4th of July weekend.

we had a great 4th of july weekend that was packed with family and friends. on saturday kassidee was baptized a member our church. after the baptism sandee had a dinner for everyone at the church. she did great with the food. everything was excellent! her sister-in-law kristina made me this great orange bag! i love it. very kind of her.
finally we spent the rest of the evening at sandee's house and neighborhood.

we took the kids to the park and played for a couple of hours.

some of us played bocce ball.

kristina also made festive coordinating skirts for the four girls in their family so i took some photos. the skirts were so cute.

kas-alyssa-jessica-audrey

i love the sunny haze of these two.

jessica and kas wanted to do some more posing.

dustin is always a big hit with the kids.

river joined these three neighborhood girls in a basketball game. when she got the ball she'd bounce up and down in an attempt to dribble. then she aimed and threw it toward the basket. it was pretty cute.
we did fireworks after the park. the first round pretty much caught everyone off gaurd as you can see in the photo. poor river is hidden behind that smoke and screamed!
after that everyone relaxed a bit more and enjoyed the show. river was in the safety of grandma's arms.





notice who flower is gazing at with that big smile, rather than the fireworks. she has a little crush on ryker and earlier in the evening told him he was a handsome prince. so cute.

i have loved these cars since i first saw them when i was young! it drove right through our show.

this is my favorite photo. notice the bursts of fireworks i caught in the air. so cool.

eventually i joined the crowd on the other side of the road and snuggled with river to enjoy the rest of the show. we had about an hours worth of fireworks and sparklers and it was a great ending to a wonderful day.

sunday morning i made my version of an american flag breakfast. :) blueberries and raspberries on cream. the girls thought it was great and since we only had 15 minutes i couldn't get more complex. it was easy!
the girls and i went to sandee's ward at 9:00 am for kassidee's confirmation. kg headed to our building for meetings. then we joined kg for our sacrament meeting at 11:30. it was pretty entertaining. lots of people were gone so our bishopric ran the show. the first counselor 'played' the organ and the second counselor acted as chorister. we had a good laugh. flower's little friend tianna sat with us. she and flower bore their testimonies. they each did it on their own without help. i don't believe in taking kids up there and telling them what to say. they need to say what's in their heart and go when they are ready. it was so sweet to hear them! and when flower came back to sit with us she loudly proclaimed, "i'm so proud of myself!" i love her.
river is hating nursing. we try to let her cry it out but she doesn't stop crying after 15 minutes like some of the other kids. and she stands at the door and kicks it and tries to get out. she's going through separation anxiety. poor thing. she screams if either of us go anywhere without her. but back to nursery. i stayed in there for an hour but that's really not where i want to be. and i figure if i can't be in my meetings and need to stay with her than i may as well go home. so i did. she and went home and took a nap! it was wonderful. church just isn't my favorite right now so i was fine with that. :) flower stayed with kg and it worked out great.
that night we went to ann morrison for the fire works show. we got there about 7 to get good seats and avoid the crowds. we set up blankets in an area big enough for 50 people to sit in so we wouldn't be crowded. it was perfect. we also took a picnic dinner. it was a nice quiet couple of hours in the park as a family while we waited for our friends to arrive.

we enjoyed some popsicles.

it's so funny when they notice i'm pointing the camera their way.

around 8:30 sandee and her family arrived with their friends jenn, dustin, anne and ryker. flower was so excited that ryker was joining us!

around 9:15 monkey and the boys showed up. lisa also joined us for a bit but she had to go to work.

silly boys.

finally at 10:15 the show started! and river cried again. :( but after the enitial shock of the noise and kg covering her ears for the show, she enjoyd it. flower sat by me and was overjoyed. with each one that went off she'd say, 'ooh, that's pretty', 'look how beautiful mom', 'wow, that one's neat'. it was so fun for me!
i had fun playing with the camera settings to get different shots.









it only took us 20 minutes to get home after which isn't bad at all. we loved it and it was such a perfect night.
i'm grateful for the opportunity to celebrate our freedoms and country with family and friends.