long weekend.

This past weekend we had four semi-solid days as a family. Yes, semi-solid. There were still pockets of time that Jeremy had to go into work. A few hours here and a few hours there. But for the most part he was home and completely available to the boys. He tried to do most of his work during their afternoon naps. Since things have been a little crazy the past few weeks, mainly pertaining to Jeremy's work schedule, we allowed the big boys to call some shots on how they wanted to spend time as a family.
On Wednesday night, to kick off our long weekend together, we took them to a nearby town center that did a great fireworks display. Holden loves fireworks and had been looking forward to this for several days. We went with some friends but this was the only picture I got. Poor Abe. Teething those eye teeth is a beast! We can't keep his fingers out of his mouth. Even Abe sat in my lap and watched in amazement at the fireworks display. It was noisy and he was completely unbothered by the volume. He just stared at the sky with us and took it all in. He even fell asleep during it. Then during the noisy finale of crackles and pops, I knew it would wake and startle him. But it never did. He was sawing logs through the end of it. He's pretty easy.

On the actual 4th, we headed to some friend's home for a cookout. Holden and Pax were able to spend many hours on a slip in slide and in the dirt. They were in heaven. :) And I took no pictures. That evening we had a night in. We didn't want to fight the traffic and we had already watched fireworks the night before. We did attempt to light up some sparklers from last year's Independence Day. FYI: sparkler

s expire. We had about 20 and they were all duds.

We also made some homemade icecream that evening. Because really, what is July 4th without homemade icecream? The flavor was cinnamon and there is still plenty in my freezer to date. Please come finish it off for me. Here are the boys waiting on daddy to scoop them their bowl full.

All week the boys had been saying they wanted to play golf with daddy. He has trained them well by convincing them to love his favorite pastime. So Saturday night we all went out for mini golf. Pax is a more serious player. Holden is so full of energy that he doesn't really slow down enough to focus on aiming very well. He may be a little too aggressive for golf right now. In fact, he might do better at a driving range than putting. Either way, they both loved playing. And more than that, they were just soaking up their time with daddy. They are crazy about him.

Abe and I were spectators.

It was a good weekend for us to catch up on some much needed family time. And like they always do, it traveled by way way way too quickly.