4th of july festivities

i just love holidays...one of them being 4th of july.  i have such fond memories of my dad and johnny (our great family friends we grew up with and spent EVERY holiday with) lighting fireworks atop the ladder in the middle of street (this while it was still legal to have good ol' fashion fun with fireworks in HB).  this year, it was no different, except we had to go to lakewood, where it is still legal to do fireworks.  on saturday, the 3rd, we had our annual church picnic (always a crowd favorite). 

first things first...mark and rick have been the reigning champions at the horseshoe tourney for the past three years.  every year sandra, rick's wife, and i say we will make t-shirts.  well, this is a year for firsts with me, so they finally got made.  they were pretty excited, until they got beat and didn't make it a 4-peat.  oops, i jinxed them with the shirts.  sorry, guys.  there is always next year.

since the guys did so poorly at horseshoes, mark headed over to the egg toss, feeling pretty lucky, he and addison teamed up.  i think their egg was hard-boiled.  it was dropped so many times and did not break...well, didn't break for awhile, that is.  she LOVED it and of course, i had to snap some shots of her doing this.

catching it....and then...

...throwing it!  wow!  she made it look so easy.

the "oh-so-serious" competitors!  i can just hear her growling fiercely.

on another note, i snapped some shots of the girls with their friends...too stinkin' cute these girls all are. (L to R) reese and reagan with addison and august

leavin' the picnic with molly and mackensie

on sunday we went to the wilkerson's for their annual 4th party.  swimmin', food, and fireworks.  three of my favorite things. here is mark taking a break from swimming with 

the girls

here are some of the kids making their jewelry.  addison wears her necklace pretty much everyday...red, white, and blue beads and a star.  she is so proud to be an american every day of the year!

they also have a trampoline...which i don't really recommend for ladies who have had babies...yeah, you know what i am talkin' about...

finally...the fireworks arrived!  the girls were better this year with them, but still a little afraid.  they wanted to stay outside to "see" them but needed to be held the whole time.  it was pretty cute. i love how addison is holding her ears.  she was like that the entire time.