Spectacular!

The morning of Independence Day dawned clear and bright and one glance out our patio door at breakfast confirmed: it's going to be a BEAUTIFUL FOURTH!  I thought it was the perfect time to give the boys a little History 101 class on why we are so blessed with FREEDOM in America so starting with the Pilgrims escaping religious persecution in England by coming to America on the Mayflower and finishing up with the Civil War (trying to keep ALL that under five minutes, short attention spans!), I gave them the dish on America the Beautiful and her special birthday that day.  


I was pretty confident the boys had gained a new found appreciation for our country, the many who sacrificed and our amazing history until we got home after all the festivities that day and my three year old, Judah, had a sad face. 


"What's wrong, bud?"  I asked him.


"We never celebrated Captain America's birthday."   He sighed and shuffled off to bed.


Oh.  So much for American History 101!  Maybe next year I'll try to keep it to one or two sentences....

A fun little tradition we do every Fourth is travel to a nearby town and attend their parade--they just celebrated doing the parade shindig FIFTY years this year!  The boys were SERIOUS about catching candy and had front row/road seating!

Love our Gabby!  She's got these chubby cheeks ya just gotta squeeze....

Always feel so BLESSED that the kiddos can grow up with FOUR fabulous grandparents that live locally (my mom, aka. "Mimi" here with Gabby--love their matching shirts!)

Eva scored a remote-controlled truck that one float was handing out (YES, they were handing out HUGE trucks-so fun!)...I guess they thought she was a cutie-pie!

Me and the hubster, dressed in a shade of BLUE...

Cookout back at my folk's place where Gab's digs into HER dinner: SAND! 

 Back at our place, we had some good friends over and broke out the FIRE....fireworks that is!  EvaLee loved the sparklers (can't you tell?!  She is may LOOK serious but this is her "I'm having a blast face"!)

Bob is like a kid in a candy-store at those fireworks tents, I love seeing him have so much fun!  The show he put on in our backyard was SPECTACULAR and after that, I was like: no need to go see the city fireworks!

The kiddos loved everything FIRE and bright and did a good job being careful too!  Gabby missed all the fun, she passed out hours before it kicked off.

Hope you all had a SPECTACULAR Fourth of July and enjoyed the freedom that is never free.  And, I hope you all were able to celebrate Captain America's birthday...!

God bless you!!