Fourth FUN!

 this is a collection of pictures from the week of the 4th.  a week of cousins!  despite me being such a 'mean mom' and requiring my kids to do chores and not go to every single outing available, i'm pretty sure all had a good time while the cousins were here for an extended visit.  we went to lakeview swimming pool with the slides, we got snow cones, ate strawberries from our garden and milkshakes, roasted hot dogs in 110 (no lie) degree weather, played dress-up and jumped, slip and slide, bought fireworks together, and bentley even got a sewing lesson with katy and grandma at the end!  before everyone left, we got together and went swimming all together, even ben!  it was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast!

 on the fourth of july, we made our usual trek to melba, so that i could do the fun run.  this time, i caught a ride with natalie and jenny and the kids didn't quite make it to see me cross the finish line (do you like emerson's sweet outfit she picked out since i wasn't there?:).  oh well, i won the 3rd place ribbon in my age group (must have not been any 30 somethings in the race), and they saw that.  we also saw some old friends before ben headed off to the swather for the day.  we had the mcclain's down for slip and slide that afternoon and then had a bbq with our little family that nite.  that evening, we had the whole crew over for a big dessert spread and fireworks.  our neighbors and an employee came too.  i set up the net so we could all play water balloon volleyball and the kids had a blast with uncle ben lighting off all the kid fireworks before it got dark.  the rest of us played a super fun game of ultimate frisbee with bentley's lighted frisbee he bought.  that was my favorite part of the nite.  ellee snoozed in her bed while we lit off all the big fireworks.  what a great country we are a part of.  it is so fun having all of our little kids to teach about the freedom we have and how we got it and to see them get so excited over such a fun day. god bless america!!!