Independence Day Fun

Happy Fourth of July!

We had a great Fourth last weekend! We went to a fun Independence Day Breakfast at the church in the morning where we had yummy food and the kids got candy dropped around them from a remote control plane outside (which they loved...thanks Blandons!) After the breakfast we went to visit some friends of ours in Jersey for a pool party and barbecue, which was a blast! Milt and I know them through Milt's work and we haven't seen them since our St. Thomas trip, so it was great to finally get together with them and meet their cute kids.

We were a little concerned about Kennedy and Maddox being scared of getting in the pool, but we shouldn't have been at all. They loved it (a little too much)! Of course, Maddox loved the food table much more and ignored the rest of us swimming most of the time....

We haven't gotten the kids in swimming lessons here yet, so Milt spent some time working on things with McKinley and Kennedy, and McKinley even jumped off the diving board! I was pretty shocked (she's always been a little hesitant about things like that, to put it mildly), but she is a little fish now! She stayed in the pool for almost 5 hours with only a few breaks, and we finally had to force her to get out when it was time to go! She has now decided she wants a swimming pool in the ground. Yeah, that's not gonna happen anytime soon. I almost had a heart attack multiple times when either Kennedy or Maddox would try to jump right in the pool when no one was looking. They had on floaties and there were lots of adults around to watch, but I think I aged like 10 years in one afternoon trying to keep an eye on both of them! So no pool for us for awhile!

The next day we had a little family party and did our own fireworks (we got home way too late the night before). It was really fun and at first the kids were super excited, until one of the fireworks made a "noise." We caught a bit of the drama on the videos below for anyone who wants to see the little kids freak out (yes, we are heartless and recorded it).


So, before you watch these videos, please know that we really are good, kind, and loving parents, even if it doesn't appear so. Milt just really enjoyed seeing how scared Maddox would get anytime a firework made ANY noise. Poor Maddox. But it really was pretty funny at first, because it wasn't even a big firework. And yes, Kennedy got a little frightened too, once she realized Maddox was scared. If our kids would just be scaredy-cats more often, we wouldn't find it so entertaining. But you never know what's going to set them off! (Apparently we can add fireworks to the list of "things that frighten the kids" and take swimming pools off).