HAPPY 4TH, Y’ALL!

I decided to do a full blue eye with red lips to have a more normal-looking eye instead of a red/white/blue look!

  • Face: CCTM and Light Powder with Clove ShadowSense contouring
  • Eyes: Sapphire Shimmer and Lapis Glitter with Warm Gold Shimmer highlights.
  • Cheeks: Red ShadowSense
  • Lips: Hurricane Red with Prism Gloss

Also? I officially suck at doing other people’s makeup. Especially crazy holiday looks. I didn’t quite mean it to end up like this but oh well. She doesn’t care so it’s all good.

Anna also came over to do a holiday look with my colors since she doesn’t own them (she thought blue was too scary). She looked gorgeous!

And my glitzy earrings that I love!

July 4th fireworks with neighbors!

The kids started by catching fireflies. They were actually pretty good at it. Katie set these on the table and they stayed there long enough for me to get a photo—half on and half off!

Soon the fireworks came out. We started small.

The kids were at a respectable distance.

But the second one we did—a Panda—got a little crazy. It started small but then the second phase got insane and sparks were reaching the kids. Needless to say everyone immediately moved back!

Then they did some individual ones—each kid got to hold one and I managed to snap this awesome pic of Owen.

The dads got involved, too.

Happy 4th!

Sometimes it’s the little things.

Even though I may complain about my kids and how much they drive me insane in the summer, I obviously still love them. But maybe today I loved them just a little bit more since Tom took them on a bike ride and let me have a good hour to myself…and then they played together—without fighting or drama—for a good 3-4 hours…and then we went to a friend’s house and they played with other kids for hours. 💕😜

Sparklers and smoke bombs.

Since we went out last night to watch real fireworks, we were just going to do some little fireworks at home. I went to the store to buy some and guess what? Turns out fireworks are illegal in Illinois so it was a pretty boring evening. We just had a campfire and neighbors came over so the kids still had fun with the sparklers and smoke bombs but we can’t wait to go to Michigan and do some real fireworks. (Get ready Gramma Jean and Grandpa David!)

When the Six Flags fireworks started we thought we might be able to see them from our front yard or the street but we walked all the way to the church and we could just see them through the trees.

Happy 4th everyone! Even my lips are celebrating!!

It wasn’t until I was done that I realized I did it backwards—it appears as blue, white, and red instead of red, white, and blue (because I was seeing the reverse in the mirror when I was applying and didn’t even think about it). So I flipped a later photo:

And if you want to see a speedy version of the application…

Fireworks!

Six Flags has fireworks for four or five nights so tonight we went to a local parking lot to watch. (We could have watched from the Six Flags parking lot as we have free parking but we honestly didn’t want to deal with any traffic.)

It was a short and sweet 15 minutes. We missed some because they were below the tree line but the kids were happy so all was well. And we were out of the parking lot and home in 10 minutes.

Early 4th of July festivities

Our local fireworks were tonight, so we had our “F It Friday” group together for a “Suck It Saturday” instead! After some delicious drinks (and refills!) and dinner…

…the kids played in the water while we watched and tried to stay out of the spray zone. One dad (Eric) joined in the fray…

Then it was off on a caravan to the equestrian center (where we watched from last year, too). The kids ran around and played and did sparklers…and eventually watched some of the fireworks. I think Owen sat with me and Katie for about five minutes and then he was off with his friends.

Both kids had fun and were happy and I got to spend another night with our great friends…and that’s just about all I can ask for. (Well, if Tom would have been there it would have been even better!) 🙂

Their first fireworks!

We knew the weather was going to be a crapshoot, but we figured we had to try since they were just three miles from our house!

It started off well enough…Tom and Owen went off to check out the food offerings and Katie and I had a picnic (oranges, string cheese, cheddar Chex, and a juice box) which she loved: “Mama! This picnic is the best ever!”

And even though it was sprinkling, she was running around in the grass and having a blast…until she realized she had a boo boo on her foot and then she turned into a hot mess drama queen as seen here.

Then as soon as daddy came back 15 minutes later, she was all smiles and amazingly forgot all about her boo boo.

As soon as daddy laid down, she copied him. 🙂

Then I jumped in for a picture.

Owen had been off playing football with some kids but he came back to check in and said “We’re tackling and I knocked two people down!”

Since we had everyone, we took this shot. A lady behind us actually offered to take it but I said “No thanks, this is how we do it!” And it was perfect—done in one shot!

And then it started to rain harder. And it was chilly. And we had already been here two hours and still had about 45 minutes until the fireworks were going to start…do we stay or do we go?

The show was happening rain or shine and I hated to miss it after being there so long already…so we decided to go sit in the car and potentially watch from the tailgate or through the moonroof if it was a downpour. Thankfully it didn’t do much more than a light rain.

We had the car on to listen to music so the kids were having fun in the tail lights…

Owen: “This is burning my face!” 

…and playing to the music…

Owen being a lamppost:

And then the show started! They both immediately covered their ears so we got out the noise-canceling headphones for both of them. 

Yes, I was happy we had the minivan so we could do this!

Both kids said it was the BEST DAY EVER and they wanted to know if we were going to go to the fireworks next year. Ha HA! I’ve created fireworks monsters!! (Tom doesn’t really care for them, but now we outnumber him three to one! And he really did enjoy watching the kids loving everything!)

P.S. Wow, this is post #6000!

July 4th Party

We were invited to a BBQ today…and Owen had a blast since they had not one but TWO waterslides there! He spent the first part of the day on the little slide and was just having a ball running around with the other kids and playing on this slide.

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We asked, but he didn’t want anything to do with the big slide…but then when I came back outside after saying goodbye to Tom and Katie (he took her home for a nap) I couldn’t find Owen anywhere. Turns out he was on the big slide!

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And he played. And played. And played. And played. We got there at 3 and he went straight to the slide…and he was pretty much going non-stop until we left at 7. (He did take about a 10-minute break to have a snack of graham crackers and milk and then maybe a 5-minute-total break to have a few bites of chocolate cake but that was IT. He didn’t even take a potty break, even though I asked every half hour or so.)

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A closer up look at that happy face!

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He did take a brief break from the big slide to hit the small pool—which he enjoyed flopping over the edge to make a big splash!

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And then it was back to the big slide…with a gun!

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And then a few more trips down the little slide before it got put away.

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On the ride home, Owen admitted he was tired. We got home and I was exhausted. From simply sitting around at an outdoor party. SITTING. (Well, there was some walking around and eating, but it was mostly sitting.) And it was warm but actually okay in the shade and there was a breeze.

Even though Owen is actually old enough that we could let him run around without actually having to keep an eye on him 100% of the time, I didn’t get to visit with everyone as much as I’d hoped. But it was wonderful being able to just sit and watch him play and have soooo much fun WITHOUT having to worry about watching Katie at the same time.

All in all, a very good day!

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