Happy birthday America!

We had an excellent 4th of July weekend, but oh my god do our kids suck to take in public these days. We just capped off a particularly bad string of restaurant experiences with an IHOP lunch on the way home from my parents' house. We are still on the road, BTW, but I just remembered I could blog on my phone! Way to kill that last hour. 

Anywho, Ben gobbled his eggs and bacon like a crazed pac man and took a shrieking Dorothy out for a walk. She wasn't unhappy. Just really really loud. I stayed in the booth sweating buckets while the 3 boys trashed the table and ate like wild dogs. I finally paid the bill and followed them all outside feeling totally overwhelmed. And then I saw Ben walking our sweet little monkey and could only smile. She's such a pretty monkey. 

Our celebration started on the 3rd when we stayed late at the pool, drank beers at  the snack bar and brought a cooler of beer and snacks to watch the fireworks from the pool's lawn. Our town has fireworks everyday but the actual 4th of July. 

We lost Dorothy's crocs and had to drive by the pool on our way out of town to pick them up. Someone set them nicely on a picnic table outside the tennis court. 

The babies were up until 11 on the 3rd and they took no nap on the 4th, sleeping only about 40 minutes of our 4 hour drive and screaming a bit more than that. They did not make it to the fireworks that night which was kind of a pisser because the adorable football stadium fireworks show is the whole reason we wanted to spend the 4th in Pekin. And to hang out with my parents, of course, which we did. 

We played outside, went to the park, had a delicious barbecue, made a bonfire, roasted marshmallows and made s'mores, and set off a bunch of loud annoying fireworks of our own. 

After the babies went to bed, Ben and my dad threw a bunch of firecrackers in the fire. No one lost any fingers. Luckily. 

Saturday, we took the kids to Bradley like we always do and we went to Wildlife Prairie Park withy parents. Not too many pics of the park because the babies were despicable. OMG. 

 A note about Jack: he got mosquito bites that caused his eye to almost swell shut, and he chose this souvenir at the prairie park:

Last night after the kids went to bed, we sneaked to Peoria to hang out with our friend Dan

And this morning, there were donuts.