Happy 4th of July!

I love this holiday! It is one of my faves!! Here are Mollee and I sporting our festive shirts (the boys wore their own versions of patriotic colors - which meant Daegan picked a tie-dye shirt because "it has red, white and blue") (mine says Red, White, Blue).

I like to plan lots of different activities for the kids just to make it a fun-filled day. Sporadically, breaking out in a "Happy Birthday, America" rendition - which Mac fully enjoys! Our day started with a Mommy and Boys breakfast on the deck (Daddy and Mollee like to sleep in and miss all the fun) and then I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast dessert (of course, we saved some for the sleeping ones).

The kids enjoyed cartoons while I ran to Wal-Mart to get fireworks and dinner items, along with fried chicken from the deli for lunch. We enjoyed the chicken on the deck and topped it off with icees. Our trusty icee maker gets abused the weekend of the Fourth. Flavors this year: Pina Colada, Strawberry, Blue Raspberry, Grape and Cotton Candy.

The kids enjoyed sidewalk chalk outside (ok, really in the garage) for awhile until it was their turn to see the Transfomer movie. Our (meaning Jason and I's) 'holiday' really started last night by finally watching the first Transformers movie (maybe next year we'll rent #2). I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not, but I loved it. Jason also enjoyed it. The kids were upset that we rented it and were watching it after they went to bed, but we wanted to see it before letting them watch it. One of their activities today was to watch the second half of it, we thought there were some things in the beginning that they wouldn't understand and didn't really need to see. They basically got to see the big battle and have talked about it the remainder of the day.

For our evening plans I tried to convince Jason to go to the Pops in the Park (symphony and fireworks), but after reading in the paper that usually 25,000 people attend, Jason wasn't too thrilled about the idea.

The Harris' (my sister and family) called and invited us for dinner, which was a nice treat and very convenient since they live only seven doors down. I tried a new recipe for our burgers - Red, White and Blue Burgers (onion, ranch and blue cheese). They were really yummy and we will definitely be having those again. I also took my icee maker so the Harris' could enjoy the fun - here are the kids eating their icees in the yard, acting like it was poison (who knows why?).

After cinnamon rolls and two icees throughout the day (it isn't a holiday without lots of dessert, right?), it seemed like a long evening waiting for dark so we could do our fireworks, which weren't anything exciting, but very exiting for the kiddos. This is what you get for $7 from Wal-Mart. It was about the same thing with 15 different names. :) The kids loved them!
Daegan is definitely my son, he gets so excited about holidays and the traditions and all the fun to be had!
Here are the kids waiting for the next round. Please note that Mac is not here. No, it isn't because it is past his bedtime (although, it is an hour and a half late), it is because this is how the first round of fireworks went for him.

And here he is hiding inside, but still interested to watch thru the glass door.
OK, so, tell me if you are noticing a pattern:

This year:

Last year:

Usually, we let the kids stay up really late and watch the local theme park's fireworks from our deck (which conveniently has a great view for that), but because we have church tomorrow, we had to deny them of this for this year - with the hope that Wal-Mart will have more fireworks on sale tomorrow for another round one night next week.

Now Mommy is going to sneak out to the deck and enjoy the show without a hundred questions....maybe the Fourth could be on Saturday night every year.

PS. From time to time, I will be boring you with updates of 30 second improvements on my mile run and this morning I pushed myself as hard as I could and ran my mile in 13 minutes and 3 seconds - Whoo Hoo!!