July Fourth

I admit that I am guilty of being one of those people who says that every holiday is "my absolute favorite" but this time I really mean it: Independence Day really is my favorite holiday!  This year's plan included a pre-parade 5K again for me but, once more, I found myself terribly sick leading up to the race and had to withdraw.  I was crushed--I had put in a lot of time training and I was doing so well that I wanted to see if I could beat last time's time.  I'm a little nervous to enter a race again--I've had such bad luck!  Anyway, that was probably the only thing that didn't go as planned.  The rest of the day was near-perfect!

We got to the parade route in plenty of time.  Bean has a terrible time getting going in the morning but we'd been hyping up this parade for weeks so we had absolutely no trouble getting her up and ready for the day, even though she had to wake up 2 hours earlier than the time she normally wakes up!  Boy had a bit of a struggle before we left but once we got there he seemed to enjoy himself!



Bean was ready for the parade the second we got there and kept telling me it was 'hard to wait.'  I know Bean, I know...

Once the parade came our way though, they handed out the kids' flags and Bean was on her feet the rest of the time.  Her cousins fought their way to the front of crowd and fought for their share of candy, too.  Bean stayed behind and made a haul of taffy!

Afterwards we headed to S's parents for a swim in their pool.  At lunchtime we set up a slip 'n slide to keep the kids out of the kitchen.  Boy was down for a nap at this point so I joined right in!  I'm proud to say I can still slip 'n slide with the best of them :)

I had to go into work that afternoon but I didn't really mind too much.  Traditionally the 4th is a great holiday to work, and this year was no exception--it was nice and quiet.  Another perk is working across the street from the Murray fireworks.  We don't have to fight crowds or find parking spots.  And I'm pretty sure we have the best view in the whole valley!  My work besties and I went up and took our usual spot, along with the rest of the hospital employees AND Murray Firefighters, in the ED parking lot and had popsicles.  Best Holiday Ever!

If you're a mommy (or daddy) you know well that moment when you child is being just a little bit too quiet so you go exploring to find out why.

In this case, a few weeks ago, this is what I found this little culprit up to...

Boy has always liked bedtime stories, but he's never just sat still and 'read' a book by himself.  Now I catch him doing it all of the time!  It's nice to watch this little busybody stop to do something meditative.

Since his interest in books has picked up, we decided to start taking him to the toddler section of our library so he could choose books to bring home.

Bean is more than willing to help.

Bouncy, Bouncy Trampoline!

Our friends bought a trampoline earlier this summer.  You can imagine Bean's delight!

We love going to our friends' house.  N is a few months younger than Bean and O is just about a year older than Boy so it's fun to watch them all grow up together.  We had to bribe N and Bean to eat all of their dinner by promising that they could go get back on the trampoline as soon as they were done.  It sounds like having a trampoline could come in real handy!
Boy spent his time exploring in the grass, bargaining with O, and playing with a bucket (which obviously goes on one's head.)