Three P's in a Pod: Yankee Doodle Dandy

Happy 4th of July! We hope that everyone had a wonderful weekend and took time out of their busy lives to be thankful to our service women and men and celebrate the freedom of our country.

We love the 4th. Since we have been dating we have stuck to the same routine- Pancake Breakfast, Parade, and then off to WD for a party on the patio and fireworks.

Making his first 4th of July debut...Eli!
Just look at him. He finds new ways to steal my heart every day.

"Hey! I want some pancakes too!"

Chris, Richard, Morgan, Gloria and Eli...

Our 4th of July family shot...

Morgan, our beautiful niece. We were so happy that she came to spend the day with us...next year our goal is to have ALL of our nieces and nephews there!

Memaw and Papa...

So, I still can't tell who Eli looks like...

Happy baby waiting for the parade to begin...by the way, the adorable onesie that he has on was from his aunt Lori- super cute, huh?

Everything was great, until the firetrucks came...Papa thinks that is pretty funny, huh? Little did he know that we would have to take Eli down an alley to try to get him to calm down. :)

Us in the alley.

Eventually, he tuckered himself out. (Side note- Isn't Chris's new camera lens cool? See how blurry the background is? This is called the "bokeh" effect.)

After the parade it was time for refreshments!

I only included this shot because it shows off Chris's cool lens again! Cool, huh? Okay, maybe it is just me; I think it is cool.

Learning our colors...

After the parade we stopped in to see Mamaw and Grandy...Nanny and Ken were visiting!

Eli loves all puppy dogs; Sam is no exception.

Grandy and Eli...

After a quick trip to pack up our stuff from the house, we headed to White Deer to cook and get ready for the party and fireworks...

Here is Eli and Papaw...

Robin, Chris and Kaci...

Alison and Emma...

Grandpa and Eli...

Grandpaw teaching Emma how to feed the puppies...

Nanny and Papaw...

Here is Eli getting his first chiropractic adjustment from Dr. Kaci.

Stink'n hilarious, right...did you see his face? Every thing was fine in the end!

So, being the educated woman that I am, I suggested to Dr. Kaci to climb into my dad's lawnmower wagon for a picture. Being the educated woman that she is, she agreed. Neither one of us thought for a moment that since the wagon wasn't tied to anything it would flip over...I am really glad that I didn't try this with Eli first! Kaci, thanks for protecting Eli- you are such a good aunt! Here are a few pictures that Chris took while Robin and I were trying to help Kaci up...

Ah, doesn't this picture of Aunt Lynda/Lady Liberty just make you want to stand and salute? :)

At this point in the evening, Eli was asleep and it was lightning all around us, so we thought it best to stay in the backyard to light the fireworks. :) After all, we did have two firefighters with us, right? Really, it was only a few sparklers...right...(wink).

Here is Eli getting a bath with a little help from Memamaw...

What a great weekend! It was so nice to be home! Now, it is back to work and study...Chris will be taking the bar July 28th-30th. If you want, please say a little prayer for him. Honestly, I can't imagine what it is like. I know how his studying is effecting me- I can't imagine what it is doing to him!

Some time last week I decided to try out a ton of different recipes...

Here are the cake balls....in theory it seems like a good idea- take a cake, crumble it up and add a can of icing to it, then roll...lets just say, I don't care for them, so I wouldn't share them with anyone. In fact, I wanted to throw them away, but Chris liked them, so I let him have them all to enjoy. Here are a few pictures from the process...