Happy 4th of July

4th of July morning we walked to Main St. for the annual parade.  The city did a great job this year!

 Cole loved the characters in the parade and wanted to hug each one.  

What a cute kid! 

Joey is our parade snob and refused to run for any salt water taffy that was thrown out.... Salt water taffy was pretty much all the candy passed out.  He wanted the good stuff like the specialty chocolate the Mrs. Cavanaugh's float passed out.  He's a smart stinker.

 My boys love their Uncle Jack!

After the parade we headed back to my parent's home to cool off.  It was hot!  The kids played in the water and everyone had lunch.  So fun to celebrate the 4th with them this year!

We headed home for a little quiet time before we were off to another celebration!  Tony's office purchased tickets to Stadium of Fire for employees and families and we couldn't wait to go!  Prior to the show was a company dinner at the BYU baseball stadium.

 Charlie looks so grown up in this picture!  

They also supplied everyone with company t-shirts.  They are actually cute too!  We were pretty much walking advertising :)

 Playing around after dinner

 It was really fun for our boys to explore the stadium while we waited for the show to start!

We were worried to bring the boys to the show, but they did GREAT!  I picked up glow sticks & special snacks to help them get through the night.  Tony even bought dippin' dots and I'm pretty sure he and I were more excited about them than the boys were.  Dippin' dots!  Maybe that was a fad when we were kids?  Anyways, they were just as wonderful as we imagined them to be :)

Carrie Underwood was the guest performer and was amazing!  The whole show was fantastic and the boys were mesmerized.  We left when Carrie had a couple songs left because we were worried about losing one of the boys in the mass exodus afterwards!  It ended up being a smart move because we watched the fireworks from the parking lot and got out of Provo without any traffic.

The fireworks were incredible!  You could see them everywhere!  I think we may find a spot to watch them next year.  It was our best 4th of July yet.  I loved the Stadium of Fire because it was so patriotic.  I felt a rush of gratitude to live in this country.

Happy 4th of July!!!

The 3rd of July

 we got our flag up just in time for the holiday

The 3rd of July was always my favorite for celebrating the 4th.  My family did the same thing every year: fried chicken & shrimp pasta salad for dinner, concert in the park & fireworks.  Centerville does a great job celebrating Independence Day!

This was my first year to be there for the 4th in 7 years!  It was just like I remembered and that made me happy.  Actually, it was even better because I had my own little family to share it with.

 killing time before driving up to Nana & Papa's

 I was in charge of dessert and brought shortcake bars 

Rather than bringing our traditional dinner to the park, we ate in my parent's backyard.  It gets a little more crowded each year.  I guess people finally started catching on to how fun it is!  Luckily my parents live a block away so we could walk over anytime.

This year we lucked out and it rained right before dinner.  We had much cooler weather the rest of the evening.  It was a little humid, but we were so happy to not be in the blazing sun!

After dinner we grabbed our chairs and walked over to the park.

The fireworks were great and Nana brought fun little baggies for each kid filled with goodies.  Papa even brought over a box of otterpops which we were all thankful for!  It was so fun to be together and see all the kids together.  We had my family, all of my siblings, cousins and kids, plus Wende & Ethan.  It was a great time!
 

Baby Animal Birthday Party

We went with some friends to the baby animal birthday party at Farm Country a couple months ago!  We became close friends with this family through visiting teaching.  We have kids the same gender and exact same age.  We strapped our newborns (yes, she has a boy just a week younger than Peter) on and chased kids around the whole place.  It was exhausting, but fun to have another exhausted mom with me!

 We started our trip off at the ice cream parlor then waited for the ponies, cow train and even had birthday cake to celebrate to top it all off.  It was a little too much sugar, but we had a blast!