Happy 4th!

We had such a FUN weekend! Carl has been super busy with work lately and so it was really nice to have this long weekend to enjoy. On Friday Carl and the kids got up early to surprise me for my birthday with the sweet coffee mugs they made me. Since I was woken up to all this cuteness (which I loved), apparently I wasn't coherent enough to remember to take pictures. But they were so sweet. And they continued to make and wrap beautiful paper presents for me to open all day. We also went to a fun park that we just discovered next to our new grocery store. We will probably go there on the way to get groceries every time now.

And we went to one of our favorite areas near our house for dinner and Starbucks that night.

On Saturday we went paddle boating! It was a really fun and low key way to spend the morning. 

And that night we had a Hagen-Zehr night. We've celebrated quite a few 4th of July's together and this was another fun one. We had fun grilling and talking surrounded by the chaos of six adorable kids. :-)

On Sunday we went to Benihana's for lunch after church. I always think Hibachi grills are fun but we never go to them because Carl would rather just eat sushi there. I don't know why I've never thought of this before, but I finally had the light bulb idea to choose it for my birthday. It was a win for everyone! I have a feeling we will be celebrating more birthdays here. And not just mine :-)

We've had our very own Hibachi chef's at home ever since. They've been making onion volcanoes and throwing eggs into their hats like little pros.

That night we went to fireworks. We found out about this one on the 3rd last year and we love it. It's around a lake and even though there's still tons of people there, it feels a little more spread out. And it's nice to have the whole day on the 4th at home! All three kids loved the fireworks, and no one fell asleep this year! Not even Aria, crazy girl. She does not want to miss a single thing and she will do everything in her power to stay awake if there's something fun going on!

She thought about falling asleep for a few minutes when I laid the blanket out. But then she jumped up and never slowed down.

And finally, on Monday we stayed home and just had fun here. We started the morning off right with our red, white and blue crepes!

So excited! And loving the eating standing up thing.

I think it's safe to say that Aria likes our 4th of July crepe tradition.

A lot.

I wanted one cute picture of the three of them on the 4th of July. That may have been too much to ask for:

We got one of the three!

Two out of three!

One set of eyes. Sort of.

Back down to two.

And then there was this.

Runaway!

There is no stopping her when she has her mind set on something. That day it was set on not being in a picture.

She was perfectly happy to sit and eat tree bark while Tyler and Carsten smiled for me.

She was not so happy when it was taken away.

These were the best I could do:

After all that drama we did some sparklers, grilled and had our annual 4th of July Dirt Cake. That was a hit. :-)

Again, not so much with the smiling for the camera. I should have known better than to give them a gummi worm before the picture. :-)

It was a winner of a weekend! We all had so much fun. Happy 4th of July!! :-)