, how exciting! Our neighborhood had a bus stop breakfast. Here is the big crew enjoying our last summer get together. Here are the girls getting off the bus. Haylee came running so excited to tell me about her day. Ashtyn walked right over to the neighbors house I gave her a few minutes and finally had to call her over so she would tell me about her day. All I got was "it was fine Mom". I guess that is the difference between a 1st and 3rd grader.

B-I- VEGIO

We planted a family garden at my parent's house this year. Every Monday for FHE we all come and weed and pick in the garden. Each week a different family is in charge of providing dinner. It has been a lot of fun to get together weekly and to see the garden produce all the veggies. Yesterday on our way out to the garden Brigham was singing in the car B-I-VEGIO, B-I-VEGIO. I tried to correct him to let him know it is really sung B-I-N-G-O but he argued that he had just seen it on tv and he was right. I guess since we were gardening it was the perfect song for the evening. Some of the onions Zucchini Carrotts, Peas and Beans Part of the garden. I am getting excited about the corn, I think it will be ready by next Monday. Yum Yum The other part of the garden where we have Zucchini, tomoatoes, onions etc. etc. I took today off of work to spend the last day of summer with the kids. (I CAN'T BELIEVE SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW!) While the girls choose to spend time outside with friends, Briggy helped me in the kitchen make Zucchini bread and blanch the peas and beans for freezing. Briggy helping me prep Zucchini for the bread. He is a huge fan of Zuch. bread and ate half of the loaf himself. I just love my baking buddy!

Rexburg Fair

Since Macy should be born while the Blackfoot Fair is taking place, we decided to take the kids to the Rexburg Fair which even had ride this year. We met up with Scott's Dad and brother and let the kids ride some rides, looked at the booths and attended the rodeo. Checking out the animals. Ashtyn is still bugged we didn't buy her a bunny...they were only $10.00 blah blah... Brigham got to ride on Grandpa's shoulders and a cool elephant ride Haylee & Whitney of course choose a pink heart ride Everyone rode the zipper including little Michelle. We had to convince Ashtyn to ride it since it goes up-side-down but she rode it with Ali and laughed her head off the entire time. I think she was glad she went.

Showered

My great friend Darci threw me a baby shower last week for co-workers and family. It was so nice since we are starting all over with this baby having gotten rid of all of our baby stuff since Brigham. It has been 6 1/2 years since our last girl so it was nice to get updated clothes as well. We held the shower at Gringos so we didn't have to worry about space, tables or chairs. It worked out okay except we ended up sharing the back room with a 20 top that was scheduled at the same time. Grrr! (poor Scott heard about that one!) Thank you Darci for all your hard work and for everyone who came to support. I really appreciate it! Isn't this the cutest blanket ever? Darci made this for me. I am super impressed with her skills and how darn cute it turned out! It was fun to have the girls at the shower with me. They helped with the gifts and had a blast with their cousins that came. Opening gifts...ugh I hate pictures of me but it had to be done. Notice the fabulous car seat cover my sister Michelle gave me. I love, love, love these covers. This is Darci, the host. I have so much fun with her whenever we are together. We worked in the same office for over a year and had a hard time not gabbing constantly! I am grateful for her friendship and love her to death. Food and guests, what more could you want?

The Nursery

We have finally finished the nursery. It has been an ongoing project for several months now mostly because I couldn't decide what I wanted to do for sure and/or couldn't find what I was looking for to pull of the look I wanted. I am happy with the results and can't wait to actually use it. Yes, we have decided on the name Macy. There is no turning back now that it is on her wall. I don't know why this photo is so dark, but it is of the curtains. I couldn't find anything to match and ended up converting a blanket that matched the bedding. I am pleased with how it turned out. I painted these flowers on thin canvas boards. I just copies the designs from the crib sheets. Ashtyn is so proud that I did these myself and introduces the room as all being "made by hand" This is just the changing table and another wall of the room. I will do something besides shoes on the shelf eventually but haven't made it that far. Last but not least, the crib. I love the bedding which inspired the stripes on the wall and the flower paintings. The room is so cheerful. Hopefully I will have a happy baby to go in it.

