Red, White, & Bradford

I grew up in a very musical family. We all sing and play various instruments, and holidays are always celebrated with songs.  As a kid, 4th of July meant Kentucky Fried Chicken and a medley of patriotic songs complete with choreography, performed by myself, my sisters and my cousins.  We would put on little shows for the adults, and we thought it was grand fun! Good memories.

So in keeping with that spirit, I tried to teach a couple patriotic songs to Jack. He thought it was funny and kept asking me to sing the Uncle Sam Doodle song, but he loved the line, 

"I've got a Yankee doodle sweetheart.." 

He would even put his hands together by his face...if only you could see him singing it. Too cute. Just too darn cute.  He didn't really get what we were celebrating...at one point he said, "It's Valentines Day Mommy?" and he also has since confused Uncle Sam [see photo from parade below] with Fireman Sam.  He also was not a fan of the fireworks.  He has always been sensitive to noise, so he didn't like the BOOM of the fireworks. We still had a lot of fun celebrating with family and friends!!

My Mom "Mia" and my Aunt "Nina" with Claire and Gabriel 

Like I mentioned already, we have a 3rd of July party [because that's when there are fireworks in the neighborhood where Nana lives :-) This year we all went to my sister's house for dinner and then headed over to Nana's for an ice cream social! I wanted to get more candid shots, but my camera battery died [doh!]. We had a wonderful time and it was fun to see my newly-wed brother and his cute wife who were in town from L.A!

 And just in case you thought we were totally un-American by solely celebrating on the 3rd...we went to a small town 4th of July parade [on the 4th] with our friends, Ryan, Nichole, Brett & Haven!! Brett is Jack's best little buddy, and coincidently (wink wink), Brett's mama is one of my best friends! Our boys are 5 months apart (Jack's older) and now our girls are 5 months apart too...(Claire is younger).  It's so fun having good friends to raise our kiddos with! The boys had such a blast in the wagon, and they waited so patiently for the parade to start!

They of course loved the old fashion tractors, cars, fire trucks and even a train {on a flatbed...but still]!

So much fun in one weekend. Whew! We really are blessed to be in this country.  It's not perfect, but the freedoms we have are priceless.

Ok, I think that officially wraps up the Red, White, and the Bradford.