Happy 4th everyone!

Ammon Enjoying the fireworks with his flag.

(Before picture)

Our weekend was great! Isaac got the tile put in Ammon and Hyrum's zebra bathroom.

He still needs to seal it a nd put the toilet back in place, but the tile and grout are in! woohoo! (by the way, we use the word "woohoo" a lot in our house. Thankyou Tigger.) He decided to do one bathroom at a time, and now that this one is almost finished, he really wished he had decided to do them both at the same time. Ha. Oh well. I was so excited through that I took pictures to document it. heehee

Sunday evening we had a little celebration. We had orginally invited 3 other families to come over for dinner and two of them declined. That's fine, because I didn't really want it to be a "party" anyway. We were never allowed to go to parties on sunday growing up, and I wanted it to be a more reverent 4th of july. Well, then my sister and brother-in-law didn't have anything going on, so we invited them too. And My single friend David Epperson bought a whole bunch of Fireworks from out in Parump, but didn't have anyone to hang out with on the 4th. So of course he was invited also. And then one of the orginial families said that they could in fact come. Isaac and I were really excited that so many people were comming! At the same time, I kept thinking, "how can I keep this from not being a 'party?' not to mention keep it from getting too expensive?" Well, the money part worked out great! We barbequed Ribs on Isaac's new grill that he got as a late fathers day gift. (He absolutely LOVES it.) Boy were those ribs good too. We then had everyone else bring a separate item (watermelon, asparagus, Corn on the cob, brownies) and then we cooked them up at our house so that they would be nice and hot to eat once the ribs were done. Dinner was a huge success.

But what about the "not being a party" thingy? We turned it into a family home evening! hahaha! Growing up we always had family home evening on sunday nights. I know everyone else has it on monday, but growing up we could never seem to get it done on mondays. I noticed the same thing with us now. Neither of us ever seem to remember on mondays. But Sundays work out great for us! I really feel like at the moment with my boys, I need to focus on teaching them the gospel. We spend time together as a family a lot, but I really needed to focus on helping them learn the stories and the principles of the gospel and come to know Their Saviour. And if I can get this done on Sunday instade of monday, GREAT!~ It was a new years resolution for us at the beginning of this year and we have been doing really well so far. I think it's a habit by now.....

I have totally gotton off topic. So anyway, we had a family home evening with everyone there, including an opening song of Book of Mormon stories, picked by Matthew Pacl, Opening prayer by Ammon, Happies of the week and a lesson. The lesson was on how the people of America didn't want a king any more and that they wanted to pray they way they wanted to. So they signed the delaration of independence and started the United states of America. A little vague I know, but the kids were between the ages of 2 and 4. We then had a little Delcaration of Independece that the kids signed their names on. My original plan was to liken it unto the Moroni's Title of Liberty, but the kids were so rambucntious that we had to end it with the signing. We sang a Closing song of the StarSpangled Banner (which I have been practicing every day for WEEKS) and then went outside to watch the fireworks. The fireworks themselves weren't the greatest, more noise than color, but the kids loved the poppers.

Aunt Kimmy Helping the boys pull the poppers.

David Epperson, Matthew and Eric Pacl.

Nathanial Pacl

Everyone Watching the fireworks.

I wasn't really sure at first how everyone else thought of my making it into a Family Home Evening. In fact I was a little bit self concious, but I did it anyway. I am so glad that I did too! The two other mom's there came up to me and thanked me for having it despite all the chaos. Apparently neither of them have Family Home Evening and this helped them get ideas to start it. That made me feel soo good! :-)

David Epperson had ridden over to our house that day on his motorcycle. Hyrum was in HEAVEN! He brought David his helmet: "David I got your hat!!!" and David let Hyrum proudly sit on his motorcycle for a while. Ammon thought it was cool too, but not the way that Hyrum did. Of courseI had to take a Dozen pictures. He was just too cute!

It was a really nice 4th of July. Thankyou everyone who came!