4th of July 2018.

Happy 4th of July! Ours was a bit different than normal this year. I drove down to Des Moines with the girls (where my parents live) on Tuesday and drove home solo on Wednesday to work on our kitchen cabinet painting project. Kley stayed back to work and begin sanding. My parents graciously offered to watch our girls for a couple days so we could do this, so very nice! We drove back Saturday to pick them up, so we got to spend some time with family on the tail ends too, which was great. Thankful for time to complete this project, even though it was a TON of work!

While in Des Moines, we went to the parade! We've gone to the Tulip Festival parade in our town, but they'd never been to a parade as big as this. There were lots of people and lots of candy! Norah loved waving her flag and getting candy, but did not like the couple times where the fire trucks or police cars sounded their sirens. 

I love this picture of Norah! My mom got them these adorable matching dresses. She's the queen of baby/kid clothes shopping and always finds the cutest things!

We love you Grandma!

My dad walked Lucy and Ellory around for a bit before the parade started. It was very hot and all the girls handled it really well. Very glad we had their water cups!

Group photo!

My Uncle Jeff and Aunt Darla were visiting too, and my brother Keaton came along too. (Rose and Jorie, my SIL and niece, stayed home because it was too hot for Jorie, who is just a month old.) My sister Kayla was there too, home from college for the summer.

As per their personalities, Lucy sat through about half of the parade with me and Uncle Keaton, with a few mad dashes into the street to grab her back when she escaped, and then I just walked around with her in the back. Ellory sat through the entire parade, just mesmerized by everything, on the blanket by my mom and Kayla. So funny to watch how different they are!

Lucy and Ellory tried their first suckers!

Norah kept calling it a party instead of parade and kept chanting, "USA! USA!" It was adorable.

We also got to see Jorie again. Norah LOVES holding her cousin!

She was already so much bigger and more active since we saw her last. So cute!

I had this great idea to get a super cute picture of all four girls and caption it, "4 cousins on the 4th" but this was all I got. Thanks to Lucy for providing exceptional photos this round. :)