Proud to be an American! (Part One)

There are a lot of negative things that I could say about the fact that we have already celebrated the 4th of July in Utah but I want to focus on the positive. My family and I are very grateful for all of our wonderful blessings. Our freedom is at the top of that list. I am so grateful for freedom, our right to celebrate holidays how we wish and for all the men and women who risk their lives to protect our freedom.

Anyway, yesterday was Saturday July 3rd, aka the day Utah celebrated the 4th (because the 4th falls on a Sunday this year) and the day we went to the Marsh (Paul's grandma's family) family reunion.

The weather was gorgeous, the time with family was fun, the food was good, the fireworks were awesome and we live in a glorious country where we got to celebrate our freedom. What more could I ask for? (Maybe to celebrate on the actual holiday? Oh wait, I was going to be nice.)

Our day started early. Too early. I heard this noise that woke me out of a dead sleep. The sound resembled Andrew dumping a giant bucket of Lego's out in his room (His room is directly across the hall from ours so we hear everything he does!) I couldn't believe he was up. We had a very late night Friday. (We took a trip to Park City for an early start on back to school shopping. That is it's own post.) I thought he would sleep forever. Finally I figured out the noise.

We had landscapers come and do some work this past week. They cleared out all the junk that was under our deck. I know this still look crappy, but trust me, it is so much better.

We had them clean out some of our beds so they could put down weed block and put down some rock. Well they got everything cleaned and the weed block down on Tuesday but no rocks. They didn't come back Wed, Thurs, or Fri. Of course they came at 7:30 A.M. on Saturday, our one day to sleep in, to put in the rocks.  That's a hard noise to sleep through. We got gravel around our garden boxes making it so nice to walk around.

They also put large rocks around the side where the junipers were taken out last year. They are suppose to do more rock in the back under the houses' overhand and by our office window but so far that hasn't happened. It's anyone's guess when it will. 

Slowly but surely we are making progress on our yard. One of these years our house might be presentable. Ha!

Since I couldn't sleep I started baking for the family reunion. It was a good thing I started when I did. There is no way I would have finished everything if I hadn't.

I made two batches of cupcakes. The idea was that everyone in the family would decorate them. The kids slept through the rock debacle so Paul and I did the cupcakes. They certainly weren't what I had envisioned but they were festive and cute enough.

I saw strawberries decorated like this on a blog this week and knew I had to try it. I wanted to put them on the cupcakes. FYI~ The strawberries were very heavy making the cupcakes buckle under the weight.

I also made a batch of baked beans to take to the reunion.

We got to the reunion before anyone else. It was awful. We felt so out of place and barely knew anyone.

Once our immediate family got there it was much better. Mere, Matt, John, baby Kellen, Ben, Denise, Amanda and Calvin all came from out of state. It was so fun to see them. Look at how big Kellen is getting. He was totally eying the kids' food. 

How can you resist a bald baby head? He's so yummy.

This is one of the cupcakes Paul decorated. Isn't is lovely?

                         

After we all got some food in us we felt much better. The kids played on the playground with their cousins and of course I followed them around with the camera. Emma did a great job looking after Calvin.

M looked after John.

When you ask John to smile he gives you this face LOL!

Andrew was climbing everywhere and on everything.

We didn't stay too long since we had some things we had to pick up for Paul's birthday, we needed a nap and I wasn't feeling 100%. I'll just say I hate being a woman. We got some family pictures in our matchy matchy clothes. Thanks Matt! 

                           

          

When we got home the kids played with some smoke balls and then we napped.