4th festivities!

Our 4th of July holiday weekend started on Thursday night with a local AAA baseball game - the Dragons. Outside the stadium they have huge baseballs and bats, so the kids posed for a picture. We met some friends there who have two boys about the same age as our kids.

We sat in the lawn seats, next to left field. About the 4th inning, Luke was just staring intently at the field, just watching all the players, so I decided just to walk down and get a picture of him. Just as I walked up, a pitching coach from the opposing team, handed Luke a baseball. Luke was so excited, he wouldn't let go of that ball all night. After he got that ball, all kinds of other kids started standing there hoping to get a ball, but no one else got one!

He even laid down with it

Luke and Sam - still not letting go of that baseball

Esther brought her ball and glove to the game and played catch with daddy a little

On Friday morning, we went to the Cincinnati zoo with some friends from church who have 2 girls, the exact ages of our kids - apparently Luke found himself a little girlfriend.

Here's all 4 kids watching the ducks
Luke and Samantha are about 3 weeks apart and Esther and Reilly are 1 month apart - so they are all really good friends.


One of the kids favorite things is to feed the giraffe's - so here is Esther feeding one

On Friday night Kenneth and the kids went to fireworks downtown - I was so bummed that I couldn't go, but on Monday I got into some poison oak and it's been pretty bad, so I was a little too miserable to go. I still have it all over me, but that's another story.
Anyway, Kenneth and the kids had fun and they both loved the fireworks.

Saturday morning, we went to our annual 4th of July parade.

We met Nate, Becca and Eli at the parade - they also had their niece and nephew with them - so here's everyone.

I always love 4th of July parades because of all the veterans, police, firefighters, local bands, etc... but the parade also had some other interesting things - one was the star wars characters (Luke calls them the "bad men")

Here's one of the old fire engines

Luke's favorite part of the parade was the smokey the bear float and the police on their motorcycles and Esther's was the cheerleaders of course. Both of them also couldn't wait for the candy being thrown out.

After the parade, we came home for naps and then my parents, sister, Brother-in-law, niece and my Aunt marcia from France came over for a cookout. The men came over earlier in the afternoon to help Kenneth with the massive swing set we bought for the kids last week (I'll do a post on that when it's done).

Here's Grandma with the grandkids

Esther and Luke just loved having Addie here - Esther "read" her a few books

The girls also colored together

After dinner (which we had to move indoors because of the rain) - we did some fireworks in the backyard that Sarah and Anthony brought.
Luke loved the real fireworks on Friday night, but for some reason the little ones that we did in the backyard really scared him. He wanted me to hold him at first and put his hands over his ears, saying "I like the tiny noises, not the big ones".

That progressed to real terror and not wanting to be outside at all.

Esther and Addie did sparklers after the fireworks were over.

Here's my little patriotic country girl

Sarah, Anthony and Addie came over for lunch on Sunday also - all the kids got to sit at their own table.

Happy 4th everyone!