4th of July

For the first full week in July we had Aunt Amanda and cousin Scottie visiting us. We stayed very very busy so I'll have several blog posts encompassing their visit. To start off we celebrated the 4th of July. We headed to breakfast at our church and then headed to our local parade. It was raining when we set up for the parade so we were worried how much fun we would have but we were determined to make the most of it. Luckily just as the parade got going the rain let up for awhile.

Love these pictures of the boys with their American flags.

We watched the parade with the Larkin family.

My sweet baby girl.

Sharing his candy with Aunt Amanda.

She's having fun!

Just as the parade was ending the rain started up again.
That's okay, we had LOTS of fun collecting beads, candy, and coupons.

After a stop off at home and watching that the weather was going to clear up we headed to the local carnival. The kids have been begging to go to a carnival sometime so to put them off I had said maybe the 4th of July carnival. Well the 4th of July came along so Mommy had to stop putting it off and take the kids to a carnival. I was struck by how expensive they were so we let the kids do two games and one ride a piece.

Dylan would walk a little ways and then stand up on the fence to get a better look at the old caboose parked on the train tracks.

The first game each kid did was one where you simply pick up a frog and pick a prize that coordinated. We wanted something that would be a guarantee so each kid would have something to go home with.

Funny story about this...one of the first things Tom noticed when arriving at the carnival was these large blow up swords and the little kid in Tom said "oh cool". Well when Dylan got to pick his prize I showed him several choices and when I pulled the sword up to show Dylan he instantly went "oh cool, yes, yes". Like father, like son.

Dylan choose to ride the motorcycles that went up and down and round and round. He loved it!!
Olivia was sad to not get to ride but I reminded her of the ride she had asked to do.
(I think she would have rather the motorcycles --- read on...)

Second game, fishing for prizes. The kids both fished for a prize for their baby Sis. They picked out a purple dolphin for Ashley.

Olivia's ride the dragon roller coaster. So excited to go! Waiting her turn and watching the ride before her go.

Okay, Olivia and Scottie's turn. Olivia's poor face. She was scared and trying really hard not to be sick. She wasn't very happy and was wondering when this ride was going to be over.

When she got off she said it was scary and she never wanted to do that again. We told her that next year she'll be a whole year older and she might want to try it again. She didn't think she would ever try it again. We'll see.

Walking back on the train tracks Dylan was admiring on the way in. He was so cute pretending to be a train!

The kids had so much fun!
What cute kids!!

Meet up with the Larkin family again for fireworks.
Olivia was so worried about how loud the fireworks were going to be (which she hasn't had a problem with them in past years) that she covered her ears as soon as we got there. Which we were quite early so we assured her that we would warn her when it was going to start so she could cover her ears then. NOPE she was covering her ears the entire wait no matter how much we assured her the fireworks weren't starting yet.

The kids played with their glow sticks and ate snacks waiting for the fireworks to start.

Once the fireworks got going Dylan just sat in his Cars camp chair next to his friend Derrek and watched the entire show just like that. Olivia snuggled next to Daddy. Ashlyn snuggled with Mommy and watched some and laid her head down some. Ashlyn was very tired but she will hold off sleep as much as possible to not miss anything.

As Ashlyn kept watching and moving around for a while she was watching the fireworks cheek to cheek with me...it's was precious!! Melt my Mommy heart!

We had a full day and felt like we did up the 4th of July celebrations the best we could!!