The 4th

I am a few weeks late in actually posting my 4th of July pics, but better late than never! I seriously could do a lot of complaining right now..... I have not hardly seen my husband for the past 4 weeks (with the exception of visiting my parents for a few days....which doesn't count as having regular family time in my opinion) and he is currently out of town yet again, and I am currently thinking WHAT the heck was I thinking planning to be home alone for 3 days then drive alone with a 17-month-old to Utah for a RACE? Jeeze. I love my husband's work ethic and support all he does and it's not all due to him.... it just seems like the past 4 weeks have been a blur of busy working-single-parent-hood and late nights of constantly trying to catch up on EVERYTHING. SO. I won't bore you with my complaints but I'm just saying summer is flying by by being WAY too busy and I wish it would just settle down a little and let me enjoy it....with my family. 

There. That is the end of my I'm-So-Tired-I-Really-Need-To-Go-To-Bed-Right-Now rant and I digress.

So a brief recap of our 4th:

The first thing we woke up to was this beautiful sight:

 Yep, you can guess how excited Collin was to find out he was wearing an identical outfit to my 17-year-old beautiful sister! ha ha! Right after this picture he snuck away and changed! :)

We of course met up with our family to watch the parade, and Ashlyn was mildly interested. I basically kept stuffing her with snacks and candy to get her to sit and not wander into the street. She liked the marching bands and the mascots that came by. She did really like the little flag she got though!

I had so much fun getting to see lots of this little cutie! Ashlyn's cousin Grace! Isn't she so adorable?!?! I thought this picture was so awesome! I promise I wasn't scaring her or anything!

 And I took this picture to prove, in case anyone ever questioned, that yes, Grandparents are very very good at spoiling their grandchildren. The "grandkid" room Ashlyn got to stay in was literally overflowing with toys! Needless to say she had a lot of fun! The bad thing was that she woke up EEAAARRRLLYY every day, purely due to her excitement of getting to play with those toys! She would scream until we got her up, then the minute I set her down she would trot right over and pick up playing wherever she left off the night before. sigh. At least she wasn't bored, right?

 I did make some awesome treats... this looks ghetto in the picture but I swear it was cool. I got assigned "jello salad" which you are probably aware that I am a non-fan of jello. So I did my best to make it pretty.

 We are planning to get a little chair like this! She Luh-huved it!!
(see the "don't even think about making me get out of this" look?)

 We had a great time at Grandma's BBQ like always...although it was low on cousins this year it was still fun to see who we did. Ashlyn had a great time wandering around the big yard and didn't even get cranky even though she was up well past her bedtime.

 She discovered the rock bed under Grandma's apple tree and had a hayday in there for over an hour. Like I have mentioned, she is seeming to be one of those kids who likes to get DIRTY!(darn it!) A few of the other little cousins were even drawn over to her and started playing with her in the rocks! It was nice that she was kept so amused for so long.

 I don't know who took this picture but seriously, it is art. You couldn't have planned it better.


Aaaand, we did try to get a "family" picture and the results were awful. Ashlyn is basically impossible to photograph because she won't look at the camera or won't sit still or only scowls or whatever. I'm sure it's a common issue parents have. We also had the factor of Cory being our photographer which probably didn't make great pictures any more likely. (sorry Cor, but I bet you agree with me :) Here are the best shots we got, yes, the best:

 We gave it a shot sitting outside to watch the fireworks with Ashlyn... and she was totally cool! She watched the whole thing and said lots of "ooh!"'s. It was pretty cute. When it got really intense or loud she would hide behind her blanket, which was also super cute. I did cover her ears when those annoying "mortar-blast" ones went off, which always are so annoying to me anyways, but besides that she didn't seem to mind, and hopefully we didn't voluntarily deafen her.

We thought she would for sure sleep all night after such a busy, long day, but we were so wrong. She was up tons during the night, probably over-tired unfortunately. We were over-tired too so that was fun.

The next day it was like 50 degrees and rainy. (what?!? I know!) But we did get a HOT pic of Collin and I after our run in our MATCHY shirts!

Ash had lots of fun playing with Grandparents and aunts and uncles. I can't wait until Grace is older and they can play together.

The next day we went to Lava before heading back to Boise! I haven't been there in like 8 years or more probably! But it was so much like I remembered. It was really fun to hang out there. We didn't get to stay all day because we had to get back home, but we stayed for a few hours and Ashlyn had a really good time. Once we got her into the car she was asleep before we even left the parking lot!

(Thanks Tara for organizing the Lava trip! It should be a tradition!)

 It was always easy to spot whoever had Ashlyn in the pool... because she was one of maybe 3 black kids there! Welcome to Eastern Idaho. :) She really warmed up to the water and had a great time getting amused by everyone.

Happy 4th!