Happy 4th of July!

* Brooke & cousin Logan celebrating July 4th...inside because it POURED the whole day :-(

* Jack with his 4th of July hat

* Ryan with his hat, obviously the next day when we were able to go for a walk

* Papa Logan with Ryan

* Kyle and Logan celebrating their July birthdays together. Kyle loved his cake and of course had to sample the red frosting as soon as he blew out his candles!
* Ed with Kyle and Logan at the fireworks. We had a great time!

* Our final stop on our drive home...just to show what a "quick stop" is like. Hauling three car seats, Kyle, bottles and gear into a restaurant. These stops are usually an hour. Thank goodness we found a beautiful DQ :-)

* Renee (our new favorite dog sitter!) and Macey while we were away

We had a great holiday weekend in Champaign. Now that the babies are getting bigger, the drive (5.5 hours) gets a little more interesting. We have to time it just right with feedings or we end up stopping twice! We stopped at a Panera (Pamera, as Kyle refers to it!) and met a sweet woman who nannied for triplets recently...small world. The rest of the weekend was great and Logan was so excited to see his cousins! We stayed with Ed's sister, Jill and Logan. Hopefully we didn't wear out our welcome for future visits with all of Jacks spit ups :-) Now that the boys are crawling, we need to move everything as it all seems to find their mouths (i.e. Logan's Batman figurines, etc). We had nine month pictures taken (I will post more tomorrow on their nine month birthday - so cute!) on Friday, then went to our favorite pizza place, Monicals, for lunch. Jill couldn't believe how everyone stares at us when we go anyplace. I guess I'm just used to it by now but we must be quite a site!

Unfortunately it rained ALL DAY on Saturday so we didn't go to the annual Seymour parade (small farm town where Ed grew up...fire trucks, John Deere tractors and candy, three of Kyle's favorite things these days!) and the fireworks were postponed until Sunday. However, Ed's dad still had his annual cook-out so it was fun to see the family. We went to the fireworks on Sunday night and had a great time. Aunt Jill babysat the triplets while we took Logan and Kyle to the fireworks. It turned out to be the perfect night and a great end to our weekend in Champaign. Our drive home on Monday turned in to a LONG one as we had to stop twice for feedings. The second stop was at a Dairy Queen that had a great outdoor seating area with a fish pond which kept Kyle entertained while we fed the babies. When we arrived home, my parents were here with dinner on the table. It's so great to have them home from Africa!

Kyle had asked my parents to bring him back a monkey from their trip. Well, they did, however I think he was envisioning a REAL monkey because when he saw the carved one, he looked rather confused! He was SO excited to see them though and the whole ride home he wanted to know when we were going to see Ama and Papa. Two and a half weeks is a long time for him not to see them!

We've had a lot of very busy weekends recently, hopefully we'll be able to be home and enjoy our summer for awhile. The kids have all done so well, thank goodness!