Sweet Land of Liberty: Our 4th of July

Better late than never, right?  In order to continue playing catch up, this is going to be a majorly long post full of pictures!

 

We had a great 4th of July!  And I was even able to decorate just a little!  This burlap banner was across the mantle.

And here is a picture of the entire mantle - while watching a soccer game :)

And I love this print that framed and leaned up there!

And we had a new garden flag hanging out front...

And a hand towel on the oven handle!

All that was missing was a cute wreath.  I had my eye on a couple of them but never got to ordering one.  Maybe next year :)

 

On the 4th, we headed to the pool for almost three hours!  The weather was pretty mild for this time of year and it was so nice outside! 

 

Here is Daddy helping Jack swim :) 

And Katie was about to jump in :) She is swimming like a little fish this summer!

And this dude did great in the shade!

Katie and Stella had some snacks during one of the rest periods!

And so did Jack :)  And Jill ordered pizza and had it delivered to the pool - it was so fun to have a pizza picnic!

Cute boys :)  Love this one!

And Daddy with his two little fishies :)

Not sure what was going on here - I think maybe Brad was helping Jack jump in backwards.  He loved it, whatever it was!

And Katie and Avery jumped in together!  So funny.

It was so fun to spend time at the pool with friends!  And Brad's mom spent the day with us, so she was at the pool with us too!

Jack did a great job holding onto the side - he was so proud!

And a cute picture of Jill with Stella and Hank!  Love it!

Since we were planning on going to see fireworks - which meant a later evening - I asked Katie to take a little nap.  That wasn't a problem after that long at the pool :)

 And I wanted to get a picture of the three crazies together - let me just say how entertaining some of the outtakes are.  here are my two favorites - all patriotic and smiling!  Please look at Ryan - poor guy was being tossed around like a sack of taters (I can say that - I am from the south, ya know)!

Love this!

Jack is looking so old to me these days - probably part of it is because of how much time I spend with Ryan, who is a little peanut!

And Katie was so excited to celebrate and get to go watch fireworks!

Brad grilled out some burgers for all of us - nothing like a cheeseburger, watermelon, and chips!  It was delicious!

And then we spent some time on the deck letting the kids do chalk and such!  Jack had to have a shirt change because he was a mess at dinner!

And Katie was just counting down until we could load into the car for fireworks :)

And a sweet picture of Grandma with Ryan!

Even Ryan was patriotic :)

And I got Brad to take a picture of me and the little guy before we headed inside!

 And a family of 5 picture!  Excuse all the stuff in the background :) That's real life, folks!

And then we headed to a high school not far from us to watch fireworks that are done at a park - we didn't want to get too close because of traffic and crowds and all that.  But it was perfect!  We backed in and layed the seats down so that they were a place to sit in the back of the van!

And there was a field to let the kids run around and get more energy out!

Jack was super excited about seeing the moon and stars!

And we watched fireworks with the same crew that we did pooltime with!  It was so much fun!

Stella, Avery, and Katie - quite the trio!  Sweet girls :)

And the obligatory fireworks picture :)  We saw the ones from the park and then could see others that folks were doing in their neighborhoods.  It really was a great spot and we were home within 5-10 minutes since we didn't have departure traffic to deal with!

 And I do believe this one will be going in a frame :)  Love this!  Mommas and our big girls!

And a picture with Katie and Jack before we got ready to head home!

And a family picture of Lewis, Hank, Jill, and Stella!

And a family picture of Ashley, Lila, Andrew, and Avery!

And Ryan did great!  He had a good time hanging out with Grandma :)

Katie wanted to take a picture, so she took this one of Ryan before Daddy loaded him into the car!

And a Mommy-Katie selfie before calling it a night.

We had such a great day!  Definitely a great way to celebrate our country's birthday - and kick off a weekend of fun!