4th of July

We always spend our 4th of July in Liberty at David's parents' house. This year David's oldest brother, Chris, and his family joined us from Denver, CO.

Friday, July 1st

On the first day we rode horses over at Julie's house. (Every time we go to her house now, I can't help but remember arriving there at 3am, smelling like a bonfire!)








Love those hats.








My man is HOT.


Little Ms. Kate is eight. And Hazel thinks she is the end-all. I think Hazel's really eight, stuck in a four year old body.




Behind the house, Julie has a little cabin with pioneer, cowboy and Indian dress-up clothes. (This unfortunately was the only picture I got of Charlotte!)

Sat, July 2nd

And here she is again in Kevin and Vicki's backyard with marshmallow all over her face. The cousins were pulling one another in this wheelbarrow.

OH my goodness, this baby makes life so good. We would lay out a blanket or towel on the grass with some toys and she'd play happily for an hour or so.


Gram helped the kids make these minty napkin rings for dinner.

Gram gave the kids these lovely lolly pops for the rodeo that night. They were a huge hit, of course. Everyone was a happy, sticky mess afterward.


After dinner, we all gathered around a bonfire in the backyard.
Grandpa Phipps brought up his harmonica and played beautiful songs for all of us.
It was a little bit of heaven on earth.


And then there were fireworks.





I have a picture of myself holding a sparkler just like this, but I was bawling.





I'm so grateful that my girls can have such great cousins!







Need I say more?


This is a girl after her daddy's heart.


Grandma Phipps and little Chrissy, the dog who will live forever.




These little stumps used to be snowmen with hats and scarves, but in the house fire they were burned a bit. They are now "S'mores" that the kids sit on around the fire.



July 4th
Liberty Days! We started with the parade in the morning which was actually the LOW POINT of the day for me. It had taken all of my energy to get the girls dressed and ready to go by 7:30 am and I was feeling good about myself, because we were going to be on time. Then Hazel had a meltdown about her hair and a necklace or something and it went downhill from there.
Once we arrived, I asked Kate to run and tell David something and she took Hazel by the hand to go with her. Her eight year old legs were much faster than Hazel's and I watched in horror as Hazel did a cartwheel across the dirt.
But there was a parade to attend, so we brushed her off
and she threw candy happily out of that wheelbarrow.




Some of the kids entered the chicken catch. James got pretty close to catching one...
Hazel kept herself at a safe difference.

And little Sam decided last minute to just STEP OVER the chicken and keep running.






This is our least favorite event: the Sawdust Find.
Yet we still enter our children every year. And we still elbow through the other hundred stressed-out parents who are worried, like us, that their kids will get shoved out of the way and won't find a piece of candy and cry for the next hour because their paper bag is empty.
It's quite an ordeal.
I think my husband shouted, "Just push that boy out of the way!" at one point.


So Hazel may ADORE Kate, but she always makes her way back to Sam-bo. She loves him.


David and Chris entered the Sack Race.
(David won, of course. It reminded me of the time we were roller skating with my sisters and they had a race where you had to squat and use your arms to pull yourself across the rink. David and I had about twenty years on most of those kids and there he was, competing like his life depended on it. He won a free cotton candy. I'm tearing up just remembering it.)