The 4th of July

The 4th of July is quickly becoming one of my favorite holidays.  It's one of those holidays where there are no gifts or stress of shopping for things other than cute red white and blue attire.  There are reminders of what the holiday really is all about everywhere.  It's not just a day off-it's a day to remember our freedom and how precious that is!  It's also just fun to take the day and spend it with those you love and we did just that.  We were super lucky this year because the 4th was on a Friday so we made a weekend celebration out of it!  The kids are tired-we wore them out (and ourselves)-but we had a blast and made some fun memories. 

The night before the 4th we made matching tie dye tee shirts and they came out awesome!  I may now had a mild addiction to tie dying!

The morning of the 4th, as we have been doing for the past 3 years, we went to the Kingsville parade with Tommy's family.  We took the traditional 4th of July picture!  I had to add pictures from the past 4ths because it's fun to see how much everyone changes!

2013

2012 (The McGrain cousins were in the parade this year and Allie was a new born!)

2011 (one of my favorites)

I pretty much expected Tommy to not sit still and just want to run everywhere but he was good as gold and loved every minute of the festivities!  His favorites were the big fire trucks and horses!  Lilly loved it too-as expected-especially catching (and eating) the candy!

Tommy also thoroughly enjoyed his hot dog-he ate the whole thing.

After the parade we made our way to the other side of the tunnel for a cookout and fireworks with Grammy and Gramps (my parents).  Aunt Robyn also joined us!  We had a fun and relaxing day-boy was it gorgeous out.  We even had some excitement when a home close to my parents caught on fire and we got to watch the firemen arrive and put it out.  Once it started getting dark we went up to UMBC to see the Catonsville fireworks.  I don't remember ANY 4th of July where we bundled up to see the fireworks-it was chilly!

The next morning we enjoyed breakfast on the patio at my parents (holy cow beautiful weather!) and went home to rest for a bit (Lilly took a 4 hour nap!) before heading to Tommy's parents for another cookout and sleepover!  The kids had so much fun playing in the pool and enjoying some time to do whatever they wanted (within reason).  They all stayed up late and bathed in the swimming pool instead of the tub.  Isn't that what grandparents houses are for!?

Sunday we recuperated (or tried).  Little Tommy was feeling the weekend and ended up getting sick-poor little guy- so him and I laid low and took lots of strolls around the neighborhood.  Thank goodness for my husband who took Lilly and did the grocery shopping and spent the day prepping dinners for the week-grilling 5 pounds of chicken for salads and chipotle and lunches and making chilli.  Lilly took an early nap and after went with Tommy to our friends son's pool party (where she had a blast as well).  Needless to say we all were pretty beat and went to bed early!  It was definitely and epic weekend-I am looking forward to see what Lilly has for her Weekend update at school.   

Hope everyone had a great July 4th weekend!  We definitely did!