red, white and MOO

we celebrated america's birthday with good friends...

(welcome home nathan)

good food...

(have you tasted the yummy goodness of homemade chocolate and caramel dipped potato chips?

what about the divinely fresh taste of caprese salad?

if not, please partake.)

and good exercise...

okay, so a little parade isn't exactly good exercise. but when i am running around trying to capture picture of my kids, i think it qualifies as such. we all know i have very low standards when it comes to exercise. that i capture any pictures of jack that aren't blurry is amazing since he is constantly on the move...

(yes he was actually wearing a shirt. he wanted to go shirtless with

a big USA on his chest, but we thought better of it)

but it was easy to capture shots of lulu since she brought up the rear of the parade. normally she is obsessed with riding her "cooter" (there are times when being to pronounce the the s sound comes in handy)...

but when she was supposed to ride it, she was instead obsessed with tooting her horn...

you can toot your own horn all you want, baby, 'cause freedom is a pretty big deal.

and so is chick-fil-a. which is why just a few days later, we had to find our way to a chick-fil-a to celebrate cow appreciation day. if you dress in a cow costume, you get a free meal. my husband is a pretty laid back guy, but he is INTENSE about chick-fil-a. which is why it was fine with him that i spent almost as much as our costume as it would have been to pay for our meals. but it was worth it...

walking in was a bit of a challenge, but once we got "left. left. left right left" down, we were golden. there was a prize (chick-fil-a for a year!!!!!!) for the best dressed herd and, though we want to be humble people, we thought we had it in the bag. maybe since the employees kept telling us we were the best. but alas, we did not. oh well, we wouldn't have been able to take advantage of it since we don't have a chick-fil-a here at home. YET.

we still got our meals free and lulu got her face painted like the cutest little cow I ever did see...

god bless chick-fil-a.

god bless america.

and god please bless those who don't know the freedoms and privileges we do. i want to be thankful for my blessings while being mindful of those who don't know such blessings.