Heritage Days weekend

We headed down to MV for Heritage Days weekend. There's not necessarily a lot to Heritage Days these days but it's a good excuse to spend extra time with family and Tatum would never let us miss "her race". She talks about it pretty much every time we pass the Cornell football field all year long. 

Waiting for the race to start.

I don't know what it is about Rich, but there's something about seeing him that makes Declan do crazy things like this:

It's like he sees a target on Rich's head or something. It's hilarious. And Rich is a seriously good sport.

Rich was nice enough to do Declan's second race with him.

Here comes Tatum. She was quite convinced she tied with another boy for FIRST PLACE. I was too busy to watching her to notice.

I so wish this picture wasn't blurry. :(

These pictures are totally out of order and I really can't be bothered to switch them. Friday afternoon, before the race, we hit up the splash pad in Lisbon.

Back to the Fun Run. Declan did just fine in his race even if he wasn't really running until just over half way. Then suddenly he noticed all the people lined up on one side cheering and it really freaked him out for some reason. By the time he got to me he was whimpering which turned into a cry. Silly boy.

Such a pathetic little sad face all because of a little cheering. :)

Saturday morning was the parade. Clearly it was thrilling. :)

The kids would have gotten plenty of candy in this parade. But my old friend from growing up came by and literally dumped a huge ARMful of candy at their feet. Suddenly they had way more than plenty. Thanks a lot, Grant. :)

Checking out what uptown had to offer, which turned out to be not much.

But the fire department did have their hoses set up for a little game. It proved to provide a lot of entertainment.

Tatum went first and was partners with Rich.

 She soon got left behind. :)

Declan wanted to try. I was a little nervous for him, afraid he wouldn't like it. But he loved it. He did it over and over and over.

Declan got a turn with Brennan. Check out the video to watch him get totally left behind as well. Kind of funny that that always happened when the men were involved. ;) Think they are a little competitive? haha

He was pretty pleased with himself.

They were soaked, but happy.

We ended the weekend with some more Rich clobbering.

Happy Heritage Days! haha

4th of July weekend

Our Fourth of July festivities began with the parade a few days before the fourth. The weather was crazy awesome. It was overcast and cool. Luckily I learned my lesson from the balloon glow and brought jackets for the kids. I guess it wasn't quite enough because they still whined about being cold and wanting a blanket. Pretty crazy for early July in Iowa. The parade wasn't the most exciting one we have seen but the kids ended up with plenty of candy so they were happy.

Waiting for it to start.

Declan looks quite pleased with himself with a beloved sucker as soon as the parade finished. He loves suckers.

 There was a fun kids fair going on after the parade. It involved quite a lot of standing in line. We waited for quite some time for this bounce house and as soon as Declan got in it he started whimpering and saying "it's too bouncy in here"...kinda the idea buddy. Needless to say he came right back out. But Tatum loved it!

 I thought this photo booth was a brilliant idea. They had a bunch of Fourth of July stuff to wear or pose with and then they took a few photos and printed them for you and it was all FREE.

 Our whole family was dressed quite patriotically on Sunday but I didn't get a picture of all of us. I tried curling Tatum's hair for the first time so I did get a photo of her. She is looking so grown up these days, it's killing me.

 And that night we finally had our first fire in our fire pit in the backyard. Brennan has been waiting for this for ages.

 And if it involves s'mores obviously these two will be happy to participate. Even if Declan's face tells you otherwise.

 The morning of the 4th we ran some errands and then headed to Mt. Vernon to spend the day with my sister and her family. We stopped by my parents' house first to take advantage of the spoils of their garden since they were still out of town. While Brennan and I were working in the garden Tatum noticed my mom's bird feeder was empty. Without saying anything she got it down herself, took it into the back porch, filled it with the bird food and came out carrying it completely full. I was pretty shocked to see her with it and she was quite proud of herself. I had no idea she knew where everything was and how to do it.

 Yummmmm fresh raspberries.

 We hung out at Crystal's house for awhile with the Winkler family too. And then we all headed to a nearby park to play.

We interrupt the days' activities to show you photo evidence of my stupidity. I fell down the stairs in our new house because I was dumb enough to walk down the stairs in the dark and reached for the light switch when I was much further away from it than I realized, and down I went. This was my knee the next day. It doesn't look like much but it got much more colorful. I'm sure it would have been really hilarious to watch, but sadly (haha!) no one saw it.

 ...back to playing at the park.

Tatum has decided she must learn how to do the monkey bars before preschool. She has been trying to master them for awhile now but the other day she noticed her preschool has monkey bars on the playground and that's when she decided she really had to learn. This park had the best monkey bars I have ever seen!  See how low to the ground they are?

So when this happened, as it always did, it wasn't a big deal at all!

Sorry for the plethora of monkey bar pictures. I was messing around with our camera, trying to get back into the habit of using it and reacquainting myself with the settings. And there are so many pictures where I just love her look of determination and concentration.

Declan pouting, for who knows what reason. It's just one of his favorite pastimes these days.

 Rich made homemade root beer.

 Someone showed the kids they could blow the vapor away and for some reason they thought that was the best thing ever and just. wouldn't. stop.

 These two are pretty cute little friends.

 Macy's friend Megan soon found herself with a friend/shadow named Declan. She was nice enough to play along for quite some time, playing inside, drawing with chalk and even blowing bubbles for him.

 Tatum and Kelbie worked hard on this sidewalk art.

 We drove out to Mechanicsville for the fireworks and Declan fell asleep on the way. He had been waiting ALL day for fireworks so I just couldn't convince myself to let him sleep through them so we woke him up.

 Sparklers.

 Brennan took about five or six pictures of Declan and I and this is about as good as they got. Yikes.

 He didn't make it through the whole show but at least he got to see some fireworks.

 It was a fun, laid back, 4th spent with some of our favorite people.