Happy Birthday 'Merica

Last Monday was 'Merica's birthday. Did you know? My boys were very excited about this. Anything that involves the word "birthday" is a good thing they've decided. I don't think they quite got the concept that 'Merica is the name of our country and not a person but they certainly enjoyed the holiday.
We drove down to my parent's house for the weekend plus a couple of days on either end since Marc was working a bunch of hours anyway and had two overnight calls during that time period. To break up the drive down, my parents and brothers met us at COSI, a museum in Columbus. COSI stands for Center Of Science and Industry, although based on the kids area that we spent most of our time in the acronym could also stand for Caution: Overly Stimulated Infants. The place was huge and there were kids everywhere. Thankfully there is only one entrance/exit with an employee who has to let you in and out. While this does prevent kids from escaping I think the real purpose is to stop parents from sneaking out to play with all of the other really cool stuff in the museum. All of our boys had a good time. This water table was a big favorite for Gabriel and Elijah.
After a morning at COSI and a picnic lunch, we finished the drive down to Fairborn. The boys love Grandma's house and we were thrilled to see my brother Joe who recently returned from training for the Army National Guard. All four little guys wore army man shirts and we got this picture of them with their real army man uncle.

I spent the weekend catching up with old friends (it was my 10 year high school reunion) and even found time to get my hair cut. My parents and brothers graciously agreed to babysit my four wild ones while I was out and about. My dad got these two cute pictures of David John finding extra snacks and Benjamin playing.
Monday, of course, was the big day. We went to the parade in the morning which featured plenty of flags, cool cars, bands and people in costume. We enjoyed the mini cars and mini motorcyles and the trick roller skaters but my favorite was an old school bus that was completely covered by live plants and flowers. The boys' favorite was anyone who was throwing lots of candy. Gabriel and Elijah became experts and darting out into the road to gather up the candy that hadn't quite reached the sidewalk. Gabriel was especially enthusiastic and we had to rein him in a bit when he started trying to get the trampled candy between the parade marchers or filching from other people's candy piles.

We had a lot of special 'Merica treats including patriotic cupcakes, cool red white and blue flashing lights that I was sure might induce seizures and spinning toys that made sparks. We had the boys take a late nap so they would be awake for fireworks. When it got dark, we let them do sparklers which I confess was very stressful. They seemed completely oblivious that what they were holding was on fire and very hot. Gabe did end up with a small burn on his finger but they didn't set anything ablaze so I counted the experience a success. The fireworks started at 10 pm and we were able to watch them from the lawn in front of my parent's subdivision. The boys were a little scared at first. Elijah kept saying, "Help! The firework is getting closer! It's going to get me!" After a while they all decided that fireworks were awesome and joined in the oohs and aahs with everyone else.

We finally drove back home on Wednesday, tired but happy we came. Marc was really happy to see his family. Just for fun, here are a couple of cute pics of Benjamin with his Daddy and Mommy. We sure love that kid.