Waiting for Fireworks

To finish off the 4th of July, we went to a really impressive fireworks display put on by Coralville (the town right next to us). Tori loved the fireworks and had a lot of fun playing with her friends while we all waited for the fireworks to start. I took all the kids on a hunt for fireflies around the field we were in and they all had a blast! Everyone fought over who got to hold the next firefly I caught .

One thing Tori has loved to do this summer is to pick flowers (her favorite is dandelions). Here are few pictures of her and her friends having fun picking flowers before the fireworks. Above: Tori and Megan.

Above: Tori, Megan and Anne.

Below: Tori, Megan, Anne and Anna.

4th Bar B Que with friends

After the 4th of July parade, we went and had dinner at Andrew and Luke's house with a bunch of friends. The kids had a blast playing in the pool and sprinklers.

Above from left to right: Harrison, Anna, Tori and Tanner.

Above from left to right: Anna, Tanner, Andrew, Tori and Luke.

Above are all the dads playing bocce ball, from left to right: John, John, Jon and Richard. (Yes we know a lot of Johns out here, a few of the kids when they were younger thought that everyone's dad was just named John.)

Anna, Tori and Andrew having fun playing the piano while we were all getting ready to go see the fireworks.

Above is a video of Anna, Tori and Andrew singing Book of Mormon stories. This is one of Tori's favorite primary songs.

4th of July

John actually had the 4th of July off this year, so we had a ton of fun. First we went to the Coralville 4th of July parade in the morning. This is such a family friendly place that the parade was really geared towards kids. They had lots of little floats, a band, some dancers, some Shriners and almost everyone in the parade was throwing some kind of candy or free stuff.

Above: Tori in front of the parade.

Above: Tori, Anna, Megan, Anne and Andrew all standing along the edge of the parade. I couldn't get them to look at me because they were all very focused on the people throwing candy. We came home with a bag full of candy - needless-to-say Tori loved the parade.

Above: Tori and Dad enjoying the parade.

Above: Tori taking a break from collecting candy and beads to sit and eat a lollipop in her camp chair.

Here are a couple of pictures of Tori after the parade in the cute 4th of July outfit from Grandma Margie.

Helmet

At the beginning of the summer, we bought Tori a tricycle as a reward for potty training. She has really loved riding it and feels like a big kid now that she has a bike with pedals. Many of her friends are a year older than her, and some of them have two-wheelers and have to wear helmets. So, after we rode her tricycle a few times with friends Tori kept telling me, "Mom, I need a helmet". I don't really think her tricycle is dangerous enough to necessitate a helmet, but I guess we might as well start building good habits now. (Plus, I think little kids look really cute running around in helmets.) Here are some pictures of her with her princess helmet that she got to pick out.

In the pictures above and below, she's holding some peas from our garden. She loved to fill her truck with peas and then ride around to the different fire hydrants in our neighborhood pretending that they were different characters from Backyardigans and eating peas with them.