Fourth of July Weekend

This was just sweet and I wanted to throw it in there! :) This family can never do holidays in just one day! Nope! And this one...we stretched out over three days! Saturday, we went out to Horse Shoe Bend to spend the day at the lake. It was SUPER windy, but we had a good time! We had a yummy lunch and then the kids went and played in the water. Ken was so excited that we had more adults than kids, he decided he would be a kid himself! :) He tossed around the football with Tyler and my Dad and played in the water with the kids.

Bailey's patriotic do. It's hard to see, but the elastics are red, white and blue. Later that night, the blue elastic came out and Bailey handed it to Ken and said, "Dad, can you fix it? It's very important!" That's her new phrase! :) Ken tried, then turned to me and said, "Mom, can you fix it? It's very important!" :D

I felt bad for Hayden...we kind of had to keep him covered up the whole time to try and keep him out of the wind! He was so good about just hanging out, though! He's always such an angel and just goes with the flow!

The original Big T!

I love the red rocks out there!

Hayden did escape the car seat and stroller for a while and hung out with Grandma!

This little fella became Taysum's little friend! For some reason, I just couldn't get the camera to focus in on him, but he was beautiful... for a bug, that is!

Bailey looks nervous in this picture, but she was the farthest thing from it! She was very excited to get to hold the bug! The camera just caught her in between faces, I think!

We went home and rested for a little while, then got ready for the next party! We had a Bar-B-Q at Grandpa and Grandma's. The best part was Grandpa lit a fire in his patio fire pit and we roasted s'mores!

Bailey was headed inside...I asked her to smile, she turned around, said "Smile!" and went in! :)

It was a little too chilly to have Hayden outside, so he just crashed on the couch!

We also lit a few sparklers which the kids had a lot of fun with. Taysum has always been excited, but nervous about sparklers, but he did better this year! He gets worried that they won't stop burning and he throws them on the ground before they go out. He held on to them longer than he did last year!

Sunday morning, Ken and Taysum were up early "raising" the flag and saying the Pledge of Allegiance!

I guess it's just the stage they are at and I LOVE it, but my kids have been wearing the goofiest things lately! Check out this ensemble!

The kids (all three of them ;) ) having some fun with snaps!

That night, we had the Lindsays and Grandpa, Grandma and Uncle Tyler over for fireworks! Carissa had been VERY ill, so it was just Lindsay and the boys. We made a bunch of carmel popcorn and had a really good time! We're kind of in the middle of town, so we lit off our few and then enjoyed everyone else's fireworks, too! It was a good time!

Love the carmel, Quinn!

Remember what I said about dress up? Bailey LOVES being a "cowboy girl!" as she puts it!

Monday we were at it again with a picnic on the mountain! We went to one of my family's favorite spots, Old Baldy, which is right up on top of the Big Horns! It was beautiful, but SO cold!! We had a great time and found a new favorite: making s'mores with home-made chocolate chip cookies! mmmm.....

Hayden hanging out with Uncle Tyler

A little wood sprite

Rosey cheeks and everything! Grandpa told some GREAT stories!! He started to tell a story about Little Red Riding Hood and Bailey said she wanted to hear a story about a bunny; so Grandpa started over and said, "Once there was a little bunny and she wanted to read a story. So, she opened a book and read about a little girl who always wore a little red hood...." It was pretty smooth! The Three Little Pigs was pretty entertaining, too! All the characters had accents that were kind of a cross between Swedish and Italian! I think it was more entertaining for the adults than the kids! :)

Once again...we just love our family and our country and food ;) and all the Lord has so graciously blessed us with! Hope you all had a FANTASTIC 4th!!!

The Circus has come to town!

The Culpepper and Merriweather Circus came to Lovell, so we took our kids. It was cute and the kids thought it was great. It was pretty hot and they both got a little too overstimulated, but I think the meltdowns equaled the good times, so we'll count it as coming out on top! :) One act was a girl with A LOT of hula hoops...Bailey was trying to do what the girl was doing.

Grandpa, Grandma, Quinn, Aunt Lindsay and Celeste

They had a pretty good clown...Taysum was really excited to see clowns!

Mr. Stiltz was pretty good, too!