McGarry Reunion 2009

Every year our immediate McGarry family tries to get together and go camping somewhere. We had planned on going back to Tear Drop Lake this year on the 16th, 17th and 18th but Ben broke his arm and so we ended up with plan B...camping in Mom and Dad's back yard a week later. I was thrilled at how much fun it ended up being even so close to home. We had a ton going on as my parent were also hosting the yearly extended McGarry Family Reunion at their house on Saturday. {DAY 1} We like to try to get a picture of all the grandkids each year so we can see how they have grown. We are missing Wacy in this photo, but other than that the grandkids are all there. (top left: Ben, Noah, Branson, middle: Ashtyn, Zack, Haylee, bottom: Shaylee, Brock & Brigham) We didn't start the reunion until Thursday afternoon so we grilled hamburgers and roasted hot dogs and smores over the fire pit. Our cute parents who started this all. We ended the evening watching Kit Kitchridge outside on the shop wall. It was a great first day to our reunion. {DAY 2} Day 2 started out a little odd, it was alittle chilly with rain which we weren't expecting. We still made breakfast outside and then went in the house and cleaned house to prepare for the reunion the next day. It worked out well while we waited for the storm to blow through. Eventually the weather got better and we saddled up some horses to do relay races etc. in the arena. Here is Zack and Haylee doing a relay race where they are trying to keep a rock between their legs while racing to the finish line. Grandpa started roping the grandkids which they thought was great. Some of our cowboys (from left: Ben, Haylee, Ashtyn & Scott) We got Scott, Dad, Ashtyn, Kliss and Michelle to barrel race. None of the horses are used to the barrels so it was pretty comical to watch. Of Course Michelle won with a time of 22 seconds on Duke. Scott was riding Ratchet and he didn't want anything to do with the barrels. He kept trying to buck and crow hop with Scott so my Dad had to get on after Scott's ride and made him run the barrel pattern. Ride 'im Cowboy! . Later that evening we hung out in the backyard and danced while the guys did dutch oven cooking. Yum Yum! After dinner the kids did some archery We ended the evening with fireworks to celebrate Pioneer Day. {DAY 3} The first half of this day was spent getting ready for the extended family reunion. (I will post this one separately) After the reunion on Saturday we went boating at the Ririe Resevoir. We weren't there very long before a major wind storm blew in. We were on the dock and suddenly flip flops and other loose objects started flying in the water. We all grabbed what we could and hunkered down in a corner of the dock. Just our luck! We all got a good laugh out of it and stayed for a while longer before we gave up and loaded the kids up to take them home. It was freezing especially when the water would blow up and splash against us. Some of the older kids and the men stayed behind and played in the water despite the horrible wind. We all still had a great time. Brigham and Noah swimming by the dock. Aunt Michelle helping Brock and Brigham blow up a tube Zack and Brigham Ashtyn and Scott Logan and Brandon bringing in the boat Uncle Jeremy was driving with a load of kids. Thanks Michelle and Jeremy for taking us boating. It was a ton of fun even with the wind!

Trampoline Trauma

At around 4 o'clock this afternoon a nice little hail storm blew through town. The kids and I ran to the sliding glass doors to check it out. Our storage shed doors were opening and shutting so we were yelling at Scott who was in the other room because things were getting blown around. Next thing we knew the trampoline came straight at us. Luckily it caught on the railing of the stairs and didn't smack into the glass doors. We all screamed and then started laughing (with exception of Ashtyn who started to cry). I went out and held on to the tramp until Scott could come to my rescue. Unfortunately it bent the tramp up a bit. Hopefully Scott can fix it or I am going to have to curse this Idaho weather for the second damaged item this year due to wind. The trampoline after the storm. Notice the legs don't quite sit on the ground anymore, it is a little bent up. The view of the trampoline from my dining room sitting on our deck stairs. Way too close to the glass doors we were looking out of.