Happy Fourth of July!

We didn't have any big plans for the day, so we just decided that whatever we did, we'd do together. (That actually included grocery shopping....and we all lived through it!)

After shopping, it was time for lunch. Ellie decided she wanted meat and cheese rolled together, with frilly toothpicks in the rolls, of course. She "ordered" three and a half, since she's three and a half. :-) Then she decided that she could use them to make a face. Yeeeeeees, food art again! Apparently the long rolls, reminded her of her rectangular glasses. She then put raspberries underneath to be the eyes. A few moments later, as she surveyed her creation, she yelled, "Mom! Do you know what we're missing?!? The nose buds!!!!"

Thus, the addition of the raisins on either side of the nose.

Someone recently asked me if the kids drew themselves with glasses. Neither has yet, but Ellie apparently considers them (and nose buds) an important part of a realistic visage! Can you see the resemblance?

After lunch, we headed to our neighborhood park. Well, Daddy and Ben went for a meandering bike ride and met Ellie and me at the park. One of the kids' favorite things to do there is to climb up and jump off of a huge old stump on the hill. Here's Ellie promenading up to Jump Position. She actually flaps her "wings" and pretends that she's a fairy when she jumps.

And here's Ben catchin' some serious air!

As we headed for home, I realized that there might be some good marshmallow roasting sticks on the ground. (We're planning to roast marshmallows this evening.) The kids were eagerly trying to help me find some good ones. We must have said, "No, that's too small," a few times too many, because we then heard Ellie yell, "oh, guys! Wait!" as she raced toward this doozy below.

Look how proud she is of her selection! :-) She could roast the whole bag of marshmallows at once on that thing! We did find a good branch to break off of the limb, but we in the end, decided to leave the rest of it at the park. Go figure.

The kiddos are napping now, in preparation for our first ever attempt to go to the fireworks as a family. I'll let you know how it goes...