THUNDERWORKS: Hurray for the Red, White & Blue!

On Saturday, June 30, we did our typical morning workout and then I did a little shopping with Mamaw. We didn't find anything, but we enjoyed looking while the kiddos napped. That evening, we headed to our friends' house for our third annual 4th of July cookout and fireworks festivities. Before eating, we took our typical pictures. This is the first time, though, that we were able to get both families together. Here are the Good and Grube Families, taken by their camera with a timer. :) :) :)

Here's our family sporting our red, white & blue. My tank says 2006 and Shawn's shirt says 2009. The boys' shirts don't have dates on them. Caleb's wearing Joshua's shirt from last year, and Ryan is wearing a shirt we had gotten for Caleb years ago when he was a baby.

I love our little family of five!

Here is the Grube family, with their newest addition of baby Aiden. This was his first year for fireworks!

We took a picture of the guys holding their boy babies.

With our hands free at the moment, Lisa took a picture of the two of us (thanks for emailing your photos to me!).

And Shawn took this one of us. Love him!

We took turns holding baby Ryan.

Soon enough it was time to eat! Chris grilled burgers and hot dogs and Lisa made her famous macaroni salad - yum! We took along baked beans, chips & pretzels and dessert. A cookout was especially wonderful since Shawn hasn't done much grilling this season. He doesn't enjoy it, and we even ran out of propane, which was a great excuse for him to skip it for the time being. Hopefully we'll get to again, soon, though. Anyway, we highly enjoyed dinner and being together with our friends. Here's some pictures of the kids table:

When Ryan & Aiden are older, we'll run out of room at the picnic table! For now, Aiden enjoyed the bouncer seat and Ryan sat in his little chair at our table so I could feed him.

Isabella and Caleb sat together.

Joshua climbed into the other side. He said his legs were long when he tried to climb out. :) :) :)

I absolutely LOVED Isabella's dress. I wish they made that style for adults!

Here's a picture of the cake we took along.

And a photo of the kids enjoying their ice cream sandwiches. Yummo!

We sat and chatted for a little while after dinner while the kids played. We love hanging out with these friends! Then it was time to head to the Marietta Fireworks. Joshua had called them "THUNDERWORKS" earlier in the week, and I thought the expression was priceless. They do sound like thunder, but we corrected him and told him they were fireworks. I still love to call them thunderworks on occasion, though. The precious things that kids say!

I realized when we were about to leave that we had forgotten to take chairs along to sit on. Thankfully they came to our rescue and brought extras for us. Whoops!

We did our sparklers there this year, to ensure we got our typical good spot.

Chris always lights them for the kids. They enjoy them immensely!

We took a couple pictures of the families doing our sparklers together. I LOVE the smell of sparklers. They remind me of celebrating Independence Day when I was growing up.

Lisa & I enjoyed doing some sparklers that night as well.

Seeing these pictures, I can't remember if Chris did any other than the time that their whole family did them, or if he was on lighting duty the whole time. :)

When Shawn was buying our sparklers, his original purchase was of these obnoxiously long sparklers. I feared the boys might try to use them as swords, so we went back and bought a big pack of regular sized ones to do. But, while we were there, he tried a couple of the extra long ones to see how they worked. :) :) :)

While we were doing sparklers, I held a very curious and pretty sleepy baby Ryan. He did well overall.

When I saw baby Aiden, I had to giggle. Doesn't he look precious in his seat below? They stuck a little rag over his head to keep him from getting bitten by mosquitoes while the rest of us put on bug spray.

Before too long, it was time for the fireworks to start. We got out the goldfish we had brought along for the kids to snack on.

I was surprised but Caleb was terrified of them this year. They were LOUD and he was scared. Ryan didn't seem bothered by them, but Caleb took turns snuggling with me and snuggling with Shawn. He also covered his ears and asked when we would go home. I would say "Pretty! That's my favorite! Tell me what color you like best!" and eventually he loosened up a little bit. At the end, he told us he loved them and would like to go back again! Shawn & I cracked up! The kid who jumped into our laps commented how much fun he had. :) :) :)

When Caleb sat with Daddy, Joshua would sometimes join Ryan and me if Isabella was with her parents.

They were great fireworks this year, I thought! We really enjoyed the display!

The kids liked them too!

Boom! Happy birthday, America! God bless the USA!

Thanks for inviting us and making this celebration a tradition, friends!