Happy Fourth of July!

Fourth of July has always been a big holiday for my family. I can remember celebrating fourth of July with ice cream cones, painted nails, parades, and fireworks about as far back as I can remember. It's a tradition I certainly want to pass on to my kids. This year was a little soggy with all the rain... kinda not quite what I think of when I think of the 4th, but whatever...

Our preparations started on Wednesday when my little sis and I made bows for our little girls (and for a family friend...).

On Thursday night, I painted Ruby's toenails. Yes, I'm just that crazy. I put her in her bouncy seat and at first she was kicking like crazy (it's what she does in there, I should have known better.) But like every girl knows (it must be inherent) pedicures feel so good that you could fall asleep... which is just what she did after awhile. It was a good thing too, because I had to do 2 coats on several of the nails!

Saturday we went to my hometown for a parade. One of the floats was throwing stuffed animals! Ira was lucky enough to get an adorable teddy bear. He named him Red Robin, but also calls him Teddy the Bear sometimes too. We spent Saturday evening with Andy's family. We blew up some fireworks in the soggy mistiness but finally were forced inside when it started raining. Ira wanted nothing to do with lighting anything. He was perfectly content throwing snap and pops - and that's fine with me!

Sunday after Mass we went to my folks' house for a cookout. My family has a tradition that you can eat as many ice cream cones as you want on the 4th of July, and my mom is awesome about getting tons of different and delicious ice cream flavors. It's kind of turned into a contest (not like the hotdog-eating one though!) I had 10 cones this year as did my dad, but Andy snuck one in at the end and beat us all with 11. Ira had 3 (or was it 4?) and Ruby did not have any...obviously... Sunday evening we sat out on my parents' deck and watched quite the show of class A fireworks blowing up all over their neighborhood. It really cracks me up because the law states that you can't blow up anything that goes higher than 6 feet. Maybe these people were confused and thought that it couldn't go more than 6 feet... from an airplane... or that the mortars had to be less than 6 foot... in diameter... Regardless, it was fun to watch and longer than any fireworks display I've ever been to (it was still going strong after 4 hours...)

Anyway, that was our 4th of July. I had fun with Photoshop yesterday with all the pictures. Happy (belated) 4th to you and yours!