My husband got to help set up the fireworks for a local fireworks show where we live. He had a great time with the 'guys' and he had fun and learned a lot.

Here is a shot of all the fireworks ready for the show.

The fam stayed home while he spent the morning and early afternoon helping with the set-up. We as a family went to the park for dinner and the show. We all had a great time.

C3 enjoying her dinner

Grandmom and C4

C4 is one already!! I can't believe it. We had a great day. It is amazing how the 4th baby's 1st birthday is different then your firsts 1st! Her birthday is actually on July 2nd - I am a little behind with my blogging. I had keyboard issues and we had my wonderful mother in law in town.

Playing with a birthday gift

birthday dinner

Cake

This is for me?

This is yummy!

You want some daddy?

Looking at her birthday card from Nana

Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

C4 got upgraded and turned forward facing! She is such a big girl! Where did my baby go??! She loved being able to look out the window!

I tried to get a shot of all four - this is the best I could do! I now have four little ones looking at me in the rear view mirror!

Our neighborhood had it's July 4th kids parade today. The kids had a blast!

Waiting for the parade to start

What a big girl riding in the parade!

Yay buddy you are doing it!

Almost there!

Yummy ice cream!

Grandmom and the boys (with a little of my help) put together this dinosaur puzzle/model - they were so proud of themselves!

I played with my camera in the front yard while the girls played!

C3 so sweet in her hat

Look at those sparkling eyes!

Little sister getting big sister!

Hey baby don't get me!

My father in law came to visit this last weekend. We haven't seen him since December! We sure had a great time seeing him. I didn't get too many pictures.  Here is one taken right before he left. My sweetie is all sweaty because he was racing around hooking up our generators because our power went out! This has been such a year of grey, drab, rainy weather!

...in search of tadpoles! And we found some!

Megan getting a tadpole

Our first tadpole

We had a lot of fun. We caught about 30 tadpoles. I am teaching at our co-op today and will be bringing them along.

The children like creating things with marshmellows and toothpicks - this is entertaining for them and a treat all in one!

Here they are playing in a 'fort'. We took out some bushes/trees in our yard and C1 insisted on 'building' with them!

The children are in swim lessons (well three of them that is). I got to take C3 all by myself the other day - of course I had to take pictures!

Practicing her jumps

Not sure what this face is!

I let her play with soapy water in the sink and she had a blast! It kept her entertained for a good 30 minutes!

C4 is getting so big! She started to crawl this last week!

She is pulling to a stand on things - she hasn't quite figured how to get down just yet! Cruising will be coming shortly! Where has my baby gone?

She is pretty proud of herself.

We got to see my dad today! The last time we saw him was in October! We had a great time. We headed to the lake, the kids rode bikes, threw rocks in the water, went to the Watershed Education Center, then we came home had some dinner and he had to go.

I really wish the kids could see their grandparents more often - but we take what we can get!

Here are some pictures from our day.

C2 turned 4! I can't believe my baby boy is 4! He had a good day. We started out with a yummy treat for breakfast - pillsbury cinnamon rolls - had a fieldtrip with our co-op, birthday cupcakes at the lake with friends, swim lessons and a birthday dinner at red robin! It was a full day!

The birthday boy

blowing out his candle ( I only brought one)

Being sung to at red robin

Enjoying his icecream

Daddy and the birthday boy

We got our garden planted over the weekend! Yay!! We bought an apple tree that has 6 different types of apples.

We also bought two different types of blueberry bushes. We planted from seed some bush beans, green onions, mini carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, pumpkins and a rhubarb.

It doesn't look like much right now - but give it a few months! I can't wait!

My oven should be here on Sunday!! I am so excited!

Here is the one I am getting:

I still have no oven! We have someone coming today to give us a bid for running a gas line - we are thinking about getting a gas stove. It is hard not having an oven!

We took two of our hermit crabs back and got two more. These are way more active!

My brother is gone, we all had a nice visit.

My brother is up visting for five days! It has been fun having him here. Yesterday we went to PetSmart and purchased three hermit crabs and all that goes with it!

Here is a picture of my brother just starting to set it up. We also got another fish for our fish tank, that is what the kids are looking at.

Spidey getting ready to go in his new home.

Spidey on the move.

Well things don't look good for C1's I just checked on it and it hasn't moved yet since bringing it home. We might be taking Daffy Duck back to the store!

On to the electrical fire...

So I was pre-heating my oven last night to make lasagna and I see something in my oven that doesn't look quite right. It looked like there was a sparkler in my oven. So I open it up and my heating element was on fire! I didn't know what to do (I do now) so I used a fire extinguisher to try and put the fire out - that didn't work - that just made a HUGE mess that took me forever to clean up and ruined the lasagna! Anyway, so I called 911, I didn't know what else to do! The firetruck came - the kids liked that- and they put out the fire - turn off the power to an electrical fire- OH.

So now my oven is toast! Can you see the heating element is like ashes? It started on the right side where it is broken in two.

Currently my oven is on the front porch. Lovely.

I am so thankful to God that it was contained, that I was home to notice it and that all we really have to show for a fire in our kitchen is this:

My husband is going to call GE tomorrow and see what they will do for us if anything. I have my eye on this new oven:

I use my oven A  LOT, hopefully I won't be without one for too long!

I was washing dishes and I looked up and saw the most amazing rainbow. These pictures don't do it justice!

Close up

I am so excited that C2 and C3 are learing to ride their bikes on their own! It is so hard to go for a walk and stop every 10 seconds to push them along and push the stroller!