4th of July weekend

We had a busy holiday weekend, celebrating our nation's birth with lots of friends and family. Addison and Dustin spent Saturday morning at a park while I stayed back with Chase and got some things done around the house. After naps, we went to our good friend, Matt's, surprise 30th birthday party. You may have noticed the new picture in my header. It was taken at the party. I just love it! Here are a few more...

Stephanie, Matt's wife, had set up everything so nicely for their guests. They had a lot of different little tables and activities set up for the 8 or so kids that attended. Coloring books and crayons, balls, bubbles, pinwheels, etc. Addison had a great time running around with the other kids, a couple who she's played with before.

She also enjoyed eating. She always enjoys eating. She's kinda like a little scavenger and hangs around the food table at parties!


The first thing said when she walked into the party was, "Where are the cookies?" She apparently associates cookies with parties! Then she wanted to know where the cake was. She was very patient the entire time we were there until finally the cake appeared and we began to sing "Happy Birthday" to Matt.

Look at her trying to get a peak at the cake!

It was all downhill from there! She sat in the birthday boy's seat and stared at that cake!

She did not take her eyes off of it!

Not for one second.

I told her she could sit there, but wasn't allowed to touch it.

And she listened...until she saw her window of opportunity when Matt looked away!

She finally got her piece of cake and was a happy, happy girl!

The next morning, we headed down to Dayton and spent the day with my parents. There is seriously no one Addison would rather be with than her grandparents. We are so lucky to live relatively close (hour or two) to all of them! I have such fond memories of the times spent with my grandparents as a child and am so happy my children have the same opportunity.

We had a nice day just hanging out and Dustin and I even went shopping for a bit while the kids napped.

We had a cookout for dinner and when we were done eating, we brought a plate over to my grandpa who was home alone for the evening. Grandpa is in his 90's and still gets around pretty well. Usually when I see my grandparents, there are 50 other family members around, so I don't have much of a chance to really focus on my grandparents. This visit, with it being just us, I had a nice time to really sit with my Grandpa, which was such a blessing. Really looking at and talking with him, I realized just how old and frail he is. It made me a little sad but also allowed me to reflect on the memories I have shared with him. I was reminded of how extremely fortunate I am to have such wonderful grandparents. I know my kids will feel the same way 30 years from now!

Grandpa gave us some sparklers (that were probably 20 years old) for Addie to play with. The funny thing was, he gave us all of them that were remaining in the box, except one. (And he had about another 30 boxes of them.) Aren't old people funny?

We took them home and got right to it!

This was when she asked, "Can I put these sparkles in my hair?", to which I shouted "NOOOOOOOOOooooOOO!" and lunged toward her, afraid she was going to singe her hair! (She gets sparkles in her hair when she gets her hair cut.)

After that, I kept very close to her. She did good at holding them away from her body and had a blast!

Monday, we went to an 80th birthday party for Dustin's Grandpa. I was so busy I forgot to take pictures! That evening, Addison and I went on a big grocery shopping trip because we had racked up the max amount in food perks (20% off groceries up to $300) and needed to spend it before it expired. When we go to redeem our food perks, we always try to spend the $300, which is actually kind of challenging. I try to add up in my head what I've spent, but often lose track, especially when Addison is with me talking my ear off.

Well, this trip will go down in his-tor-yyyyy. Wouldn't you know that I spent EXACTLY $300!!! NOT.EVEN.KIDDING. Am I good, or what!?!?!