Festivities for the Fourth

We have done our share of celebrating for the Fourth, that is for sure!
We started our festivities a little early, with the fireworks in one town that they have on the third!
Here is Mercedes and Dominique gearing up for the big boomers:







Dominique messing up Israel's hair:













WOW! COOL FIREWORKS!!!













In this picture, Israel was saying "green" because that firework was green!
He mainly just knows green, blue and purple so far. :)
















Joshua was SO excited that I let him hold a "fire stick"! LOL.

It was fun, and we got home after 11:00pm....










But here we are rarin' to go again the next day!

They insisted on taking hugging pictures in their "festival clothes":























































And, another attempt at a decent shot of the three of them together. I don't know what I'm going to do when I'm trying to get FOUR of them to look and smile at the same time!
















I'll probably have to just be content to have them all IN the picture!

















So, then we headed to my brother's house for fun and food and fellowship.

Israel was the victim of Moriah's motherly instincts coming out already! She just couldn't stop hugging him - for like, fifteen minutes!!!








"Mom, is there a tactful way to tell her to knock it off??"


















"This is totally ruining my manly race car ride!"













"Can't she take a hint? It's not like I'm reciprocating here!!"













"Finally! I'm FREE!"












"Wow, it feels amazing to be able to breathe again!"












Dominique and Cheyenne, on the other hand, both enjoy those tight embraces!












"Mommy, this guy knows how to take a picture! None of that girly huggin' stuff! YES!"

















It seems I have had no lack of belly buddies these days! :)

I am at 28.5 weeks now, so about 12 more to go. This is the point that people start looking at me like I'm crazy when I tell them when I'm due and firmly state that I will never make it that far! I assure them that I certainly will make it that far, and then some, probably!
A little pregnancy note, while I'm on the subject! Now that third trimester is upon me, I am once again experiencing the joys of increasingly intense Braxton-Hicks contractions, occasional leg cramps in the night when I skip my red raspberry leaf tea and forget to take my Cal-Mag, extremely frequent trips to the ladies room and that wonderful puffy feeling of being big in the summer heat ... but all is going well and I can't complain too much! I think I actually have more energy than I did with my other pregnancies, which I attribute to God's grace! I never get tired of feeling the baby moving all over the place, and I am getting SO excited to meet this little one!

Now, back to our party!

Israel loved sitting with Jessica on the trampoline and bouncing around, although he wasn't too crazy about standing up and jumping!







On the way home from Scott's, we stopped and caught the fireworks in Beecher. We made it home sometime after 11pm again..... but it was fun!



Then today, just to make sure we had NO energy left after the weekend is over, w headed to the zoo for a coule of hours!











Dominique and Merceded brusing the goats:















Daddy and Israel with the horses:












Checking out the tiger:

















And that about wraps it up!

The only plans for tomorrow, besides church, of course, are NAPS!!!!!!!!! :)