Happy 4th of July!

Our morning started out hot and humid. For the 4th year in a row, we headed over to our town's Independance Day parade. It's always hot, sweltering hot and humid but we always have a good time and bring home a ton of necklaces (over 60 this year), flags (11) and candy, candy, candy. Today was no exception. Every once in a while there was a slight breeze and I had plenty of cold water on hand and misty fans to keep cool.

This year we were lucky in that we met up with a couple of friends and hung out with them (thank you Karen for sharing your shade tent!). Before the parade we were able to walk down the block and get a free bicycle helmet for Ian thru the local All Children's Hospital as well. Very nice because he needed one. I also learned how to properly use it.

Here are a few pics of our morning:
Our group


Yes, that's a real helicopter!




Shriner clowns


Hot and sweaty baby


R2D2


All the kiddos minus Bella
L-R:Trey,Shawn, Logan, Evan, Ian, Zane, Joshua


After we came home and showered we headed off to MIL's house for some food. She has no A/C and I dread going over there- especially on a hot July day. Ugh. To top it off she smokes in her home when there is noone over and it reeks. It's disgusting. I love her to death but I hate going over there. We stayed for about 2 hours and I'd had enough. Bella was tired and I was HOT. Came home, took another shower and bathed all the kids AGAIN, put Bella to bed and got the boys in their pj's. About 8:40pm I sent dh and the boys off to the mall area to watch the fireworks while I sat here and blogged and then watched the Macy's fireworks in HD on the big screen. Ahh fireworks in the air conditioning. LOL They just walked back in the door and poor Ian missed the whole thing. He fell asleep in the car. He's exhausted. In fact, while sitting here watching the fireworks with them on tv, I just looked over and he's asleep again. Off to bed he goes!

Loot count from the parade

Bead necklaces- 92
Bracelets- 3
Rings- 4
Mini Frisbees- 3
Bouncy Ball- 1
Tshirt- 1
Candy- a ton

Want to see what 92 necklaces looks like?
(Excuse the melted makeup and nursing tank)

Back from the parade

What a beautiful morning! The parade started at 10am and we got there right around 9:30. The sun was beating down but there was a nice breeze and we stayed pretty cool under our umbrellas. There were a few complaints through out the parade about being tired but they were basically told to suck it up (not in those words though) because we couldn't go anywhere if we had wanted to!

Bella slept thru most of it and got quite a few "aww(s)" from people walking in the parade. She did not sleep thru the car horns, revving engines, fire engine sirens and loud music speakers though. They startled or scared her and she cried a few times. I tried to cover her ears a few times which helped.

We came home with 2 Target bags filled with beads, candy, beads, flyers, beads, political stuff, beads, toys and oh did I mention beads? LOL I still have bags of beads from past parades. Logan had fun. He stood and waved to everyone and after a bit of prompting, remembered his manners and started saying Thank You to everyone who gave him something. Ian sat in dh's lap most of the time. I'm not sure why he didn't want to get up there with Logan.

I won't bore you with float pictures but here are a couple of pics of the kids. Since Ian was in Dh's lap and dh was the photographer today, we didn't get any shots of him. (Karen's post has parade pics!)

You can't read it but her shirt says All American Princess. (and yes, that is a Little Einsteins bandaid on my finger)


You can't really see it, but Logan has rhinestone star stickers on both sides of his face and a USA sticker on his arm. I had both on me too. I thought they were cute!


Look at that face! This was either after she was sprayed by water guns (or the firehose) or after a siren.

Happy Independence Day!!

We are off to the parade this morning so I'll be back later with the highlights!