Our Fourth of July!

 Happy Fourth of July! I am so grateful to live in this country and for all the people who have made it possible for me to have the freedoms and blessings that I have. I am also so grateful to have a family who makes the Fourth such a fun and memorable holiday. 

We were so happy to get to come to West Jordan to celebrate this year! We stayed with my mom and got to visit with Luke's parents, who we haven't seen in a couple years. We also went looking for some baby boy clothes together and bought the girls some books. 

The morning of the fourth, Ben and Caleb and Jon went over to my Grandma's to help set up. She always has a big set up of water slides and pop ups and a bounce house and it's a big job to get it all set up. When we got there after lunch, the kids had a blast. 

Ashtyn and Ben went up the big water slide, but once Ashtyn got up, she didn't want to come down. It was a little higher and scarier than she'd thought. She finally came back down the stairs side and was pretty sad she hadn't gone down. I told her I would take a picture of her going down the smaller slides if she wanted and she liked that idea. 

After taking her picture on the smaller ones, I put my phone away and a couple minutes later, Ashtyn was calling to me at the top of the big slide, to get my phone. I did and she went down it, and then went down it again. She was really happy to have gone down even though she was scared. 

The kids played hard, it was after 5:00 before they came in and got dressed. Then we had the barbecue and I was pretty exhausted by this point. Around 8:00, we started fireworks. With everything being so dry, we were really careful and didn't do as many, but really, it is the tradition of it that is the best part. 

We handed out creamies and donuts, though by this time, my kids had been eating junk food pretty much nonstop since we'd arrived and they were all sugared out and didn't want any donuts. I brought some ice cream that my mom had made that was "pregnancy diet" approved and so yummy for myself (as well as some diet approved Cheetos for myself for the water party). We did poppers and tank wars and some fountain fireworks. Rylee wasn't as excited as last year, but her reaction was still priceless and cute. 

We had such a fun, exhausting time and loved seeing everyone after the long Covid break!