4th of July!

I think the 4th of July is moving up in the ranks to be my favorite holiday.  Jed always gets the afternoon before and the day of off, the weather is usually warm (though sometimes too warm), there are BBQs and who doesn't love some patriotic colors, parades, music and declaring our pride in the greatest country on Earth?

We started off our weekend (along with nearly every other resident of Des Moines and the surrounding areas) at the Yankee Doodle Pops concert near the capitol and enjoyed a picnic dinner.

As you can see, we all had a good time :)  Love those smiles!

Lainey's friend Oscar and his dad joined us along with several other friends.  It was really a perfect night... until the fireworks started.  Not only could we not see them behind buildings and porta potties, but the my kids didn't really appreciate the sound of them without a view to go with it so we sceddaddled quickly.  It was waaay past bedtime anyway.

The next morning we decided to take it slow and eat pancakes (definitely a good choice) and go to a later parade.

Wyatt really got the hang of the fetching the parade candy thing preeeetty quickly.

They even caught a popsicle and shared it very nicely.

The kids took extra late naps (so did Jed and I!) and so we just grabbed a quick dinner near our house and then wandered around our new favorite place, Easter Lake.  

Then we captured probably the best family picture we've ever taken.

Cannot put into words how thankful I am for these 3, their smiles, hearts and love.  Can't wait to add another sweet one to the mix at the end of the year!

Holiday weekend!

Even with it being summer and not working, I was definitely excited to celebrate a long holiday weekend with my husband and family. Jed got off early on Thursday and had Friday and Monday off from work - an extra long weekend to enjoy! We hit the road north to Minnesota on Friday mid morning (after an oil change debacle, Simon running away briefly and stopping in Ankeny to renew a drivers license). It was a quick trip and Simon did a great job in the car!
I didn't take very many pictures during the weekend except for on our golf outing on Saturday. My parents got both of us new sets of golf clubs for Christmas this year. I haven't gotten much use out of mine yet but Jed has really enjoyed taking on the sport! It was a GORGEOUS day on Saturday and it was fun to spend the afternoon outside enjoying the great weather! I didn't golf but I did drive the golf cart, which was pretty fun too!

I wish I would have gotten a good picture of him driving or putting instead of pitching the ball out of the sand pit - sorry babe!
After finishing their 9 holes, Jed and my mom returned the golf carts and decided to make ANOTHER tee time for Sunday afternoon too. No one golfed quite as well on Sunday but it was still fun. The rest of the weekend was spent eating LOTS of delicious food, visiting with extended family and watching the Twins vs. Brewers series on TV. Saturday night, our friends Seth and Heather made a pit stop on their midwest tour and stayed over at my parents with us. It was fun to catch up and talk about our upcoming BABIES!
Monday we got on the road and decided we needed to stop at the outlet mall and I'm so glad we did! We got a few good deals for baby and some awesome deals for Jed! Jed insisted that we needed matching 4th of July shirts to wear to celebrate the holiday and I found some at Old Navy - a tshirt and a tank top for $3.58 TOTAL! I'm glad to have only spent that much because I was not quite as thrilled at the idea as my husband was :) but everyone thought it was pretty funny. We couldn't get a good picture of our matching shirts on our own but Robin got one when we got to the 4th of July celebration out at the church camp.
Ridiculous.