4th of July Weekend

We've had such a fun weekend! Brett, Allison and Colin surprised us and came up Wednesday night to stay for the holiday weekend. It was so nice to be able to spend time with them and our other family and friends while they were here!

If you know me at all, you know that I am addicted to taking pictures, and holidays are just excuses for me to whip out the camera and take even more pictures than normal, so here they come! (By the way, Cailyn wound up being the subject of most of my pictures since she is basically immobile; her sister and cousin are very independent these days and are not nearly as cooperative when it comes to being photographed!) On Friday night, we went to the Provo Freedom Festival. It was really crowded and the kids rides were ridiculously expensive, so we wound up not doing much there, but we did have a yummy dinner at La Dolce Vida and Allison bought the cute red-white-and-blue flowers that Rylee and Cailyn wore in thier hair the next day, plus we got to visit, so it was a good evening anyway. I took this picture of Cailyn at the festival while she was being pushed around in the back seat of the double stroller. I think it is my favorite picture from the whole weekend! If not my very favorite, it is certainly in the top 3 (:

Saturday morning started at 6:30 with a canon going off in our neighborhood! Rylee (who was sleeping at the foot of our bed since Grandma and Grandpa were sleeping in her "big girl bed") jolted, but stayed asleep, but it woke Cailyn up...I just brought her in bed with us and she went back to sleep. Quinn and I weren't sure that it really was a canon until we talked to our neighbors later on - apparently it's a Lehi tradition. I guess I can appreciate it's patriotic value, but would it really be so hard to do it at say 8 or 9 instead of 6:30? Oh well.
Everyone but our little family of 4 went down to the parade in Provo that morning - we had originally planned on going, but Rylee hadn't gotten to bed until midnight for two nights in a row, and I knew it would be hard on Cailyn, so we decided to stay home. As it turns out, it was a wise decision; the reports were that the parade was overly crowded, poorly organized (big gaps in between floats) and, most importantly, they did NOT throw candy! Rylee would have been very disappointed in that.
So the photo shoot began that morning with Cailyn...

Good a sport as she was, she did lose it at the end...

Early afternoon, we headed up to the Draper pool to meet with our good family friends the Bundersons. We picnicked at the park outside the pool and then swam.

Cailyn has discovered what food is and likes to try to taste whatever she can these days. She loves watermelon, although I don't think that she was as successful as she hoped at this attempt to get it in her mouth:

I spent a little while chasing the older two girls around to try to get their pictures, but they were fast, so this is the best I was able to get. I think it would have been cute if it weren't fuzzy...

Here's Rylee trying to hide from the camera in Quinn's arms and waving me away.

Eventually, I gave up and we went swimming, which of course, was fun! Afterwards, Cailyn passed out wrapped in her blankie on the grass.

Rylee at some chips (she hadn't eaten much of anything before swimming, so this was her meal.)

And then, Rylee and Ava discovered water balloons! They watched the adults have a water balloon toss and managed to get their hands on plenty of balloons themselves.

I love this picture of Ava in action - the tongue is the best!

Then we went over to the Bunderson's house to hang out and wait for fireworks. I managed to get a photo shoot in on the back porch while we were there. I love this one of the 3 girls!

This is my favorite of Rylee

but I like this one too. (She really needs a haircut. I'm hoping that at some point in the not too distant future, the hair on top of her head will finally catch up with the rest of it, but I'm not holding my breath...)

And the sisters...

and Ava and her lollipop.

So, even if it did take some work, I wound up with some cute pictures of each girl.

Fireworks were fun and, of course, loud. Ava covered her ears a lot at first. Rylee just kept saying "fireworks screaming!"

They both loved the sparklers!

It always makes me laugh how different Rylee and Ava are. They had these glow sticks, and as you can see, Ava got all dolled up with them. She had them around her hair and all chained together around her whole body like some kind of tribal headdress.

Rylee, on the other hand, ran around pulling them all apart and throwing them. But they're best friends anyway, and I love it!


Today, everyone came to our ward for church. It was a really nice testimony meeting, and both Brett and Allison gave wonderful testimonies.

Here are the girlies before church in their matching dresses.

This evening we went to Annette's house for dinner, so we got to visit with more wonderful family. I managed to round up Colin and his three nieces for a quick picture while we were there.

We had lots of fun sitting outside and playing on the lawn and talking.

Brett, Allison and Colin will go home tomorrow, so the weekend is over and things will go back to normal. Oh, and Cailyn will be 7 months tomorrow! Wow.

Sometimes I feel silly being attached at the hip to my camera. But what can I say...I love taking pictures! I have my Heiner genes to blame for it. My dad always got teased by our family for taking so many pictures. Emily especially hated it for several years. But I think she appreciates having the pictures now. And hopefully Rylee will be glad to have them someday, too.