Let's Talk: Red White and Blue

Happy Almost 4th of July! Today Andrea and Erika are asking about anything red, white and blue. I wanted to do a 4th of July wreath, but time has escaped me and I didn't get to the store to buy anything. While at Hobby Lobby buying for my summer wreath I tried to buy the stuff for a 4th of July wreath but nothing was on sale and I refuse to buy when it's not on sale, because I know it will go on sale, it's just a matter of time...

Anyway, I thought I would talk about traditions. My Dad has 3 brothers, between the 4 brothers there are 12 kids, so I have a bunch of cousins, plus most of them (9 of the 12) are married now with kids of their own, so it's crazy trying to find a time when we can all get together. For whatever reason we've made 4th of July that time. It's hard with the holidays because everyone is switching off between Mom's side and Dad's side of the family, you know how it is. So probably 20 years ago the 4 brother and the 12 kids all went to Santa Barbara and stayed 3 nights, we would all stay in rooms next to each other and we would all watch the fireworks over the pier from our room or on the grassy part in front of our rooms

...well fast forward many, many years...2006 an one of the cousins got married 4th of July weekend, so that one was out, the following year another cousin got married the weekend before, actually at the same hotel we were staying at, but a week prior, so that year was out too. Then the following year it just got too expensive, so my Uncle decided a few years later to host 4th of July at his house, he gets amazing seats to watch the fireworks because he is on city council...so we all head there and most of the cousins go. It's such a blast. I love seeing my kids with my cousins kids, it's so sweet and reminds me so much of when I was growing up with my cousins, getting together every opportunity we got.

2012

2013

July 2014

July 2015

Now this year, and we're doing it again! So excited to see everyone in just a week or so.

Do you have any family traditions?

Totally bonus pictures...for our yearly calendar for our parents, I tried to dress the kids up for each holiday...yep I was THAT mom...

Baby Fox

Mini Fox....

Linking up here

Another Photo Shoot - 4th Of July

A few days late, but during Baby Fox's first year I did a themed photo shoot for each month, that way when I made the calendar at the end of the year, I had a picture all set to go for each month, genius I tell ya. Okay not really, I did the themed photo shoots (cause when you have 1 kid you have ample amount of time and he was always so patient with me) and then in December when I was trying to figure out what to get our parents, I thought, hey lets do a calendar. So those pictures I had been taking throughout the year really came in handy.

I have been doing the same for Mini Fox, and have been trying to do the same photos that I did for Baby Fox, see here, here and here

So without further adeu here are Mini Fox's Fourth of July photos.

These are the ones we sent out to family and friends:

These I just really liked:

Baby Fox wanted to get in too, but was only patient enough for a few photos, non of which turned out, of course :)

And here are the ones for Baby Fox when he was just 6 months old.

Lesson, need more than 15 minutes to do a photo shoot with Mini Fox. That's all the time I had before we had to leave for our 4th of July plans, super last minute, mostly I forgot until the morning of...haha. Oops! And Baby Fox wasn't crawling yet, so it was much easier to get him to stay put...hehe.

Our Fourth of July Weekend

I started the long Holiday weekend, by trying these things out. Have you heard of them? They are actually pretty cool, they are stickers, that you heat with a blow dryer. Pretty simple, after the first one the next 9 nails went pretty fast, and the best part is, you don't have to wait for dry time, so I was done in 20 minutes. Next time it will probably take me less time than that, since I'll know what I'm doing.

The finished product. I like them, but I don't think I would use this as my main source of doing my nails. Yesterday I did a TON of cooking/washing dishes and they stayed on, just the tips were starting to wear down, part of that I think is that I don't think I totally put them on correctly. Next time should be better. I bought some skull ones that I can't wait for Halloween to roll around. I personally would only use these for things like this, not for solid colors. And that's my review.

Friday my aunt and uncle were having a party at their house to kick off the festitivies. My uncle gets VIP passes to the fireworks. Love having family in high up places :)

They hired some taco guys to make the food, yummy!

Mini Fox LOVES the pool..

Ice cream social time...

Baby Fox's favorite cousin...and they happened to match too, totally not planned.

These two...

After swimming and eating we headed to the fireworks show.

He wasn't thrilled that I was taking a picture of him, lol. Yep we were VIP on "The Hill", lol.

Tailgating before the show

Cousin #4 would kill me if she knew I posted this...I really like it mostly cause her daughter (cutie #3) was posing exactly like her mama.

All of the cuties! We were only missing 1 of them.

My dad brought some headphones for Baby Fox, last year I had to cover his ears the whole time, he thought the headphones were so cool.

Firetruck stopped by

 Mr. somehow wrangled Baby Fox into his lap a good 30 minutes before the show started...

Best photo bomb ever :)

And then he somehow ended up with both kids

But eventually I got Mini Fox

She was super tired and spent most of the show like this

The fireworks were pretty awesome.

We spent the night with Cousin #5 and his family. His son wakes up at 6am...let me tell ya, that's early! The boys waited paitently for an appropriate time to go to Mini Fox up. Finally at 8:45 we told them they could go get her...they ran.

Then we had breakfast

And cousin #4 and her family came over

They brought over this race track that you use your iPhone with and it someone stays on the paper...I don't know how it works...but it's pretty cool.

Lunch time!

Cutie #1, Auntie Sarah you take too many pictures, haha

Baby Fox fell asleep almost immediately. He got woken up 2 hours early and went to bed 2 hours late...he was tired!

We went grocery shopping when we got home and had a pretty low key night.

Sunday was spent going to church and cooking a lot.

Baby Fox comes up to Mr. and says Daddy, swaddle me!

After naps, Mini got some water table time, and Baby Fox and Mr. went swimming.

Then I had MNO, or MNI (Mom's night in?) at my house. We had a rep from It Works come out and give us a presentation along with beauty night. Us sharing our favorite tips and tricks. We had so much fun, just hanging out and learning about the product. I hope that it works for everyone! Forgot to take a picture, when i thought of it someone was out of the room and I forgot to take one when they came back, darn.





It was a great weekend, although with MNI last night going late and still having to get ready for today, I'm on tired girl!



Tomorrow I'm going to have the pictures I took of the kids for our monthly photo shoot. Stay tuned!

Linking up with Faith, Sarah and Heather for Mommy Moments

and with Bella & Lisa