Happy 4th of July!  We have had a busy couple days with some special visitors.  Papa and Nana Lindvall were able to come spend a few days with us to help celebrate the 4th and build a swing set for the kids!  

We started off our celebration by going to a parade in New Albany.  This was obviously Connor's first parade and Elli's 2nd.

Elli and I went to the parade early and saved us seats.  

I tried to get a picture of Elli and Siena smiling....unsuccessful....but at least they are both looking the same way!

Nana, Papa, Scott, & and Connor joined us a few minutes later right as the parade was starting!

Elli's favorite thing about the parade was the candy.  She was mid-chew in the above picture.

 Nana and Connor!!

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After the parade, we came back to the house and continued working on building a swing set for Elli and Connor.  There were a million and two pieces and I'm still not sure how we didn't lose any.

I did a quick photo shoot with the kids inside to try and keep them out of the heat.  It was hot!!

'How big is Connor?' SOOOO Big!!

 Nana helped  me out, but this was the best picture we could get of them together!!

Look who is standing??  Connor has been standing pretty well for a little over a week now.  I can't believe how big he is getting!!

Posing for the camera

With her pink bunny in hand.  She was bribed!

Connor spent a lot of time in his car to keep him entertained while work was being done on the swing set.

 Later that day I took Elli to a festival in our town.  After a quick jump in the jumping thing, a ride that went around and around 500 times and almost made me sick, and a fresh lemonade we had had enough!  It was way too hot!!

We ended the night with fireworks and ice cream.  The fireworks didn't last long and became somewhat tortuous to the kids.  Elli was begging us to stop....they were both scared!  Do you see the disgust in her face??

Thursday was spent finishing up the swing set (by this time many, many hours were spent working on it)!  Nana also took Elli to a movie while Papa and Scott went to look at bikes.  I hung out with Connor at the house!!  

I'm pretty sure Connor is going to like dogs just as much as Elli does!!  Mackey is such a good dog and let Connor crawl all over him!

By Thursday late afternoon, the swing set was FINISHED!!  

Both kids love having this swing set!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Papa and Nana for all your hard work!  They worked on this in probably the worst conditions possible (100 degree weather and humid)!!!!  Elli had been looking forward to Papa and Nana coming to visit for the last week!  And it was quite a treat as they were able to spend 2 nights with us instead of just 1.  This 4th of July was very productive!!