4th of July weekend!

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! 

We had a really fun weekend, starting last Thursday.  My friend, Emily, had a birthday party for her daughter, Halle, who turned FIVE!  They did a beach sandcastle theme and it was SO fun!  

Kaden was, as usual, the only boy there.  All of the 5 year old girls were so cute with him.  These ones came up to him and said, "You need to get in the water.  Don't worry, it's fun!"

 Kaden isn't a fan of the water and towards the end of the party finally worked up the nerve to go down the small slide into the kiddie pool.  He did great, stood at the bottom so he didn't get wet, and immediately slipped and fell completely in.  HAHAHA  Poor kid.  That'll teach him to be adventurous.

There was also a HUGE princess bounce house with a slide that had a little pool at the bottom.  Emily helped Lexi with this one and went down a couple of times with her, then Lexi was brave enough to go on her own (over and over and over).  :)  That's my girl! (Thanks for the help, M!)

I don't know how I missed getting a picture of the cake.  Emily made it and it looked like she took a sandcastle straight off the beach and put candles on it.  I'll have to get a picture of it and post it later.  

Friday morning started out with every kid's favorite activity: a visit to the dentist!  Woo!

Playing video games in the waiting room.

Ari chewed on an orange juice bottle while she waited for her sister and brother who have teeth to get them cleaned.  :)

I have to add a side note here:  the hygienist came out and it was a guy.  He looked familiar and I thought I probably knew him from high school.  He looked at me and asked, "Have I helped you here before?"  I said no and he asked me my maiden name.  When I told him what it was, the light bulb went on in his head and he said, "I'm Jordan Bradford."

For those of you who don't know who that is, the Bradford's were our next door neighbors when we lived in Syracuse and I babysat for them all the time.  Jordan started laughing and told everyone we saw, "She used to babysit me!"  I found out, though, that he's 22 years old, which is only 3 years younger than me.  AND it turns out that he served in the exact same mission as Shane did (British Columbia, Canada) and they knew a lot of the same places and people.  It was crazy seeing him again and I can't believe I babysat someone only three years younger than me.  Weird!

Ok, after the dentist, we went to Sandy to The Living Aquarium.  We'd never been there before, but Kaden LOVED it.  We were meeting up with Shane's family there and while we waited, we went through the "Utah" part three times and Kaden was still asking to go through again.  hahaha

Kaden waving hi from the frog.

Lexi is so good about saying "CHEESE!"

"Eye!!"

I'm just happy to be out of the car seat carrier!

 When Shane's family got there, we tried to get a pic with all three kids on the frog.  You can see how well that went...

I'm falling!

 We went to Red Robin with his family after that and then the kids crashed on the way home.  :)  

Saturday I went to see the movie Buck with my sister, Suzanna.  It's a documentary about the man who The Horse Whisperer was based on.  It was really good!

Sunday we spent all day inside because everyone was coughing and sneezing really bad and the nursery doesn't care if your runny nose is from a cold or allergies-they don't want you there.  So, we relaxed.  :)

Monday morning we headed to the West Point parade.

Kaden and Lexi LOVED their little chairs.  :)

And my favorite picture of the whole weekend:

SO CUTE!

 Ari was waving at every. single. person. and float that would go by.  It was adorable and I was trying to get it on film, but of course she suddenly got preoccupied with her toy when she saw the camera.  Here's what happened told with pictures:

me: "Wave, Ari!  Stop eating the toy!"

Shane taking the toy away...

"Where did it go?"

"No, really, give me my toy back!"

Her mouth is smiling, but her eyes say, "PLEASE give me the toy!"

Shane distracted her for a while, then we at least got a good smile out of her.  No waving, though.  :(

The tractors were still Kaden's favorite part.

 We went to R.C. Willey for some free hot dogs and, after, while Shane perused the electronics section, Lexi found the World's Largest Rocking Chair.

She literally had to use her whole body and throw herself back to make it rock.  She loved it.  :D

We didn't have any plans for dinner, so I grilled some Boca Burgers and we had honey dew with them.  YUMMY!  I love summer!  

We didn't end up going to any fireworks because A) I hate fighting crowds with traffic and B) everyone was still sniffly and sneezy, so the kids went to bed early.  :)  Shane and I stayed up listening to the war zone around us and we watched one of the X-Men movies.  

And don't worry, we'll take the kids to Weber State's fireworks in a couple of weeks.  :)