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....