4th of July

We had a fun Fourth of July with my parents. 

I took the girls in their front yard for some pictures....

We had a fun lunch with some festive books.

I watched Hamilton for the first time and enjoyed it, so my mom and I watched it together on the fourth. 

We watched other patriotic movies throughout the week as well, which all add to the pride and fun of the holiday. 

During the week we had one of our poetry teatime's. This one had a fourth theme of course. These tend to be one of my favorite things we do, so it was fun! We had festive cookies and we ate our lunch picnic style with it as well. 

My mom reading one of the books to us..

My parents are fun and festive, so it's always fun to be with them for our celebrations!

 

The 4th of July

We wanted to spend a pretty low key 4th of July this year so we decided we wouldn't go to any fireworks shows. 

I asked my parents if they had any plans and if they wanted to get together for lunch. They did want to and asked if we would come to their house for a barbecue. 

So we drove there in the early afternoon. 

We had a really fun barbecue. 

 

My mom even made us red, white, and blue ice cream sundaes. 

 

After that we drove home and we went out back to do poppers and sparklers. 

 

 A few moments after Maddy was holding out that sparkler, she forgot that she isn't supposed to touch the burning edge when it is done burning. She grabbed it right by that end as she put it down on the table and burnt her hand resulting in lots of pain and a big blister. I felt so bad for her.

Since we didn't plan on going to any fireworks shows we just hung out at home all evening and let the girls start watching a film in the playroom. But then there began to be booms everywhere and we went to the windows. There were people doing huge fireworks shows all over our neighborhood. 

We could also see a few of the big professional ones from afar. 

So we went outside and watched for a while. The girls loved it!

4th of July: Part 2

After cupcakesand resting, we went home and got ready to do some fireworks in the driveway. 

We decided to just do some at home this year rather than go anywhere. 

We started doing snaps. 

We live in Mark and Callie's basement apartment and Callie had some family in town. Their sons saw us out there so we invited them to come out and join us.

It was a really fun 4th!

4th of July: part one

The 4th of July is always fun. 

This year we were excited to spend a lot of it with family. 

We got up and dressed early. We had some balloons blown up at the party store to use later....

On our way out in the morning...

 

We met up with Doug's sister Wendy along with her husband and daughter Claire. 

Claire looked adorable as usual.

We went to a house in their neighborhood that always hosts a big 4th of July pancake breakfast. 

We used to live in the neighborhood and so we know a lot of people there and it is fun to go see them. They really do a good job with this breakfast. 

One of the neighbors was making balloon animals. Maddy didn't want one (go figure) but Abi did so she was very excited. 

Claire is so much fun. 

After breakfast we walked back over to their house to prepare for the next activity. 

On the way we saw this guy. 

The neighborhood does a parade every year so we went back to decorate the girls' bikes with those balloons so that they could be in the parade. 

The parade is pretty impressive for a small neighborhood parade. 

Doug's sister Wendy and sister-in-law Callie were asked to be royalty. 

Abi with some taffy in her mouth as she rode...

The parade ended at the church down the street and each child that had participated got to have a popsicle. 

Feels like summer!

We went home after the parade to relax for a little while and get out of the heat. 

I made some flag cookies. They were yummy but way too sweet. 

After resting for a while we went back over to Wendy and Mischael's house to run in sprinklers and have a BBQ. 

Mischael's family was there and the girls had so much fun playing with them. 

Mischael is such a good sport and had a water fight with the girls. 

They loved that!

Those cheeks!

After lunch and many hours playing in the heat and water, we went inside to cool off and have some cupcakes since it was almost Claire's first birthday. 

As you can see, I took a LOT of pictures. 

Part two coming up....