mainly the 4th of July

Before the 4th of July, we celebrated Brady's birthday at the end of June.  He had to work in the morning, but then was able to have his half day for the afternoon.  Brady's parents took us out for lunch to BJs for his birthday and then we went home.  Kolton was excited to give him his gift to him.  We had made it that morning, as well as Brady's cake (as you can tell by Kolton's face).  Then that evening the Foys came over and we sang happy birthday to him and we ate cake.  I made him an oreo pudding cake--a lot like a jello cake but instead of jello mix you use an oreo pudding mix.  I don't have any pictures of Brady on his birthday because he hates to have his picture taken so I said he could have one day out of the year that I wouldn't force him to take pictures.  :) 

I love taking pictures of Kolton.  :)

 Every week or two weeks or so we try and take new pictures of the puppies to document how they grow and also to put up on the ads so they pictures can be current.  It seriously takes hours to do because they move so much and are so crazy! One morning Kolton was trying to help me but all he was really doing was playing with them.  ;) 

 Missy hates fireworks and thunderstorms.  She gets extremely anxious and actually made herself sick with a fever one time from it.  SO, the 4th of July is like her worst nightmare come true.  Haha.  We came home on the 4th, though, to her bed totally ripped apart.  She does NOT do stuff like this so we know it was because she was stressed from the fireworks going off.  Poor girl.  

 The morning of the 4th we went to Krispy Kreme as a treat for breakfast.  As we were walking in we saw Jeff and Vanessa and their kids sitting at a table in there.  It was totally random (Krispy Kreme is about 10 minutes from our house and about 30 from their house so its not like its near either of us) but it was fun to see them and the kids had fun playing with each other.  We were there for quite some time so they were able to do lots of playing.  Jeff and Vanessa had just bought a new van a day or two before and so we got to check it out.  It was fun! 

The Foys came over for dinner on the 4th.  Brittney went and bought all the food for it and then we split the cost and then she made it all :) so i definitely got the easier part of the deal.  We had pretty much the same food as last year (steak and chicken skewers, corn on the cob, grilled pineapple, pasta salad, and watermelon).  Brittney also found these drinks online where you can separate the different colors of the drinks so we did red, white, and blue.  It was pretty cool! We had strawberry soda on the bottom, blue gatorade in the middle, and sprite zero on top (you put the most sugary drink on the bottom and work your way up to the least sugary drink on top).  

 The kids loved the food!!

 Brittney also made a flag cake! It was yummy! 

She took it home on her lap and it totally fell all over her! :( 

We went to the Foys after dinner to do fireworks.  We had the food at our house since we have a grill and then we went over there since they have a better driveway.  :) 

 Like always, we had to stop their playing to take some pictures of them.  ;)

 Such good friends! Kolton now says all the time that Kade is his best friend.  

 The kids went through a box of pop rocks in minutes! 

Brady is such a pyro and loved lighting everything.  :)

 Kolton liked doing the roman candles and did quite a few of them until Brady did one and one shot out the bottom and hit him in the side.  Then Kolton was done with those, for fear that that would happen to him too.  

 We had fun setting them all off! Sterling had a few left over from last year that we were setting off until one didn't go up in the air and just went off right on the ground and sent stuff everywhere.  :) Fireworks are so dangerous and yet we can't help but do them! 

This is totally out of place, but all well.  We got a new puppy! On Friday, July 13th.  We drove to Stillwater to pick her out.  There were two females left and so we went up there to see if we liked either of them and to then pick one out.  She is 1 day older than our puppies that Missy had.  We named her Xara.  She is 100% European Great Dane and comes from great lines.  Her grandpa is High Resolution.  He was the 5 time Grand Champion for all of Europe.  He's a pretty big deal in the dane world.  :) In fact, when they announced that he was having his last litter, each puppy sold for $30,000.  That's crazy! Then, her dad came from the number one rated breeder in France for the past 28 years.  So, she should be a really good looking! She has a very calm personality and absolutely LOVES Kolton.  He's really the only one she'll play with.  Its fun! I'll be posting more pictures of her in my next post (since really this shouldn't be in here anyway).  

 On Tuesday, the 17th, we went to the movies with the Foys to see KungFu Panda 2 at the Warren as one of their summer movies.  Kolton and Emery are so cute together! :) He loves taking care of her! 

 On Tuesday, the 17th, we also went to Chick fil a for dinner.  One of Brady's clients at the bank has a daughter that has chiari disease.  They were doing a fundraiser for her at Chick fil a, with a portion of your meal proceeds going to her.  They had a bounce house there and firetrucks the kids could play in.  It was PACKED but it was fun! 

 This is a picture of the 4 puppies we had left on the 9th of July.  It was so weird to have so few puppies! 

 Sweet sleeping boy.  :)

Madison came over one night to stay the night while we had to take a puppy to the airport.  We had to go at 4 in the morning (the puppy had a 6:30 am flight) and so she came so we didn't have to wake Kolton up and take him.  

 One week the boys' t-ball game got rained out so they shared an umbrella and walked back to the cars having a good ol' time.  They made sure they walked through as many puddles as they could.  :)  

One morning I took Kade swimming with us.  The boys had a blast together! Kade was tall enough to go down the slide so they did that 6 or 7 times.  Unfortunately they weren't strong enough to carry their own tube so I had to carry it for them.  They would run up the stairs and so I'd have to run to keep up (there's about 50 or so stairs) and then run down to meet them at the bottom.  My legs were seriously shaking afterwards.  It was ridiculous! Haha.  

Its been so stinking hot so we had to stop at 7-Eleven afterwards and get some icees to cool down.  It was a fun summer morning! :) 

This post is seriously a mess and so out of whack, but I really don't want to take the time to fix it all so it'll just have to do.