Weekend Recap: 4th Of July Festivities!

It's already the weekend again (woohoo!) but we are having a low-key Friday night after a relaxing night of kite-flying, so I have some time to blog while we watch the Olympic trials! We heart summer over here!  We kicked off our long weekend by going out with some friends on Friday night.  I truly can't remember the last time we did something like this and despite my exhaustion, it was super fun!

My mom had both of the boys overnight again!  (Gotta get 'em in while there are only 2 of them! ;) )  They are lucky little guys!  Although it took them (or maybe just Josh) to fall asleep, they both slept until 6:30ish which is great for them!  They enjoyed a nice breakfast outside before it was time for the farmers market and haircuts.  Here they are saving a spot for baby:

Both boys were definitely due for a haircut!  This place is probably one of the pricier options around, but they do the best job.  Don't get me started on Josh's last haircut!  Look at all that hair!

Ben is used to getting his haircut and he was done in about 10 minutes.  This was probably Josh's 3rd cut and he was so brave!  He wouldn't crack a smile the whole time, but he was not crying either!

He wanted to hold Andy's hand for a bit.  Sweetie pie.

Look at the after!  So handsome!  And grown-up….whaaaaah!

They both took naps before it was off to Auntie Anna's new place for dinner!  She had a cookout and it was so nice!  Of course the boys loved it because there is a park across the street and they had plenty of playmates…and desserts. 

It was pretty hot out and the boys were tuckered out by the end of the day.  The snugglist boys ever. 

On Sunday, we headed out fairly early to see some of my college friends.  I do not get to see them much so it was so wonderful to see them!  It's even more fun that there are other kiddos for the boys to play with.  Look at these 2 trouble makers.  :)

A water table and a doggy.  What more could a little boy want?

Ben was a little timid about the boat at first because he did not want to fall in, but after he realized that wasn't going to happen, he did not stop smiling.

Josh and Beckett found the boat so relaxing that they fell asleep.  I couldn't believe Joshy fell asleep!  He is not one to miss anything.  :)

We were missing a few but these ladies (and babies!) make my heart happy!

And this was just too cute to pass up, Joshy putting the nuk in the baby's mouth.  Please let that happen with the new baby next month!  This is the 2nd baby he has been so sweet and gentle with recently, but it might be a different story when the baby is actually living with us!

We were pretty tired after a day at the lake, but Ben made it very clear that he needed to go help Nana with 4th of July desserts.  We dropped the boys off with my mom so they could get to work. Check out some of their handiwork!

They even got to eat dinner there. :)

Love that little face so much!

It's making me tired just reliving last weekend, but there was still another day of fun: the main event-- July 4th itself!  Andy woke up in the 5:00AM hour so he could go save us some seats for the parade.  The parade we decided to go to has strict rules about when you can start putting up chairs: no earlier than 6:00AM on the day of the parade.  Well, Andy got there a few minutes after 6:00 and there were no spots available for BLOCKS!  Luckily, he was still able to nab us some awesome seats!  He hung out there until the parade started at 9:00AM.

The boys loved the parade.  Well, they at least loved getting the candy.  Joshy loves those dum-dum suckers.  Thankfully he only wants to take a few licks before he drops it or just gets sick of it.  (Don't want him to choke!)  It's 4 days later and I think Ben has only had like 2 pieces of candy.  He truly forgets about it after the parade, which is fine by me.

The parade wore everyone out and we ALL took a nap after lunch.  I rarely fall asleep during the day, but being super preggo + hot makes me so tired!  We were over an hour late for our pool party because Ben napped for 3 hours!  Josh ended up waking him up without me knowing.  All of a sudden I hear "BOO!" on the baby monitor and I look at it to see that Josh had climbed upstairs, climbed on to Ben's bed, and was trying to scare him by sitting there and saying BOO above his head.  It was hilarious.  Even Ben, who usually is a little on the crabbier side when he wakes up, thought it was funny.

I was pretty tired by pool party time, so my pictures are limited.  Actually, I was exhausted at that point.  And that point would have been 4:30 after I took a nap.  Yikes!  It was so much fun though!  I wish I would have gotten pictures of everyone who was there!  I did manage to take pictures of the food.  What does that say about me?!  Yikes!

I didn't even go in the water, so thankfully there were other people to keep the boys happy!

We attempted a picture of the kiddos in the pool, but ultimately Anna had to combine 5 separate photos. :)  I love Joshy's pose in this picture.  Such a good boy!

These 2 flag boys were in heaven with orange soda.

