Weekend Celebrating

Wow the last few days have been busy! Evie and William were at art camp in the mornings last week and on Friday they had a little art show for the parents along with some refreshments!

Evie and William getting their art certificates

This year's projects - 'magic' wands, painted heads, and foam masks!

Jason and Sarah having refreshments!

Friday night Matt and I had tickets with the neighbor gals to see West Side Story, so we went out to dinner and made a date of it - what a good show! I was surprised to see just how many of the songs I knew from it. Dinner was 'eh'. Don't think we'll be eating at the 'Cantina de Italia' again. Not terrible, just not terribly great. If I'm paying for dinner and a babysitter, it had better be terribly great!

We started off our July 4th with a noon parade in a nearby town. Here I was thinking we'd be seeing a marching band or two. Silly me. I think every emergency vehicle within 50 miles was in that parade (showing off our tax dollars at work perhaps?) and they all proceeded to roll through town with sirens blasting. I'm not sure that was really necessary. How about some holiday-type music perhaps? The only bands of note were the two praise bands from local churches. They were pretty good, but not what I was expecting. We also saw the largest dog I've ever seen (Matt did NOT get a picture of that one), some enormous bubbles, and the following good sights:

The cannon in the background was fired every few yards - scared the bejeezus out of me!

Not every day you see a painted cow wearing a hat.

Edward thought the wild animals looked yummy.

Here we have a rolling Matchbox museum.

Evie and William in their holiday finest!

Jason seemed to enjoy it, Sarah? not so much. She was tired and it was loud.

But she had the best seat in the house!

After the parade we headed back to the house for naps & then had some friends over for a little cookout. Matt was almost on the floor laughing at my 'appetizers' of chips/salsa/guacamole, pretzels and cheese balls - but you know what? The cheese balls were the FIRST thing to disappear. I admit - usually I make more of an effort at these things, but lately it seems like I'm just doing my best to make sure laundry is clean, food is served at regular meal times, people get where they need to be, and every gets enough sleep. Menu planning is an afterthought, usually done at 8am while MM Clubhouse is on in the background and the kids are yelling over breakfast. I did, btw, manage to make a Key Lime Cheesecake for dessert (fab - let me know if you want the recipe!)

Anyway - I thought I had uploaded more pictures than these, but here's a couple shots from the evening before we headed over to the county park for fireworks. Matt always gets a box of the 'legal' stuff from Costco (and every year we only get through half of it!) so the little ones (at least the older two) had fun with sparklers & such.

My friend Kerri & her daughter, hanging out with Sarah FAR away from the sparks!

Jason (covered in frosting!) hiding in the fort because of the noise.

Jason was sort of miserable during the fireworks display, but to his credit he was up 2 hours past bedtime and did settle down after a bit - I even heard a few 'oohs' and 'aahs'. It's a lot to ask of a 20 month old who's very used to his routine. Sarah thought the fireworks were 'so pretty' and Evie said it was her best July 4th ever. William, being William, was sad at the parade because the candy people were throwing did not land in his hands.. and then sad later because he didn't run around the playground at the park while he had time. I think sometimes he's destined for disappointment, and I wonder if I'm supposed to 'see' these things happening in advance & do my best to avert them. Or does he need to learn to be more aware of what's going on?

That was our 4th, not quite in a nutshell, and ALL THE KIDS SLEPT IN UNTIL 8AM! It's a miracle! My big girl Evie was Bible bearer for the first time at church today and she did a great job. The little ones are napping, and Matt's off picking up my $2 bar stools from Ebay. (Yes, $2. Wait until you see them!) I'm off to throw pizza dough ingredients in the bread machine so we have something to eat for dinner, and then I need to RUN off all this food - ugh. I'd have to run 10 miles to accomplish that today - not gonna happen. I hope you had a terrific holiday weekend with your family!