Happy 4th of July!

Our 4th of July this year was spent in a very low-key manner. We had a really nice time relaxing, doing some local fun activities and just enjoying the beautiful weather on this Independence Day.

This morning, we started off the day by going to the Skippack parade with the kids. The boys had enjoyed the Memorial Day parade so much that we were really looking forward to another one. Well, this one was definitely a lot bigger and more populated but they still had just as much fun seeing the sights and, of course, gathering all of the candy that was thrown from the various cars that drove past. We ran into several families that we know at the parade and just had a really fun and festive start to our day!

Here are the boys watching some of the sights go past...



Some of the most popular sights according to our two guys. Of course the old cars were also very popular since they seemed to throw the most candy out of their windows :).

The local kiddie racing team. Who'd have thunk that this even existed?!? LOL!

Even the air was in the 4th of July spirit. These antique planes flew over the parade and all of the kids seemed to enjoy spotting them!

Of course the tractor portion of the parade was so popular again...

The fire trucks were also a very popular sight again. I enjoyed seeing the antique ones; the kids seemed to like hearing the loudest ones that passed!

After a fairly low-key afternoon of being at home while the kids napped, we headed over to our church's 4th of July picnic. What a good time we had! Several of our friends were there and it was just such a fun and relaxing time with friends and great food!

Here is Ben on the merry-go-round with some of his friends. He enjoyed going on it at first but then decided that "he's big" and would rather help to push it! When I told him to be careful because some of the kids pushing it were very big...at least 7 years old, some of them close to 10, and that they could probably run faster than he could, he informed me that "Ben's big too, Mom. I'm three now!" Oh, my little independent man is growing up so quickly!! :(

Here is Nate hanging out with the ladies and being a big cheese for the camera! He's such a mama's boy, too...he started telling me "Cookie! Cookie!" when he finished his dinner so I told him I'd take him over to the desserts and he could pick one out. When we got there, he perused the selection and proceeded to point to some saying "That! That!"...they were the ones that I had baked while he and Ben napped today and brought along to the picnic. What a mama's boy - ha ha!

Yesterday, we spent the day putting up the Intex above ground pool that we recently bought. The boys love the water this year so we figured it would be a fun thing for them to cool off in this summer. We also want to get them used to the water so we decided to buy this family gift for ourselves.

Ben couldn't contain himself and wanted to go in it at 8:45am (since it had still been filling up when he went to bed last night) and then also when we got home from the picnic tonight at around 8:30pm. It was a little chilly since the sun was not up for either dip, but he seemed to have a great time regardless. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to use it during daylight hours when it is sunny out!

Here are a few photos of Ben and Andrew in the pool together.

The pool is 4ft. high but we didn't fill it all of the way (yet) so Ben is able to touch the ground.

Finally, after warming up and drying off from his swim, here is Ben in his 4th of July pj's, waiting for Andrew to start our own personal fireworks show. He's such a skinny guy now that his pj's from last year still completely fit him; he just opted to wear pj pants instead of the coordinating shorts since it's a little cool out tonight and he was trying to warm up from his swim.

Andrew gave a great fireworks display and about 6 other neighbors also put on major shows, all of which we could see clear as day from our yard. What fun! Who needs to pay to go to the local fireworks show when we have our own personal show at home! Unfortunately, none of my photos from the actual fireworks came out but we had a great time watching them. Ben actually asked to go to sleep at 10pm since he was exhausted at that point from so much activity tonight. Ha ha!

Happy 4th of July!