Fourth of July Festivities

Twas the night before the Fourth of July...

(okay, can't figure out anything that rhymes with that!) HA!

We headed out to buy a few little fireworks...

The guy at the firework stand gave her a flag, which she LOVED...she has
been finding flags everywhere and telling us "see mommy, flag!"

We let her try out the "throw down and they pop" things, and then lit some smoke bombs and let her do some sparklers.  We didn't know if that stuff would scare her or not, but she really liked it! 

She thought the sparklers were like princess wands...when we first lit
 it she kept saying "bippity boppity boo!"

We got up on the Fourth of July and had a lazy morning around the house.  Brynn and I put together a fruit tray to take to my aunt's house, and made some yummy pina colada dip to go with it.  Then Brynn and Ryan played outside while I put together a little Pinterest-inspired Fourth of July breakfast.

What did we ever do before Pinterest gave us such great ideas?  HA!

Then we loaded up and headed to my aunt and uncle's house for some swimming, lunch, and hanging out.

She has really gotten into "jumping off" lately...the problem is that a lot of times she jumps
straight up instead of out!  HA!  

She came inside and did a little coloring before we ate lunch.

My parents went to Nashville to visit Lindsey and Curt over the Fourth, so it was just my aunt and uncle and my grandparents and us, but we had such a great time!  And of course lunch was so good!

Brynn had the kid table all to herself...she ate there for awhile, and then wanted to
sit with everyone else!

Brynn and Ryan went outside to swim some more, and my grandparents and my aunt and I all played cards. Then we set up Brynn's pack and play downstairs and she took a nap while we kept playing cards and Ryan and Uncle Bruce took naps.  =)

Around 3:30 we loaded our stuff up and headed to our next stop of the day...hanging out at the river with some of Ryan's family.  His aunt and uncle have some land near the Castor River and we played in the water before we ate hot dogs and burgers.  I love eating hot dogs anyway, but what is it about eating hot dogs and watermelon on the Fourth of July?  Everything just tasted SO GOOD!

They even caught a TINY (like one inch!) catfish and Brynn wanted to keep it
so they put it in a water bottle and we brought it home!  HA!

After supper we drove home and headed to our last stop of the day.  We had dessert and did some fireworks with Brad and Jennilee and the girls before we all headed to watch the big Jackson fireworks.  We didn't do too many because their neighbors starting shooting some stuff off and it was pretty loud.  Brynn did NOT like the loud noises..she kept saying "too loud mommy!  Wanna go inside!"

I was TRYING to make them seem so cool, but she was NOT into the loud noise!

Even I got to do a sparkler!
Notice Brynn in the background...she was trying to run inside their house and she
kept her hands over her ears!  HA!  Poor thing!

We all loaded up around 9 and drove over near the Jackson City Park to watch the big fireworks.  We even got snow cones...YUM!  We watched them from INSIDE the car so the noise wouldn't be so loud.  She liked them MUCH better that way!  

Hanging out in the car watching the fireworks!

We finally made it home around 10:15 and FELL into bed!  I don't think Brynn even moved once after we laid her down.  HA!  It was SUCH a fun day celebrating with our family and friends, and enjoying what our country is all about!