4th of July weekend!!

Fourth of July weekend was such a fun and busy weekend for us! On Friday, we drove up to Oklahoma to visit Jason's brother and his family. Cousin time is always a fun time 😁

They have a HUGE backyard that we thoroughly enjoyed all weekend. 

On Saturday morning, they took us to the Oklahoma Science Museum in OKC. That place was sooo amazing and it puts both science museums in the DFW area to shame. They had one area that had a huge indoor playscape and then lots of fun kid stuff that was still full of science too called CurioCity! We spent over an hour in the area alone!

This little carousel was propelled by them them moving the arm handles. So fun and cute! A lot of this area had circus type of theme with lots of science stuff incorporated into it.

A giant pin cushion that you could make designs and hand prints in 

The other side 

Sling shots to hit the targets 

 The big "kid" 😂 had fun with the sling shot area too!

The bed of nails!! The kids enjoyed it, but I said no thank you!🙅

They also had a cute little cave area next to the water station area that wasn't full of sand but little pebbles that looked like sand so it didn't stick everywhere!!! And all the mommas said "Thank you!" My least favorite thing about sand boxes - the sand just gets EVERYWHERE!! Am I right? The kids had fun digging for bones and other little trinkets and then were able to put their shoes back on without that grimy feeling of sand!

 Now this was sand but it was a dial that spinned around and you could make designs in it.

 They would jump on the balloons and they would move out of the way. The littles had a blast with this thing!

They made paper airplanes here and then the table would shoot them off for them to see how far they flew

J played in this area for a while. The tubes were filled with blowing air and some you could move to make different pathways for the ball to go. He had fun watching his ball go around and around.

We left the CurioCity area and explored some other parts of the museum. This area was a huge tree house play area. So so fun! 

We looked at airplanes 😃

 J had a blast watching all the trains going around on this display of model trains. I think there were 4-5 different trains going. He kept yelling "Train! Train!" and when they went in the tunnels he would get sad and say "where they go?". He is my little train lover. 💙

This was the space area and this was machine that you practiced landing on the moon. My little space lover (E) had fun with this thing.

Then the gymnastics area! A huge hit with my kiddos!!

All the cousins!

We went back to their house after a yummy lunch at Freebirds and played with trains and puzzles for the rest of the afternoon.

J stuck on of the motorized trains on his head and got it stuck in his hair. We couldn't get it out no matter how hard we tried so we just had to cut it out. He had a bald spot in that area but its already growing out again so no harm done. 😬😬

This was right after we cut up out the train. I was trying to distract him and it wasn't really working. He was traumatized to say the least. Poor guy!

 We headed back home to the DFW area Sunday after church because Jason had to work on Monday but we had a blast with family! Fourth of July started out with a yummy breakfast! Powdered GF/DF donuts and eggs in a hole with a cut out of a star

We celebrate the 4th obviously on Halloween plates 😂😂😂

We then headed to the bike parade that was in a local town nearby. The kids came with decorated bikes for the 4th and then got to ride them around a blocked off round about around town hall separated by age groups.

Aren't they so cute?? E declared it the best and wants to do it again next year. 

My cute little firecrackers 🎇🎇

We had fun in the backyard pools in the afternoon! 

I made a sugar cookie fruit pizza for dessert after dinner that night. It actually turned out really yummy! 

It was great 4th!! Holidays are the best!

Party and Recital weekend!

We had a busy weekend the weekend before Memorial Day! It was E's recital day and we planned J's birthday party for earlier in the day. Jason's mom had flown in to see E and her recital so we decided to have the party the same weekend.

J LOVES Little Einsteins. He can sing the entire theme song and asks to watch it by patting his hands on his legs (which if you haven't seen the show you probably won't get.) So he obviously had to have a Little Einsteins party. There is very little decorating stuff out there because it is such an old show but I think it came together quite nicely. We had it at this really cool park in a nearby town. It almost didn't happen at the park because the forecast was calling for rain all week. I prayed and prayed because I really didn't want it at my house and on Saturday morning, it was cloudy but rain chances were at 10%!!! Yippee!

Anyways, the party was a lot of fun and the birthday boy had fun playing at the park and eating cake!

My babysitter is really good at drawing and I asked her to draw a picture of Rocket and Annie, Leo, Quincy, and June. I just showed her a picture and she did this:

Is this not amazing? I used it as the photo op place for all the kids! Now it's hanging in J's room and he loves it! 

I did not make these cupcakes, but I did make the cupcake toppers. I used some print off that the Disney website lets you print off, and I made toppers out of them.


I made these by using those little circle fans,  printing off this template here and then gluing them inside these pails with some fabric for decoration.

I bought this banner off Easy and the

 

Those musical note sugar cookies are gluten and dairy free and they were amazing. So so good. I got the recipe here.


The kids had a ton of fun playing at the playground. They even had a nature walk area that the kids went exploring and there were a ton of painted rocks left by people to find!

They found ants and were very intrigued. 😆

After we played for a good hour, we had cake! I made this cake (gluten and dairy free). I bought the Little Einsteins print off a website and stuck it on there. It came out pretty well I think. 

The wind kept blowing out the candle so we had to resort to this. 

We sang Happy Birthday and everyone enjoyed the yummy cake or cupcake. 

We took a picture with all the kids in front of Rocket and then family photos. E and J loved that their MawMaw was there for the weekend. 

I love my family so much! It was such a great day to celebrate our little sweet boy! 

When we got home, J went down for a nap, and I got E ready for her recital later that afternoon. I was one of the room moms so I stayed with E's class the whole time. To watch this little girl dance is a complete joy of mine. She loves it,  and I love watching her. She did a tap and ballet dance this year and did fantastic.

These stage pictures were taken at rehearsal since we can't take pictures during the actual recital

This is E with her dance teacher, Miss Lindsay. She learned so much from her this year. 

Right before the recital started with my sweet girl 

They had a cute little photo op place to take pictures with your dancer out in the foyer. We had a lot of fun with our poses.

Such a fun and memorable weekend with my kiddos! I can't believe another year of dance is over, and we celebrated another birthday. Crazy how quickly it goes!