Happy 4th of July!

Well it is officially my most favorite day of the year, and this year has certainly not disappointed!  My parents came in this weekend to celebrate as we always do.  Our weekend started out Friday night when the whole family went for my ultrasound to find out early what the sex of this baby is.  For all like three of you that actually read this, I've probably already told you!  For the rest of you...we're not really making it all too public for a couple more weeks!  Anyways...that was our eventful Friday night followed by hanging out on our "upper deck."  We call it the upper deck because we are lucky enough to have a patio on the lower level too. 

This picture makes me laugh.  Clearly I went for the candid look, and everyone kinda looks a hot mess.  Oh well!  We were enjoying the absolutely amazing weather we get at night here!

Saturday we just hung out and did a little shopping.  Our local outdoor malls here have concerts on the weekends, so we went and took one in Saturday night.  I didn't get any pictures, but Lainey was quite the dancing machine in the middle of everyone dancing to EVERY song!

Sunday we went to church and then got ready for our block party.  One of the first things we were told when we moved in to this neighborhood was how big they celebrate the 4th of July.  They were not kidding!  The whole circle gets together to grill out, talk, and shoot off an ungodly amount of fireworks!  I really wish I would have gotten an "after picture" of the street and all the fireworks remnants.  Omaha made fireworks legal this year, so we have heard/watched fireworks every night for the last week.  I told Jovan that people here are just as nuts about the holiday as I am, and he really didn't believe me.  I kept telling him that Omaha was very different from Memphis, and while there are some July 4th nuts like me there, EVERYONE in Omaha is crazy about this holiday.  He has since retracted his statement and admitted that I was right! :) 

Today we were going to participate in our neighborhood parade, but I fell behind on wagon decorating, so we decided we would save that for next year!  We went to the Ralston parade this afternoon.  This was probably my 23rd or 24th parade there in 28 years.  I love the fact that my kids will get to grow up with this tradition now too!  Seeing as I am preggo and pretty tired, we didn't last the entire parade, but I tried! 

Tonight we went swimming and then I left the rest of my family to watch fireworks and Lainey and I went home.  I'm pretty sure she hasn't been to bed before midnight this weekend, and I figured that she may need a little more sleep for school tomorrow!  All in all an exhausting weekend, but I wouldn't want it any other way!  I'm already looking forward to next year!  Happy 4th of July!