The Rain Went Away!!!

I am such a holiday dork...I look forward to every holiday with the same amount of excitement that I had when I was five years old! So, I was pretty disappointed to wake up to a cold rainy day on the 4th of July! Our neighborhood does this adorable bike parade every year...the kids all decorate their bikes and dress up in red, white, and blue. We meet at one house and a police car leads our parade and an ambulance is the grand finale (geesh, you would think our neightborhood had some connections at the PD with all this special treatment!). It is really quite a sight to see and the kids LOVE it! To top it all off, we finish at someone's house for snacks and a huge playdate! The night before the 4th, I dug out all of the streamers, balloons, headbands, and decorations for the bikes and I took Ashlen out to practice riding her bike (she is not a big fan of riding her bike yet...even with the training wheels). So, the morning of the 4th, the kids were really excited to decorate their bikes and get to the parade...but, all plans were cancelled! I felt so bad for them (okay, and for myself!!!).

We decided to go ahead and make lots of cook-out food and celebrate indoors. We had a few friends stop by to help us eat. The kids were so excited to play together that it took awhile for them to get hungry enough to want to sit down and eat...they all played together so well!:

Isabel fell in love with Morgan...she has been BEGGING for a baby ever since!!!:

She got the chance to feed a real baby...she was so excited, you would have thought she was about to have a slumber party with Hannah Montana:

To my surprise, it dried off around 7pm, so we went outside for some 'Missouri Fireworks'. The kids were a little intimidated by the sparklers at first, but soon they were loving it and we couldn't light them fast enough!!!

We had a few boxes of Snap Dragons...those little white packets that you throw down and they 'pop'. Aspen thought it was hilarious to throw them at Jason's feet...he played along like a champ!: Luckily, Nick was willing to light the big ones...I think the rest of us were all afraid of losing digits.
Speaking of losing digits...this stunt earned him the nickname 'Ole Three Fingers' for the rest of the night...yes, he actually lit all of those at the same time and held them as they went off...brave or crazy, you be the judge!!!:
Despite the day's gloomy weather, we managed to have a fun 4th of July evening, so I am a happy girl!!!I think Sara is Isabel's new favorite adult in the world!!! Isabel is not the 'social butterfly' that her sister is, so the fact that Sara thought she was the special one was so great for her!
The girls found a firefly:
I hope you all managed to find some fun in this year's rainy 4th of July!!! I am already looking forward to next year's bike parade!!!