Happy Birthday America!

We had a little bbq to wish America a Happy Birthday!  The kiddos had fun playing together and the adults enjoyed relaxing and chatting.  It was so nice outside, definetely unseasonably cool for the summer!

Jenn brought poppers over for the kids to play with and they had a lot of fun.  It took a while for us to convince them that they couldn't hop down and look at what they just threw since there were three other people still throwing poppers at the ground.


Check out this teamwork to clean up!


This is Karsten's new swing trick - he thinks he's pretty cool!  Lucikly, Liam hasn't tried it yet!


Aww, how cute are they?


It was tough to convince them to sit down for a photo, but they gave in (although Liam was still watching Elam to make sure he wasn't missing something fun!)


These two - I hope they grow up having all sorts of fun and adventures together!  Karsten is getting to the age where he thinks girls are icky.  We said 'put your arm around Eden' and he smiled shyly and softly said 'nooooo.' I could tell he didn't want to hurt her feelings, but he didn't want to touch her either.


Waiting patiently for the fireworks to start!  We brought glow sticks and they entertained the kids while we sat and waited.  The adults chatted and played on our phones, but lucky for us, the kids kept it old school and didn't ask to use any of our phones to watch something while we waited.  I'm glad they wanted to play with each other and build with the glow sticks.


Jenn and I just realized that we've been friends for 24 year - can you believe it?  That means we've been friends for longer than we haven't been friends - wow!  Glad she's stuck with me for all these years!


Check out everyone's glow stick inventions - Eden has them on her boots, Karsten's glasses were behind Eden, Elam had a chain and Liam had a big loop.


Say cheese!  Isn't this a great pic of them?


Then the fireworks finally began!


Lately, Liam has been scared of the loud booms in fireworks.  We anticipated this and brought his headphones thinking they would shield some of the noise for him.  Unfortunately, I don't think they did a great job because he kept asking 'is that it?' Poor guy was ready for the fireworks to end as soon as they had begun.  I didn't mind cuddling and holding him tight during the fireworks!