Happy 4th of July!

We hope everyone had a fabulous Fourth of July weekend! We sure did! It was the never-ending weekend of backyard fun and celebrations. When asked what Josh's favorite part of the holiday weekend was he said, "Standing under the giant man with the funny pants."

I love experiencing life through a four-year olds eyes.

We started the weekend by seeing Cars 2. Josh has waited patiently to see his favorite movie part 2. His beautiful date, Katie, was happy to experience the movie with him. Of course, the parents were there to chaperon and enjoy the movie as well. I thought it was great. However, I thought watching Josh sit in a total trance for the entire movie was far more entertaining than the actual movie. At one point, I think I saw him accidentally stick a french fry into his nose instead of his mouth.

Later that evening, we blew up the water slide for it's inaugural summer of 2011 playtime and hosted a backyard BBQ. The kids had so much fun coming down the slide all at the same time. Surprisingly, there were no black eyes or broken bones, so it was a successful night.

Because of the state-wide fireworks ban, oh yeah, and the fact we have small children, we were careful to choose only approved and safe fireworks for the kids to play with in the front yard.

After church on Sunday, Chris and I battled our messy garage in the 100+ heat, which was a really, really wise decision ( or not). Luckily, the slide was still set up and filled with cool water. Don't tell Josh, but Chris and I spent his nap time cooling off in his pool. Nothing like an above ground, plastic, blow-up pool to make you feel fancy.

Sunday night, we decided to attend a BIG fireworks show in the area. We've never been brave enough to go before, even though we all LOVE watching fireworks. We thought since Josh can handle staying up late and life will be very different next year with an 8 month old, we should jump on the chance. And we are SO glad we did! We had a blast ( no pun intended).

While waiting for the fireworks to begin, they put on a fantastic air show. You can see the "airplane tracks" (as Josh calls them) in the sky behind Josh, who is using his sword to command the plane to do twists. He loved the air show!

Josh found a fellow Star Wars and glow in the dark sword-loving 4 year old friend. They had a blast running circles around a poor group of nice people that had no affiliation with either child.

Finally, the sun set and it was time for Fireworks!!!

Josh loved watching and hearing the big BOOM accompanying each set of fireworks.

After a very, very late night watching fireworks, we were up very, very early (why do kids do that????) on the 4th of July. We headed to our neighborhood's annual parade with our friends.

It was quite a parade, this year. I think the entire town turned out to watch the floats and celebrate the day.

Here are my favorite kids waiting for the parade to start... aka: candy-collecting to begin. This year, they were very skilled at their candy catching and gathering. It was so fun to watch. After the parade, we hit the big carnival to play on the bounce houses and meet the man on stilts. It was such a great weekend, but it will take us a month to recover from all the fun!