Our Fourth of July

I'm catching up, slowly :) On the fourth, we went out to Point Mallard in the morning to the "Spirit of America" festival which was rather disappointing. Not that much going on. It was probably better in the evening. But the kids liked the bouncy stuff!

This bouncy castle with a slide was their favorite and the best one for their size. They went down that slide over and over and over.

Jon just wanted to walk all over the place...

In the evening, we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house for water fun, grilling, and fireworks. Jon loved the little pool. We got him his own the next week for his birthday.

Ethan didn't want anything to do with the water...

Nicole and Chris having fun in the bigger pool. By the time we got over there (after naps) the pools were nasty full of grass, but Chris didn't mind.

They also had a sprinkler set up to spray on the slide and a slip-n-slide at the bottom, so the kids would just fly down and across the slip-n-slide. So funny. Chris loved it, he did it over and over.

Jon found his new favorite toy at Grandma's. He loves push around toys. This little ride-on looked like it converted, so I checked it out and sure enough (he's not into the ride-ons quite yet) it popped up into this funny pusher. Carole thought it was so funny that she's had this toy for years and never knew it popped up like that...

It came in handy later that week when I wanted to go to a hair appointment and leave Jon. Thus far, Jon has not been good about being left with other people. He's only been left with one other person (one time) besides Daddy. We got to Grandma's and he started pushing this thing around the house and didn't even know I was gone for 2+ hours. Yay!

The kids get together and run wild. They have so much fun together. This is when they all came downstairs for the "big parade". Jeanne had the idea for one, since there are enough kids for it!

The little dancer posers ("take my picture!")

And the parade. Dress-up on, wagons loaded, wave to the people!

Then some fireworks even though it wasn't remotely dark yet... once it got dark we headed over to the Dexter's business parking lot for some more big ones. That was fun too. The kids all loved the fireworks. None of mine were scared of any of it. I think the only scaredy was Kenzie (a little?)

Jon just wanted to wander all over. He seems to like the grass okay, but loves the concrete for some reason. He always makes a beeline for it, and this day he scraped up his toe and it was bleeding, and he was so mad at me for not letting him go back onto the sidewalk.

Awww, brother love...

And then the rest of the babies... lots of babies around this family. Everyone has had one in the past year.

The newest, Peter

Jacob

and Ethan

What a fun day with the family! We are definitely grateful the freedoms we enjoy!