Happy 4th of July!

I am so grateful to live in this country. This year, we had a Family Home Evening lesson before the 4th talking a little bit about it. We had Emilee practice saying what country we live it. It was really cute. She was much more comfortable saying "America" by itself, but with our help, she would say the whole thing. Next time you see her, ask her what country we live in, and we'll see if she remembers.
We started the day with our ward's annual party. It consisted of a Flag raising, parade for the kids (they decorate their bikes, scooters, and what not and ride around the church lawn), and breakfast. Unfortunately I did not get pictures of any of it. Emilee did ride her trike in the parade. :)
We threw together a BBQ with friends for the Fourth. It was a lot of fun (for me at least). It was nice to visit with old friends, and it was nice to see that the kids could get along, for the most part. We had seven kids all under age 4. Woah!! Thanks for coming over Swegle Family and Bates Family. We had a great time!
On Sunday, before the Fourth, we had our friends, the Giffords, come to dinner. We asked them to take family pictures of us in our 4th of July outfits since we knew we'd end up busy on that day. It's fun trying to get everyone to smile at the right time.

Sickies

Apparently I need to catch up and do some back-blogging. However, here is what happened today.
Actually, this starts a few days ago when Logan got a runny nose. I thought, well, at least it's just him. Yeah, right. Emilee has is too. So the last few nights have been a little rough on us with sleeping. Yet, my kids still insist on waking with (if not before) the sun. So, since we took it easy yesterday, we had to do something today.
I opted for a photo shoot while the kids were happy this morning. It's been a while since I've taken pictures of the kids just messing around at home. You probably can't tell from the pictures, but Logan's nostrils are red and raw and Emilee had a glistening upper lip (I won't put the gross details of why). I swear my kids really are sick, despite their happy faces.


Cheese! Summersaults...sort of

Playing with his favorite thing....my pan!!

Playing with mommy's phone.

As we were hanging out this morning, I thought about it. What do we do when my kids are sick? Well, apparently we do everything we would normally do, except sleep. Before 9:30, we ate breakfast (oatmeal with strawberries), played outside on the patio and in the sprinkler (while mom mowed the lawn), started on a couple loads of laundry, made a mess throughout the house, and played in Emilee's room. I know the time because I thought it must be close to lunch time after being so busy, but I was sorely disappointed. We ended up packing part of lunch and going to the store ( I figured I wouldn't pass germs if the kids stayed in the cart). We shopped for a few things I wanted and for fruits and veggies. We finished lunch when we got home and read books for a little while. Then Emilee told me she was ready for a nap. That's unheard of! Especially at 1pm. I got her down and then Logan shortly after. While I've heard coughing and sniffling off and on, I'd say they're doing very well....to still be down 2 hours later. It's a tender mercy for me.

My little disclaimer is that I have decided to embrace modern medicine. My kids were fussy yesterday, and when they got fussy today, I pulled out the tylenol and ibuprofen (we used it overnight, too). Now, I'm not overdosing my kids (don't worry about that), but I've decided they are more comfortable, and we're all more happy when they have meds on board. That's probably why they're sleeping so long now.... they're comfortable! Hooray for medicine!!

My other confession, we are not productive all day. I usually push in the morning to get things done, and then we end up wasting the rest of the day. If only we could stay focused the whole day - we could do so many things!

Treats

On Monday I made whipped cream, and Emilee asked to lick of the beaters. Well, I decided that would be alright to share with Logan, too, so we all sat down at the table. I quickly got out my camera to catch the fun.

Logan Dancing

Since I have videos of Emilee dancing, I need to get a few of Logan dancing as well. I just took this today to show how much he likes the card from his Aunts and Uncle. Enjoy!