A Fabulous 4th & more!

A few weeks ago, after the Duluth flooding, the most beautiful rainbow I had ever seen presented itself outside. I gasped when I first saw it - it was breathtaking and the pictures do not do it justice!

One half....

 the other half...

Justin and I spent about a week, each night after Landen went to bed to work on this -

In preparation for the housewarming party, I bought myself a bouquet of white roses to give the home a warm, fuzzy feel to it :)

On the day of our housewarming!

I forgot to whip out the camera during the actual party so my apologies for lack of photos. We had a wonderful turn out and unbeatable weather! Thanks to everyone who came! You definately warmed our home!

~

Landen has mastered writing his own name and we're very impressed. At pre-school, they try not to help the kids but encourage them to "try your best". It's a classroom rule. I think the "tough love" is working.

And this is a picture of daddy - 

don't forget the mohawk...

Gamma Jodi brought over a scooter for Big L but unfortunately, he only liked looking at it and putting on the pads. We'll try again in a month. ;)

 We thought we should take advantage of having our own yard [finally!] and the rest of summer, so we bought a bigger pool.

Shyla enjoying her new freedom in the back yard, leash free!

I've been sucked into the Pinterest world- it's super addicting. I've found lots of fun and cheap crafts and activities to do with Landen. I can only handle so much of the same puzzles, games and cartoons so Pinterest has helped boost the variety!

Here Landen is demonstrating our food color/baking soda art. You mix food color w/ vinegar and use a dropper to drop colors into the baking soda. It fizzes and makes fun designs. Kept him busy for over an hour. Score! (in mom hours, an hour is a long time!)

What do you think it is? I think I see a whale at the bottom.

Then we decided to learn about gravity and physics and headed outside to race boats down foil w/ the hose. Jealous, aren't you?

The last planned activity of the morning was water balloon target practice!

His location wasn't ideal considering there was not enough height to work with the gravity so we had to adjust and came up with this spectacular idea....

Later on, we awaited for the arrival of the Cook Family to join us on this festive day. Again, Pinterest came in handy and I was able to craft this edible beauty.

I got to meet Miss Addie for the first time and snapped a few adorable photos!

Another Pinterest-inspried craft. LOVED how these turned out! Ignore the blinding dead grass alongside the driveway. This heat is NOT helping our new soil. We think we're going to have to strip the sod and re-sod along the driveway. Dang it.

Goldfish. Check! Adorable mini hippo lawn chair. Check! Let's get this show on the road!

A view of the work we've done to our front yard. We bought some beautiful new patio furniture, put up the hanging plants we received from our housewarming party and got some landscaping lights!

 

Justin also put in some new landscaping blocks around our trees. LOVE em!

BEFORE                 &                               AFTER

                     

I know you're a "big guy" buddy but let's let daddy light off these fireworks.

Our neighbors joined us for the cheap Walmart AMAZING light show!

Oooooooo.....Ahhhhhhh!

There was a friendly competition with our neighbors down the road. Although I think we both had the same packaged deal, it's still undecided whose were better (us).

One of Shyla's new friends - Chloe =) Miss Chloe doesn't like ANY dogs in the neighborhood - except Shyla. I guess she thinks Shyla is pretty awesome.

Gabe tackling Landen.

We had a fabulous 4th and tackled the crazy heat from the comfort of our own home this year. The bugs were insane, even after bathing in bug spray. Oh well. This is how memories are made.