A Late 4th of July Post

On Friday, July 3rd, our neighborhood had a picnic. I made a pan of brownies and we headed on over to the park.

To start the evening, they had a bike parade for the kids.
Here's Rhett on his decorated scooter!(He's in the white shirt)

Here's Braden and his friend Prestun, who spent the night with us that night.

After the picnic, we walked to another park in the neighborhood for a fireworks show.
Here's the kids hangin' out before the fireworks started.

The fireworks show was awesome. It was 30 solid minutes of great fireworks. We loved it!

For 4th of July, we went to my Mom and Dad's house. They live right on Beaver Lake. It's so beautiful out there and we love to visit any chance we get. Thank goodness they let us come over!! My Aunt Kat, my mom's sister, and Uncle Thomas were here visiting for the weekend and we really wanted to see them too, so we asked if we could come spend the day.
My brother and his kids ended up coming too, so we kind of had a little family reunion going on!
It ended up raining most of the morning, so we just hung out around the house and had a great time visiting.
After lunch, it quit raining and the sun came out, so we decided to go jump in the lake!
Rhett and Ela got their life jackets on and were ready to go!

Here's Gracie and Rhett

We had LOTS of fun on the water!
Here's my brother, Russ, telling Jason to jump in and he'd catch him.

Here's Jason's feet going into the water after he dove over Russ' head. I was a little slow on the trigger speed!

My sweet, precious boys. Aren't they getting SO big?!?!

My nephew Tre was trying to push his doggies into the water!




My two favorite Daddys-- my daddy and my babies' daddy! They were trying out the new super duper noodles that my mom bought. They sure were buoyant!

After swimming, we went back to the house and ate a wonderful meal. My mom had smoked some chicken and it was yummy! I made a cheesecake earlier in the day to have for dessert and it wasn't half bad either.
My sister in law, Aggie, ended up coming over later after she got off work so we got to visit with her for a while and then, we ended the night with fireworks in the front yard. I didn't get any pictures because I was too busy making sure none of the kids got burned! (Braden actually got a spark that flew up and hit him on his hiney, which made quite a little boo-boo...so I guess I didn't do that well!)
What a great way to spend Independence Day. I'm so thankful for family and our freedom!