We had a fun time celebrating America’s birthday,
grateful for our freedoms and happy to show off our pride!
We mostly went with the red and white on the attire…
but made sure blue was included in the food!
This was the American flag cake I made, when you cut it, your slice looked like a flag, but I forgot to take a picture of that! I got the idea from make it and love it and we LOVED IT! (At least I did, I had 4 pieces over the following days.)
Luke and I went on the boat and swam in the lake with Grandma, Aunt Dawn, and Uncle Aaron.
Darin grilled some yummy (thanks Mom and Karie!) burgers and dogs. We pigged out, then headed to the park for some games. The kids loved the bouncy slide and bouncy race (I raced with all the boys, multiple times). Karie and Dawn faced off with the bungee thing, followed by Nathan and Aaron. It was too funny!
(I obviously didn’t get enough pics, because these don’t really do the hour of fun we had any justice!)
We also got to see a Black Hawk helicopter, and the boys even took it for a “drive!”
Then we headed back to Grandpa and Grandma’s for a firework show put on by Darin, Dustin, and Nathan.(Thankfully they didn’t hurt themselves, but a few times we were worried!)
Around nine, we piled 12 of us in the van, drove down the road, and watched Smyrna’s fireworks. Of course, Luke was so tired all he did was roll around on top of the van and in my arms…but hey, its all in the name of holiday fun!
In other news, Natalie was sleeping through the night, until this tooth starting bugging her! With a little tylenol though, she’s back to cuddling in the corner of the crib! She is quite mobile, even tried some stairs today. She loves to play with, shriek at, and climb on Luke, but she totally tattles on him for anything he does that she doesn’t like!
(I had to post these…our best efforts at a cute picture on Father’s Day! We love you Darin! I promise we weren’t bribing them to smile, those are Darin’s treats! Can you tell when I took the candy away?! LOL)
Luke is a handful, but only because he is so smart! Our conversations these days are hilarious (and a bit frustrating, but only because we are both stubborn!)
And yeah, I’d say he is potty trained, we have had accident free days! Hallelujah!
alittlebitofthepaynefultruth 
Yummy -looking, beautiful cake! What fun! As usual, I’m jealous of all the family fun. But we also got to have fun on the 4th, with the Kecks and other family members on this side of the country. 🙂
Great pictures. I’ll have to go see which ones I have so you can see. We too, had a great time. Looking forward to moving back! I can’t wait!
yeaaa potty trained!!
Would of loved to see the inside of cake. I can’t imagine it! What hard work it sounds like!
Ha1 I realize it might appear that natalie was not having a good time, however, regardless of the lack of smiles… she was enjoying it all!
Cute! Good job taking all the pics! And YEAH on the potty training…we’re still working on that one:)