There was a family troupe of unicyclists who were pretty impressive; including juggling fire while on a unicycle!

This was probably the most exciting and frustrating! It was $2 to go down 5 times...yeah...tell that to a 5 and 2 year old! I couldn't really see when I was taking this, so I got B from the shoulders down and T's head!

This was just so sweet! I love my husband so much and I am so thankful for the incredible Daddy he is!

Mustang Days

After our vacation, we came home to the middle of Mustang Days! It's always a great time of year with lots of family-friendly things to do in the community! It's always the last full week in June. We got home on Wednesday and Thursday night, we went to the Follies. They always have the Dollies of the Follies and the Mustang Band play out front of the Hyart Theatre. Bailey loved the music and had a great time dancing in the street. We encouraged Taysum to dance, too, but this is the response we got! So different from last year when he and Carissa were dancing like crazy!

Uncle Tyler carried the American Flag with the Eagle scouts in the community.

He was also in a little skit about hunting mosquitoes...it was pretty funny! (He's on the far left)

The kids really enjoyed the show!

The kids were really excited to see Aunt Lindsay perform with the Zumba group, too! After she was done, they kept saying they wanted Aunt Lindsay back!

On Friday, Bailey was worn out before we could even get started! This is how she fell asleep...on top of the chair! That evening was the Family Fun Night. It was on the grass field of the Elementary School. We had our expected amount of fits, but a pretty good time over all! (Bailey has a REALLY hard time having to wait in lines for the games...and having her turn over!)

The nice thing about having it at the Elementary School, was the playground equipment was free! :)

Saturday morning, the Lindsays came over and we had a BIG breakfast together, then decorated our bikes and strollers for the Kiddie Parade! We went with the American theme! You can't really tell from the pictures, but the Kiddie Parade was COLD and WINDY and RAINY! It was so ridiculous that you just had to laugh...and run! :) The kids had a blast, though!

The best part for Taysum and Bailey was getting a hug from Mickey Mouse! Each of the kids received a gold coin and a Mr. Freeze for being in the parade. We went home, warmed up, dried off, bundled up and headed back for the Rose Parade. The weather was just perfect for the big parade! We sat with Lindsay and her sisters-in-law, Jodi and Tammy and her family: Steve, Aaron, and Alissa (sorry if I spelled the names wrong!)

Taysum was pretty anxious about the candy; he was worried that he wouldn't get very much, but Lovell is famous for the TONS of candy they throw in the parade...everyone ended up with more than enough! :)

A few years ago, they started throwing Pop Ice (Mr. Freeze, Otter Pops...whatever you call them) during the parade...which is SO smart! It cools you down and if it melts, you can take it home and freeze it again! Celeste was in heaven!

The great thing about living in a small farming community...you always get cool tractors in the parade! Last year, we planted a wildflower mix in the barrels in front of our house and this year, a bunch of these flowers came back! This was the first one. Ken has a client in Basin who he's been working pretty closely with for the past couple years. Recently, his wife visited New York and brought this cute onesie back for Hayden and a super cute blanket, too. Taysum had this shirt as a hand-me-down from Quinn. (My mom got this shirt for Quinn when she went to NY)...so we just had to get a picture of them together!

And of course, Bailey wanted in on the action, too! That afternoon, we went swimming at the wading pool and I also got to go to the Quilt Show. It was their 10th Annual show and they had some really great quilts this year. This was one of my favorites and it won first place in the large quilt category. I really loved this one too! I thought this one was really clever! Lindsay's sister-in-law, Jodi made these quilts for Lindsay's boys and they are just amazing! The Sonic one is Quinn's and the Finis and Ferb one is CJ's.

CJ even entered a quilt this year! Jodi taught him how and helped him with it...it turned out really cute! Jodi helped Alissa do one as well and it won first place in the youth category! She was SO excited! That night we went to the fireworks! We went later and were in a different spot this year, but it worked out pretty well. Every year, it's so hot in the day time, I think there is no way we'll be cold, but every year I'm wrong! It gets cold out at the lake at night!! Just by pure chance, I saw my parents driving by, so we were able to be all together!

Mustang Days is always such a good time! I love that we live in such an involved community with so many good people and to be near family as well! We are so blessed to live in such a wonderful part of the world!