Happy Fourth of July! + my sister came to visit! and I love exclamation points!

After seeing my downer post the day before, you might be surprised to hear that we celebrated the Fourth in grand style. My sister Meara came to town for a week the day before, so we used the holiday to convince her that NYC is superfun!

First, we checked out the new neighborhood cupcake joint.

Then, we got lobster rolls (for the above 12 crowd) and chicken McNuggets (for the under 12 crowd) and headed to Central Park for a picnic.

Hyrum has perfected his soccer dribble/crawl, so we should probably start planning his career in the pros, right?

That night, we hosted a few friends for a BYOM barbecue. The men got to work right away, cooking meat and stuff,

and everyone saved a little room for the sweet and salty cake, which was, by the way, completely amazing. If you make it, do three layers and not two. We had some overflow issues when we baked the cake.

After a day of grocery shopping (literally, Target, Costco, and Trader Joe's all in one day), we headed down to Times Square on Wednesday and scored rush tickets to How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. Mostly to see Harry Potter, of course.

The next day, we took a trip to Sesame Place. It was 92 degrees and sunny. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Friday morning, we checked out the High Line Park.

All in all, the week was very successful from my perspective. I spent lots of time with my sister, I had an excuse to make delicious food and go to Broadway shows in the middle of the day, and I got in a couple much-needed errands with only one child in tow while Hyrum napped one day. Also, Meara did a wonderful job of blending into our small space. She was perfectly polite the entire time and didn't even complain about all the many playground trips to which we subjected her. See? Success!