4th of July 2016

The 4th of July is always one of my favorite holidays.  I just love being patriotic, eating good food, and having fun - and I feel like that's what this holiday is all about!  For the last few years, we've gone to my mom's house to celebrate the 4th there.  This year, we decided to change it up a little, and we actually ended up celebrating for three days straight!  Here's what we were up to:

Saturday (the 2nd)

I looked up some cookie ideas on Pinterest to bring to all of our celebrations, and I tried to stick to the red, white, and blue theme as much as I could.  I ended up making two different kids:

1- Blueberry with white chocolate chips (recipe HERE)

2- Strawberry with chocolate chips (recipe HERE)

Spoiler alert - they were both amazing and got gobbled up both places we took them!

Ready to head to Grammy and Pop's for round 1 of the 4th of July!

Grammy and Pop busted out the slip-n-slide, the pool, and water balloons for lots of outside fun!

My favorite guy!

Most of the gang!

We brought Aspyn with us, and her favorite part was hanging out in the kiddie pool.

Uncle Bryan and Dimple brought silly string and the kids had so much fun with it!  I don't know if Ben had ever seen it before, but I know my kids hadn't!  It was a hit!

The clean-up was not so much fun.

Uncle Gino and Aunt Laura brought some sparklers for everyone!

Dimple, Uncle Bryan, and the kids.

Of course Matt had to light about 7 of them at a time instead of just one.  #he'ssuchakid

I can't tell you how much I love seeing my sister so often now that she's in town!  It makes my heart so happy!

We found a seat to watch the chaos - haha.

Uncle Bryan and Dimple brought these sweet treat buckets for the kids - glow in the dark toys and candy!  Perfect!

That night, LL was exhausted and went straight to sleep.  Cooper was still awake, so we took him outside to watch the fireworks going on around us.  :)

Sunday (the 3rd)

Ready for round 2 of celebrating the 4th at Oma and Opa's!

Once again, slip-n-slide was the name of the game!  Oma and Opa have a hill to slide down to make it a little more fun.

Aren't you supposed to have burgers to celebrate the 4th??

Gino did a good job of capturing everyone just sitting around - haha.

Opa - the grillmaster

STOP.  This is just too precious.

Cooper was ready to chow down!

My best girl!

And my favorite boy!

Cousins ready for fireworks!

I got the job of handing out the poppers.

Daddy got the job of doing the fireworks.

My babies!

Each kid got their own fireworks sword!

We headed to the driveway for some more fireworks!

I love my family!

Monday (the 4th)

We actually had a super low-key day at home on the actual 4th.  After being gone so much the last two days, we needed some time to catch up on chores and to just be home!  After dinner, Aunt Laura came over to do more fireworks (Uncle Gino and Ben had already left to go back to Atlanta)!

Eating candy from their treat buckets!

Sparklers and sisters!

Daddy did a great job with the fireworks!

Here's a look at how our family has grown over the years!

We always love the 4th, and it's even more fun to spread it out over so many days - haha.  You can see our past celebrations of the 4th here:
2015 (pool party at Gigi's)
2014 (pool party at Gigi's)
2013 (celebrating at Oma and Opa's)
2012 (small celebration at home because we had a newborn)
2011 (fireworks at Gigi's)
2010 (celebrating at Grammy and Pop's)
2009 (our first 4th as parents!)