4th of July

We had a fun 4th of July weekend and finally the weather was beautiful!  Mom and Dad came on Wednesday and my brother came on the 4th.  The kids were very excited for fireworks and swimming in their new pool.  Yes, new pool.  Every year, Andy has to buy a new $20 pool because they never last longer than a year.  :-)

We spent the day of the 4th outside.  Drew and Kayley rode their bikes and spent a lot of time jumping in their pool.

 

 
We drove downtown for the Fireworks pretty early.  I think we got there around 7pm.  They are the largest fireworks in Illinois (supposedly in the top 3% of fireworks in the country...according to their own website!) and always draw a big crowd so we wanted to get their early.  And plenty early we were!  I was the driving force behind the time we got there so I could feel all the looks from Andy and my family when we got there and there were tons of options for parking and places to sit.  Oh well, lesson learned.  We can go a little later next year! 

The fireworks didn't start until 9:30pm so we had a lot of time to kill.  The kids did great for most of it.  Considering Ryan goes to bed between 7pm and 7:30pm, he did really well, but eventually got a little crabby.

But, he is a pacifier addict and we knew this would make it all better:

Here are a few pictures while we were waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the fireworks to start:

Andy and I had to work for awhile on Friday while my family entertained the kids.  Matt took Drew fishing and Drew got a little surprise on his hook!

On Saturday, we went to Bicycle Safety Town.  The kids spent a lot of time on their bikes and then went to the little kids' playground.

After everyone got tired of playing, we went to Lou's for lunch.  Kayley spun around too much on one of the pieces of playground equipment and was sick to her stomach so she didn't eat.  With her motion sickness (she also got airsick on our flight home from Phoenix), she definitely takes after her Daddy!

Matt took us out for dinner Saturday night.  Kayley dressed up as the little princess that she is!  Ha!  She did leave the tiara at home.  :-)

Drew and Kayley went home with my parents on Sunday to spend a week in Iowa.  The house is pretty quiet, but Ryan keeps things pretty lively.  He has had the run of the house for a day so far and seems to be loving it!  No brother and sister to get in his face! 

Tonight, Ryan decided he didn't want to eat his dinner so I resorted to braunschweiger on crackers.  He LOVES it!  Definitely my kid.