We had big plans of going to my mom's again to watch the fireworks from her backyard, but we were all tired by this point.  I was afraid that Ben was going to be upset because he had been talking about the fireworks for awhile, but luckily I don't think he totally knew what he was missing.  ;)  We had our own "show" with glow sticks and sparklers and he was more than happy with that.  Maybe next year we will make it for the real thing!

Overall, it was an amazing 4th of July.  It is one of my favorite holidays and I'm truly so happy to live in this beautiful country, despite the horrible things that have happened here recently.  But I'll leave this on a happy note.  God Bless America!  Happy weekend!

My B-day In Pictures!

I'm falling behind yet again, but I had such an awesome birthday that I want to make sure I write about it.  Aside from the fact that we left Benji with my mom for the night, it was the perfect day.  We missed the little man like crazy, but we also enjoyed some much needed adult time.  I kicked off my b-day weekend with some cupcakes from my co-workers.   As if it isn't hard enough to focus on work on a Friday afternoon,  it got even harder when I had to figure out which cupcake to eat first... YUM.

Since many of our favorite get away locales have a 2 night minimum on the weekends, we decided to go out on a Sunday and take off of work on Monday.  (Bonus: awesome 3-day weekend is followed by a 4 day work week!)  After giving Ben over 1 million kisses, we headed to Lake Geneva!  Believe it or not, our first stop was...the farm!  Andy had never gone horseback riding before, so I figured, why not?

I am not exactly sure why we have so many horse pictures.  Maybe Andy was afraid I was never going to want to do this again so he had to make the most of it.  How is my posture, Anna?

RC and Ranger did not disappoint.  I was a little very concerned that there were no helmets, but thankfully the horses were going mighty slowly...

As if it wasn't odd enough that it was my idea to go to a farm, I should also mention that there was a petting farm there as well.  Despite the fact that I am not a huge animal lover, I must say that we had a fantastic time.

Even though horseback riding is not exactly athletic, in my opinion, we worked up quite an appetite so we were off to find some food.  We found a quaint little spot where we could eat outside and of course enjoy some beverages.  There was an artisan fair of sorts going on along the lake, so we wanderer around there for a bit after lunch.  We did some window shopping before ending up at one of our favorite places.

We love, love, love LG for many reasons, but one of the most obvious reasons is because it is where we got engaged.   We had to go to our favorite wine bar, Pop More Corks, and play scrabble like we did on our engagement weekend.   It was fairly nice out (totally HOT) so I kind of felt like a bum being inside, but when we learned that there was a piano/cello duo playing, it was obvious that we were staying inside.  It was so relaxing that I might have fallen asleep if my brain wasn't working so hard trying to beat Andy at Scrabble.  (He did not even let me win on my birthday.)

This is the only picture I could find from our Scrabble game a few years ago.  Such a young pup!

While I am pretty sure we would have/ could have stayed there until they kicked us out, we decided to continue our day 'o R&R by checking into our room.  Although we love a good B&B, we decided to check out the Grand Geneva this time around.  We knew we were going to like it when we were waiting in line to check in and they were offering complimentary champagne.  Even though champagne nearly came out of my nose when the lady at the desk told Andy to have a "grand"-tastic day, I'll take service with a smile (and a drink) any day.  I will also take a view like this any day.

I almost forgot to mention how super cute Andy was in preparing for our night away.  He did all of the research and planning!  Since we are kind of obsessed with picnics, he went all out on my picnic favs.  He even went in search of a picnic basket but didn't have any luck.  He brought fancy cheeses and crackers, fruit, chips and salsa, a baguette, and I'm sure there are other things that I am forgetting.  These goodies paired with some vino from Pop More Corks?  HEAVENLY!!!

Andy even did his research on nice restaurants in the area, but after our picnic, we weren't really hungry for a big meal.  We decided to continue relaxing (and cocktailing), so we checked out the pool/hot tub for a bit.  We did go in the water, but I must have forgotten to take pictures of that...  I did, however,  manage to snap a shot with Will, Kate, and George when our mirror turned into a TV.   :)

After feeling sufficiently relaxed, we opted to hang out at the bar in the lobby instead of going out.  It was so nice to just chat!

We attempted to sleep in on Monday morning, but I was up with the sun, of course.  We enjoyed our view and peacefulness a little longer before heading home to the outlet mall.  As I told Andy, how often do we get to go to the outlet mall during the week?!  Being the super shopper hubby that he is, he readily obliged. :)  We grabbed a quick lunch before heading home to our babe.  I seriously missed him soooooo much!!!  I had a great 30th year and I'm looking forward to year #31!  A HUGE thank you to my wonderful husband for making my birthday awesome!  I know I've said it before but he is just the BEST.