4th of July Fun

 We have made it a tradition to go to the Huntsman Springs Celebration every year and I love it.

 The best part of the whole celebration is watching the pure joy on my kids faces when the fireworks light up the sky and hearing their little "oohs" and "wows"!  "Mom did you see that one, I love the purple and gold ones!"

 We always go early to find a spot on the grass so we have lots of waiting time.  This year the girls had fun dancing and doing cartwheels to entertain themselves until the festivities start.

 This year the beach boys came and preformed.  It was great fun for the whole family...and the best part is it is free.  The fireworks are amazing and so patriotic...and even though I don't love all the crap that is going on in our country right now, it makes me grateful to be an American.  It reminds me of how grateful I am for those who are serving and have served our country and died for our freedoms.

 I just had to post a picture of little Mattie Faye.  She loves suckers and I know this is not great parenting but sometimes giving her a dumb dumb is the only way to get her to stop throwing a fit. So I went to Sam's club and got these suckers in bulk.  Trust me these suckers have come in handy...especially in stressful Walmart trips where she is having a meltdown and I am having to drag her across the floor.  I have had people tell me that the third child is the easiest.... and I say  "That John Denver is full of crap."

 We celebrated the 4th by going to Victor to watch the parade.  Then we had to make the drive through Swan Valley just to get Huckleberry Square Ice Cream.

 Moments of happiness intermixed with more moments of whining.

At the end of the day we went to our neighbors house and watched their amazing fireworks.  He had a whole bunch that I am pretty sure fell out of the back of a truck...if ya know what I mean.  They were not like the little dinky fireworks I grew up with.  They made our sparklers and snakes look like baby fireworks.  It was so fun to just sit and be with good friends and being able to watch all the other neighborhood fireworks...which were very impressive.

Idaho Falls has the second best fireworks display in the nation.  I have never been to the Mellaluca show but I hear it is really cool but the traffic is crazy...over 50,000 people attend...with that many I feel ok about staying home.

Summer Fun

 So Avery's softball is over.  Sadly her season ended earlier then we would have liked.  Just before her tournament she was pitching a softball to her older cousin who accidentally hit the ball right at her and fractured her hand.  The poor girls hand was so swollen and bruised and she had to sit out and watch her team play without her.  I was just grateful we did not have to cast it.  She is supposed to keep off  it but that is not happening :)

 My little monster.  I just had to post this because it is classic Mattie.  She is either being super cute and happy or super mad.  The kid can scream her head off...one of those horror film screams...it drives me crazy.

 We also have been doing the reading program at the library this summer and my girls love it.  They mostly love the prizes they get every week.  I enjoy reading some of my favorite books with them from when I was a kid.

 We did swimming lessons at the end of June and the girls had a blast and love to swim.  We got a pool pass  and we try to go anytime the weather is warm...Mattie is probably my biggest fish...she is already trying to swim and wants to do it on her own.  We also had Matt's cousins with us for two weeks and then my cousin came to stay with us for the summer so at one point we had six girls staying with us...I was just grateful we have more then one bathroom.  We also made a trip to the zoo with the girls.  The last time I was at the zoo I had to explain some inappropriate behavior from some monkeys to my kids and this year it was from some very big turtles.  Hailey kept asking why the giant turtle kept trying to wrestle the other turtle?

 We have also been going to the park a lot.  It is much more fun now that Caitlyn is here with us.  I like to call her my rent-a-teen she is great with my girls and they really look up to her.

The nice perk about having teens in the house is my girls hair actually gets done.  Samantha is so great about doing everyone's hair and helping them get ready...I am ready to have her come stay with me again.

Elder Berry is Back!

 Matt's brother Josh returned home from his mission from Virginia in June.  We all gathered together at the airport at 10:30 at night waiting for him to fly in....we were a rowdy group.

 Josh was surprised to see how much his cousins had changed and grown.  He also got to meet Mattie for the first time but it took here a long time to warm up to him.

Josh flew in on his birthday so we had a midnight party to celebrate.  He is on a health kick so to accompany his Dairy Queen cake we had hummus and veggies.  The kid is also a dating machine...I think he went on a date the day after he got back and hasn't stopped since...I guess he has a lot to make up for after two years of no girls:)

Opps is it July already?

 So I realized the other day that I have not put anything on my blog for a long time...it was in desperate need for some updates.  So back in March...yah...I know that was forever ago..but my hubby had a big birthday. He turned thirty and we celebrated with food of course! I made him a pecan pie cheesecake.  It has been put in the category of "super delicious foods" and has been requested a few times since then.

 Birthday spankings...my girls might have had a little too much fun with this part...Sadly they love a good excuse to smack people...(ya my kids are sometimes violent...I will blame that on the Berry side)

 Avery had her 7th birthday and we celebrated at Bear World. The girls had a blast...I just can't believe I have a 7 year old.

 Avery finished up basketball and went right into softball.  This kid loves softball!  She would practice every day and even practice when she got home from practice...it was refreshing to find something that she wanted to work hard at.  She played machine pitch and was the youngest person on her team. Most of the girls were 3rd and 4th graders.  So last year she played tee-ball and this year she had to hit of a machine that pitched as fast as high school girls.  Her first at bat she was a little nervous but once she got used to it she would get right in there and crush the ball.  Watching her play has been one of the highlights of the summer so far.

So we have a ton of little girls in our neighborhood and my girls are having a blast...they all act like sisters.  I feel bad for Matt  because there have been times he has come home to 8 girls playing dress up in our house...but there are those occasional times when the boys will want to come over and play. I love those moments because I get to see just how different boys are then girls.  They despise our dolls and want to ride bikes or play baseball...so Matt will go out and play catch with them and teach them how to play baseball.  I like to refer to them occasionally as our rent-a-sons...we love our little community.