because my kids have young uncles

Army hats and toy guns...my brothers Jonah and Nathan teach my kids all the important things in life. 


We went up to my parents' house for the 24th of July last week.  Pioneer Day, kind of like a second 4th of July celebration. So fun.  We had a family picnic, went to the parade, had a water party, and spent a ton of time outdoors.


Oh, and did some ca-razy big fireworks.  Kent bought some monster ones--like the real ones you go to a show to see.  He was in heaven, as you can imagine.


I didn't get any pictures of the fireworks, though, because Nicholas was 
in full panic mode--screaming and shaking and crying.  I did my best to calm him and show him that there was nothing to be afraid of, but it was pretty bad.  Poor kid.


And a bit ironic that the son of the man shooting off the crazy big fireworks was the only child that was frightened by them...

We went to the city parade--Nicholas was not in the mood for pictures.

I love this picture--Nicholas saw the parade coming down the street.

Nicholas is the same age as my cousin Sammy.  They had matching swimsuits.  These two boys play together so well, and they spend hours pushing their matching lawn mowers.  My Grandma pretends to "pay them" to mow the lawn-they LOVE it.

My mom and dad always host a big water party for all the cousins on the 24th of July.  
I love this picture of Kent at his post, squirting the boys as they come down the slip-n-slide.

These boys-my brothers and cousins--have so much fun together.  They are always outside, running back and forth between houses, making all sorts of crazy fun, building things, inventing games, just being boys.


Nicholas was outside all day, every day we were there. I feel like I hardly saw him the whole weekend.  I love that he gets to be with his uncles and cousins, running and playing outside.  That's what boys are meant to do, after all.