July 4th Fun

This past week my brother was in town with his family. Of course he was only there for a day or two, so really it was my sister-in-law with the boys :) We did something different everyday, but taking pictures isn't my specialty most of the time. One day we we went to Thanksgiving Point.

This was my token group shot that I forced all of the children to take since I had bought them all red shirts with a favorite character on it. Don't they look happy?!?This is my youngest nephew - he is quite the crack up. One day he wanted some chocolate animal crackers so I told him to ask his mom. He came back and told me: "Mom said a few, but I say A LOT."

Friday night we went to the Riverton Parade. Our chairs had been moved, so we took another spot, but it was not as optimal since we were directly in the sun. It's a good thing I don't agree to go to these every year! Having a lot of candy being chucked at you isn't my idea of fun, but the kids LOVED it!

We decided to do fireworks on the 2nd since my brother and his family were still there. My nephew is modeling his glow-in-the-dark earring/ bracelet. It doesn't have quite the same effect when it is still sunny outside. But there was no way we were going to wait for it to get dark - the kids would be in ultimate melt-down mode by then!

I must admit it was nice to have my brother's kids there since they are almost always willing to take a picture with me. And of course my niece doesn't know what's happening quite yet...
So she is always a lucky recipient of being in my pictures. But boy - isn't she cute! Definitely picture worthy :)

By the time we did sparklers at about 9:15/9:30 it was a little darker, so we whipped out the sparklers. Don't we look like we are having fun?!? The kids were mad because my sister-in-law and I had the last sparklers - not to be mean, but because there weren't enough for everyone to have an additional one. Try to explain that one to 4 little boys...