4th of July parade!

4th of July 2012
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As of today our family has a new tradition and it’s the City of Arlington 4th of July parade! We got out there about 8:30 and found a good parking spot then we easily found a spot in the shade and were ready for the start at 9 am. What a wonderful parade with over 100 entries. The theme was “The Many Faces of America’s Freedom”. When the floats went by that had photos in information about fallen soldiers from Arlington I started to tear up and was glad I had sunglasses on. There were a lot of school bands and as always the drum line is the coolest. Nadia was jamming along to the beat and took some videos with her camera. Nadia told me several times, “This is COOL!”

4th of July 2012

4th of July 2012

4th of July 2012

4th of July 2012 4th of July 2012

4th of July 2012

At least 10 people called out from the parade to say the girls were cute or that Nadia’s glasses were cool. One cheerleader even came out of the formation and gave the girls lollipops. No floats were giving out candy, so that was pretty fun.

4th of July 2012

Love this group dressed up in the World War II style.

4th of July 2012

4th of July 2012

4th of July 2012

The very best part for Mike and I were the Elvis’ on mini bikes! Too fun! Nadia’s favorite part were the people on stilts and Amelie’s favorite was the green fire truck. Thanks city of Arlington, we will be back!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July my fellow Americans! Here is a quick post showing the Jello Flag I made for today.

Flag Mold
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I used lite Cool Whip and some sugar free Jello to cut 1620 calories from this dessert.

Flag Mold Flag Mold

Flag Mold

About to flip it over and hope for the best.

Flag Mold

Flag Mold

I had a bit of trouble with the blue jello getting to hard too fast, but next time I know exactly how I can tweak it for an even layer next time. It was delicious!!

Bates Twins 4th Birthday

Bates Birthday
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This was the best shot I could get of all the kids. I can’t believe we even got them all in one place.

The Bates Boys had their birthday party at Pump It Up this year and it was great fun. The whole place is really cool and now that Nadia has been to 2 parties there this year she is asking if her next party can be here.

Bate's birthday

Bate's birthday

Amelie loves bounce houses (Nadia loves them if no one is bumping into her) and they were the only ones in this spot for a long time.

Bate's birthday

Isn’t that a cute pirate ship? Then everyone had cake pops – yum!

Bate's birthday

Amelie and Jonathan. A life lesson on gratefulness happened when Emily passed out the goody bags. Nadia looked in hers and then looked at what Elliott had next to her and said, “Hey! There are different ones for boys and for girls. I got a girl one!!” And I said, “Yes, because you are a girl.” She then got a sad look on her face because the boys had something with Spiderman inside. She did much better after we had a little talk about being grateful and content for what we are given.