Happy Birthday USA

This was a special July 4th for us as we welcomed Addision into the 4th of July tradition as an American citizen. Since I am working to make up for all of my time off, I couldn't go far so we decided to take in the sights and sounds of the neighborhood.

...our neighborhood has an annual July 4th party starting with a "parade" where all of the kids decorate their bikes, scooters, strollers and other motorized vehicles in an appropriate shade of RED, WHITE & BLUE...so, in the morning we ventured out to do some shopping and find some streamers and balloons to put on our "vehicles"...

...I recently joined Sam's club...I've held off on it bc I didn't think it would be much different than the two other clubs I belong to...Costco and BJ's, but I noticed on line last week that they have this "click and pull option"...you can pick what you want on line and then "pre-order" it. They pull it for you and you go pick it up the next day. I had done a couple of things on-line earlier in the week and it really worked well and since I needed to do my big "monthly" grocery shopping, we went there. The kids had a blast and loved it. Riley pushed Addison in the cart and only ran into one person...(sorry mom, I was looking at the pool!)...Matthew saw a toy he absolutely has to have for his birthday, and Logan loved all of the food samples (well, so did Riley, Matthew, and Addison [who was covered in ice cream by the time we left!])...

...after that we stopped by Dollar Tree...now, this was a test bc we usually go in there and I let them pick one toy each after a good week of behavior. But, our goal was to get balloons, streamers, and a few things that I always get there...like cheap pasta. The kids wanted to go look at the toys so I let them but was very worried about the fallout. Turns out that they were so excited about the balloons that it only took one reminder to get them to put them back!

...home to unpack the car, make lunch and take naps...then after naps, we set to decorating the bikes. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture but we finally were off to the local elementary school (the starting point for the parade)...

...the parade was led by a Firetruck and a Policeman both blasting their sirens and horns and we arrived at the party in one piece, though I keep forgetting how hard it is to push that sit and stand stroller with someone (all nearly 40 pounds of them) sitting in the back. I was thinking...GOD, how out of shape am I?

...The party had hotdogs for the kids, a big blow up maze, face painting and balloon animals but...the piece de resistance...was the live band. while I was getting ice cream for the girls, I discovered Matthew at the ampitheater. He was sitting in the back row and bouncing on his butt to the music. We all sat down next to him and within a few minutes he was brave enough to go to the dance floor where there were a few other pre-teen girls dancing and proceded to have the TIME OF HIS LIFE!

...He was totally into the dancing...got up there and tried to follow along with the electric slide and totally was doing the Macarena! After that one, he came up to me and said...can they play the Macaroni again?!!!

...And who was the miracle of the party???? Well, Addison was up there dancing whenever Matthew was up there. She was just so cute. I kept having people come up to me to say...is that your child? (of course they could do that alot because I had a lot of kids there!)...one older woman came up to me and asked if Matthew was in dance lessons because he was so focused on following and trying to perfect all of the moves for the dances.

Silly mommy forgot her camera and video tape ...so these will have to do from my little cell phone...sorry about the sound quality!