Happy 4th of July!

It is no exaggeration to say that Henry has been looking forward to the Fourth of July since January. In fact the countdown began nearly 6 months ago to the day. Holly was here visiting during her Christmas break and Henry and I were reading a Veggie Tales board book together: "Junior and Laura Share The Year Together." Each page is a month and highlights something you might do during that month. July had a picture of fireworks and showed children watching the fireworks together. He immediately remembered the fireworks from the previous year and asked if we could go watch them. I told him that we would go watch them together but we had to wait until July--six months! He talked about all of the things we would do that day and about the fireworks for the rest of the day. (Holly knows I'm not kidding.)

Yesterday, finally, our wait was over. We had such a fun Fourth together. I loved spending the day with our boys and making some family traditions. We started the day by going to a parade in a nearby town. B-N doesn't have a parade on the Fourth.

Patrick and the boys watching as the parade begins. This is our third year going to this parade. We meet up with our friends Nicole, Josh and their girls Elle and Ava and sit in the same park every year.

Henry pointing at the Shriner's cars. He cracked up when he saw the men driving these past us. William watching the parade go by. I thought he might be afraid of the fire sirens or other loud noises, but he didn't seem phased. Patrick and William sporting matching patriotic shirts. Ok, they're not really matching, but they're pretty close. I sort of encouraged Patrick to wear his blue striped shirt yesterday.Excited face! There are lots of tractors and four-wheelers in this parade which Henry loves. Henry quickly learned to wave at the people in cars and on floats as they went by. Waving = candy. Lots of candy. Here's Henry gathering up some candy. The funny thing is that Patrick and I were more competitive about getting candy than he was. He was very content to simply watch the parade, we however were constantly encouraging him to jump up and grab the thrown candy. Ridiculous? Maybe, but we got a lot of good stuff!Right after we left the parade we went out to Patrick's parents house for a birthday party for Henry's cousins Caleb (who will be 6 on July 11) and Hannah (who was 5 on June 20). Patrick's mom, Mary, had the kids decked out in 4th of July hats and necklaces. Henry looks like he's only a head in this picture and William looks like he's attacking Hannah's party hat. William in his party hat.We left the birthday party and came home to put our boys down for late afternoon naps. William ended up sleeping from 4:00 until a little after 6:00 which worked out well so he was able to stay up for the festivities. We had a cookout with our friends Brandon, Emily and Charlie and Josh, Nicole, Elle and Ava.

Henry and Charlie enjoying some ice-cream treats. Elle, Henry and Ava having a Dilly Bar. This picture cracks me up - Elle is older than Henry. She turned 3 in April. She's just a little peanut! Both girls are so sweet.

Here we are at the fireworks. We went to a country club that's really close to our house. After dinner, we all pushed strollers over and sat together on blankets. They're good fireworks and it's nice that they're close to home and we don't have to worry about parking or being smooshed next to other people. It's never super crowded because people can spread out along the fairway. Charlie and Henry playing just before the fireworks started.

I wish I had more pictures from the fireworks, just after the last picture was taken my camera's battery died. I really wasn't sure how the boys would do watching the fireworks. Actually, I was pretty confident that Henry would love watching them, but was worried about William. Both boys ended up loving them. William just lay in Patrick's arms and stared at the sky, kicking his little legs every time another firework went off. Initially Henry said, "I want to go home", but once I reassured him he rested in my arms and watched in awe. When the loud popping ones would go off he would cover his eyes with his hand. Although his fingers would be spread so he could still peek out (the scary movie hand cover). Just before the finale, William fell asleep and he stayed asleep for the night. Henry was exhausted when we got home (around 10:00) and went right to bed.

After the 6-month countdown, it ended up being a fun day. I hope it lived up to Henry's expectations. Oh and the countdown has already begun again - just after the fireworks ended and we were walking home he said, "I want to see those again." I told him we'd have to wait...