4th of July 2014

Our 4th of July starts off early every year. 

Our fire truck drives around town between 6-6:30 am blaring it's horn and siren. The truck drives up and down every street multiple times. The annual fun run begins at 7 and the flag ceremony at 8. This year the girls did the fun run with cousins and I missed taking their pictures. Hunter wasn't part of the flag ceremony this year so I came home and made breakfast for those still at home. Madelyn, Emily and Brayden decided to be apart of the parade this year. I took them all up to the starting point and came home to sit and watch on the side of the road. I think only in Alton do we have more participants in the parade then we do on the side. 

Kylie spent most of her time watching the parade roll by with mom and dad. 

As the parade started to get closer we realized Brayden was at the very front.  Being most of the parade was down hill I guess Brayden really got going on his bike. He even got ahead of the Grand Marshal. As soon as he got home he parked his bike and sat with us on the side catching candy being thrown our way. 

 Soon came Emily on her bike and Grandma Heaton dressed as a clown. 

When Madelyn came by Kylie decided to finish the parade with her.

After the parade we went to the Town Hall for the annual program. This year my mother-in-law was asked to come up with a performance. She got almost all of her local and older grand kids to participate. Earlier this week she decided she wanted the kids to have matching shirts so she went to Wal Mart and bought several packages of boys t-shirts and spray paint. Together her and I taped off shirts and sprayed the American Flag onto each of them. They turned out great! 

It was such a cute little dance number she made up. It was sure fun to watch and my

 girls say it was really fun to do.

Following the program I headed up some games at the park. I didn't get very many pictures since I was in charge and the only one running them.

Madelyn's favorite was the sack race.

Hunter's favorite was the relay using baseball bats. We formed 3 teams and one at at time the 1st in line ran to a particular spot picked up a bat had to spin around it 2 times and run back to their group to tag the next player. It was funny to see how dizzy the kids got and how crookedly they ran back.

The last game I was in charge of was a pie eating contest or in this case pudding contest. 

Lots of the little kids didn't want to do it so I was able to talk Emily and Brayden into it. I didn't have spoons but they could use their hands and fingers if they wanted to. Emily did not want to get her face dirty. She ate as politely as she could without using her hands. Brayden also didn't care to get terribly dirty so he carefully scooped each bite out with his fingers. These two did not win the game!

Hunter was a different story. He wanted to win and didn't care how dirty he got. 

I guess it paid off he was the winner in his age group.

I love Madelyn's facial expression. She did not want a dirty face either. She used her fingers and after a few bites decided to quit. She did not like the spray whipping cream that was on top. 

Following my games the traditional slip n' slide was pulled out. This is the favorite activity every year!

Emily and Brayden enjoyed it the most this year. Madelyn took Kylie down while I was cleaning up my games and we never could get her do it again. She didn't enjoy the thrill like the bigger kids.  

After the games I helped get ready for the big dinner. We had close to 300 people come and it kept us busy refilling the serving tables. When dinner was finished I was able to go home and put my feet up. I should not have worn flip flops all day. My feet were killing me. It was a great day but a very long one. 

When it finally got dark we set off some of our fireworks.

Kylie sat in her chair almost the entire time with her hands over her ears.

She didn't care for the loud screeching noises that some of them made.

Apparently aerial fireworks are now legal in Utah. Some neighbors bought a few and we were able to sit out front and watch their's shoot into the sky with their pretty lights.

It's been a long time since we've seen fireworks shoot into the sky!

Happy 4th of July.