4th of July

This 4th of July weekend we didn't do a lot of the traditional 4th things, we didn't have anyone over for a BBQ, we didn't relax by the pool or go to the lake. Instead we took a long weekend and worked on some home improvement projects. The first project we did was to make and install garden beds for our kitchen garden. My hard working hubby got the boards all cut and we put them together. The next day we turned the soil in the beds and hauled up some soil from the backyard to fill them up. Holubs had all their plants at half off this weekend so we went and found some tomatoes, peppers and various herbs to fill our beds. We are hoping they still produce well since we planted them so late in the season but I think the beds look nice.

We've since put down cedar chips in the paths between the bed as well but I forgot to take a picture of that. Makes it much less muddy after rain or watering.
We also started redoing our back porch. I am not going to post pictures of that yet because I will do one big post about it when it is all done. It has been a good change, the old porch windows were original to the house in 1930 and they had definately seen their better day. When we get it all painted and set up I will show the pictures. I unfortunately didn't think to take pictures of it before we did anything so you'll have to trust me that what we've been doing is an improvement.
The kids have loved to help out with all our projects. Gabe especially loves to help plant the stuff in the garden and of course they all like to water them:) Callie sometimes gets a little too aggressive in her trying to help and actually falls into the garden bed. I should have gotten a picture of her in her cute 4th of July outfit before she took a tumble into the garden bed.

You can't see them super well in the picture but she also had cute little American flag bows in her hair, which Gabe decided he would model here.

Since we had lots of time outside this weekend the kids got lots of trike and bike time in. Callie loves riding on the back of the trike.

It is even better when she can get one of her brothers to actually chauffeur her around.

They like to have races down the sidewalk as well.

We've also been doing a lay out to put our firepit ring in. The stumps we are using for benches were from the tree that fell on our house last year during the floods. They also make for great stepping stones.

Ty wanted to model for me in front of our big pot of flowers. They have grown so much since we planted them and look so nice!

he also wanted to model with Dad's wrench...silly boy:)

and after so much hard work you have to have a snack to keep you going.

That evening Grandma and Grandpa came over for some ice cream and to do sparklers. I love Ty's face when his sparklers are lit.

Gabe liked to try out his ninja moves with the sparklers.

When it got pretty dark and closer to 10 we headed down to the Iowa State Center parking lot to get an unobstructed view of the fireworks. Carl stayed home with Callie who we put to bed...she was not going to last till 10.

Someone had just had way too big of a weekend and completely missed the grand finale. He fell asleep on grandpas lap.

all that hard work wears you out!