Fabulous Fourth

Happy 4th of July from the TexasMacks! Justin is out of dress code for our picture but when you have three kids willing to pose, I'll take it :)

We had fun getting all decked out in red, white and blue. Landry pretty much resembled a human firecracker.

We started the day out at our neighborhood pool and surprisingly it wasn't busy at all!

Every year Nolan learns how to swim without floaties and every year without fail, he completely forgets the next summer and we have to start all over. But we made a huge step and we're without floaties again! WOOHOO!

I'm wondering if he'll still be in floaties when he's a senior in high school at this rate.

Campbell wasn't liking all this attention that Nolan was getting so he shed his floaties fast and did an awesome job guzzling water swimming without floaties too! We were really proud of the boys for doing so well at the pool.

And somebody else was loving the pool too. She is such a good sport and can hang in the pool for a good hour before she just gets completely wiped.

My parents came over for some good ol' American grub of burgers, potato salad, watermelon and corn on the cob.

My mom made some yummy patriotic cupcakes. It took every fiber of Nolan to keep from licking them. 

Now if you've been following the blog for quite some time you'll know that the 4th of July just isn't our best holiday. We have the WORST luck (no really) with going to watch fireworks. Either our kids are screaming BLOODY murder because they're terrified or we cannot find them anywhere.

But the 4th of July gods were in our favor this year because this was by far the best 4th of July we've ever had. We packed up the car preparing ourselves for the forced family fun beatdown that is an annual tradition. At the last minute we decided to stop at a place right by our house and it just happens to be the highest point of our whole town.

And from our viewpoint, we saw literally 20-30 fireworks displays all of varying distances and some that were almost on top of us. No one cried. Can you believe it? Not even Landry. I thought the day would never come! The boys were just amazed and oohing and aahing over every firework and sweet Campbell just kept saying over and over again how it was the "super best night ever" and neither one of them wanted to go home.

Landry was such a trooper for being out so late and even slept in until 10:15 the next morning. I'd say that was a 100% improvement over any of the last 10 years. Who knows maybe our track record with fireworks is looking up! We just needed our little firecracker as our good luck charm!

Fort Worth Fourth

I'm just now getting around to getting our 4th of July pictures posted. I have no excuse...I'm not even working right now! We had a great time. My sister, Tonya, and her girls came over to swim. Then we grilled out (what is the 4th without grilling out?) and headed downtown to see the fireworks.

We were really excited about seeing the fireworks this year. We haven't seen them in like 4 years. We have the WORST luck trying to see them. Last year, Campbell was a newborn and had jaundice and was on phototherapy. So we sent Nolan with my family as he "watched" the fireworks with his face buried in my brother's neck. The year before that we went to our usual spot to watch them only for 10:00 to come, then 10:30...no fireworks. So we were really pumped about seeing them this year.

We loaded up the car and headed to "Fort Worth Fourth" where they promised awesome fireworks after the FW Cats game. There were people everywhere outside the ball field ready to watch this show. The kids were doing pop-its and we were eating the delicious homemade ice cream my dad made. Everything was going well.

WARNING: Don't take children to watch fireworks where you have no idea what time frame you're looking at. My kids took a really late nap and were actually fantastic. I think it was me that was having the meltdown. Something about the sticky heat does it to me. I start acting like a 5 year old. We just kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Finally I called my friend Anna to find out what inning they were in. They were in the 9th! Thank goodness, it was 10:00 and we had been there since almost 8:00. She calls back...they tied it up and it went into extra innings. Hey thanks Fort Worth Cats...that's exactly what everyone is out here waiting for is for y'all to make the game LONGER!

Nolan was so adorable. He said, "C'mon light up your lights fireworks!" Sometimes he would call them "crackerfighters." He was such a trooper and so was Campbell even with his sweaty curls. Finally at about 10:20 we decided that this could go on all night. Good thing we left! Turns out the game went to 13 innings!!! No, I'm not kidding and they didn't do fireworks until close to midnight! Who shows fireworks that late? I personally can hardly stay up to that hour. So I have renamed Fort Worth Fourth more appropriately to Fort Worth Flop. I should have warned everyone that if it was our idea, it was going to be a bad one! Guess we'll just have to wait until next year....(sigh)!