Fourth of July

We celebrated Independence Day all day long!  First, it was off to the Gateway, to run through the fountains with my siblings and parents.  Then to the Clark Planetarium to watch a movie and eat more popcorn than any of us needed to eat.  Then to Sampan's to eat lunch with my grandparents and family.  Not that the kids (or Greg and I) were hungry after all the popcorn!  Then we headed out to meet up with Greg's family, where we had a BBQ and hung out and played for the next several hours.  The girls drew with sidewalk chalk while Daddy fixed Aunt Andrea's brakes, and Isaac whined he didn't get to play with Dad's tools.  As it was getting closer to nightfall, we headed over to Murray Park, to meet up with my family to watch the fireworks.  The kids did so great all day -- there were a few meltdowns, but amazingly all three functioned on a lack of sleep with surprising ease.  They all enjoyed the firework show, almost as much as the glow sticks Uncle David brought!

The girls played in the fountains until they were too cold to play anymore!

After the water fountains, we changed the girls into cute, matching Fourth of July dresses -- which I never got a good picture of them in!  The bottom corner picture was one of everyone's favorites of Ellie mid-meltdown.  Fortunately such meltdowns were miraculously few and far between.

Annie showing off a mouth full of Circus Animal Cookies, Ellie being sad, then happy (about three seconds apart), and my Mom pouting 'cause she had the trail mix taken away after being caught (again) fishing out the M&Ms.  Bad Grandma!  :-)

The glow sticks were a hit!  A very excited David and Ellie -- I don't know if there were two people there more excited about the fireworks (and glow sticks!) than these two!  Grandma and Annie showing off their glow stick jewelry.  On the bottom, it's the family (Grandma, Star, Annie, Talina, Ellie, Isaac and David) 'chained down' by a glow stick creation of their own making.

Dang, Isaac could not be any cuter, right?!  Then Grandma showing Annie something.  I don't know what, I was taking pictures, not listening to conversations.  Greg and Isaac getting into the glow stick action.  Star showing off her mad juggling skills :-)

These are my favorites.  These are all of Isaac watching fireworks for the very first time.  Last year, at this time, we watched fireworks at the same location while I was overdue, anxiously awaiting this one's arrival.  This year I have this near-toddler who sat there fascinated by the loud sounds and bright lights, and who would whisper, "Boo, boo" with me as I'd exclaim, "Boom!  Boom!" when the fireworks went off.  He only made it half way through the show though -- then he had his own personal glow stick rave, where he frantically and happily waved glow sticks around, smacking whomever was in his way.  Even fireworks can't compare with that.

Fourth of July Pictures

Here's a few pictures from our Fourth of July celebrations . . . Star and Ellie (Star brought her liquid eye liner along, which ended with face painting for all).

Annie with her 'pretty eyes'

Aunt Andrea, Ellie, Annie & Mommy

Uncle Cody with his awesome eye-liner-enhanced eye brows and other facial hair

Ellie, Annie & Daddy waiting for the fireworks to begin

Annie, Aunt Star, Aunt Talina & Ellie

Annie & Ellie watching the fireworks

We had some very tired girls coming home at 11 o'clock at night :-)

Fourth of July Photo Extravaganza

We had such a great 4th of July. I love getting together with family. I especially love seeing the girls experience new things with wide eyed wonder and all that. Yesterday afternoon we headed over to Greg's parents' home for a BBQ, driveway fireworks and the traditional mentos/diet coke flooding of their street. We had my little brother along for the ride with us, as the majority of my family was out of state/country for the holiday. (Later, my only other in-town family, Talina and David, joined us at my in-laws house. For me, it was truly the best of both worlds . . . I would love all holidays to include all of the people that love me and my girls in one place and at one time . . . but I guess that's kind of less than practical. But in my ideal world . . . )

Anyway, here is Ellie, apparently reading up on the safety warning or something on the back of these 'snakes'.

Annie & Ellie watching Grandpa's firework show with Uncle David.

Annie, with an ice cream and chocolate covered face.

Ellie with Grandma Ruth (or "Mam ma", according to Ellie).

Annie checking out Grandma's new bike. There are actually several pictures of me taking this bike out for a test drive, but for some reason (me looking like an idiot) I didn't post them.

Ellie with Daddy. Not even exaggerating, but something like 75% of the pictures we have of Ellie yesterday, she is sticking something in her mouth. Mainly the cookies that she consumed in copious amounts, like in this picture, but there were also several pictures of her trying to chew on glow sticks, blankets, Annie and a lawn chair.

My girls and me on Grandma's front porch.

Around 8:30ish, Greg's parents party was in full swing (i.e. all their friends are over and visiting) and we headed over to Murray Park to get ready for the big fireworks.
Here's Uncle Cody with Ellie. There's a chunk of Ritz cracker on her lip, but she wasn't actually shoving anything in her mouth in this picture.

Daddy and his girls . . . Ellie trying to eat a glow stick. Which are non-toxic, of course.

Annie with her glow stick halo.

Ellie getting more and more slap happy as the sleep deprivation started to really take hold. It was adorable.

OK, one-year-old-Ellie watching fireworks is something I never want to forget.
For the first several minutes, she stared up silently at the sky, unmoving, unchanging, just like this:

Then, all the sudden, she giggled.
Then she was silent again for another minute. Then there was a chuckle.
A minute later, a squeal of sheer joy.
Then she actually started to get into it.
She'd sit up when the fireworks were lower, and throw herself back into my arms when they were up higher again. She stared at them pretty much non-stop, never once seeming upset, or even surprised, at their loudness or brightness (that frankly, sometimes, kinda throws me a little.)

Annie really love them too, but she was hilariously distracted by EVERYTHING else around her. She had to get her blanket just right. Had to get Baby Belle's blanket just right. Had to get situated. Had to have all of her glow sticks in proper order. As the finale was starting, all of us were frantically trying to get her attention back to the sky, "Annie, look! Annie! Annie, watch! Annie, it's almost over . . . Annie, you can fix your glow-stick seatbelt later! Annie, look up!"
She couldn't be bothered. She had things to do.
All in all though, she had a blast, so what else could I ask for. Even tonight during prayers, she interupted me to add: "And thank you that we got to see fireworks right before bedtime last night!" They definitely left an impression. Even if she did seem to be ignoring them half the time!

Then today we got to go see family, as one of Greg's cousins was having his sweet new baby blessed.
Then we had Sunday dinner with Greg's family at his parents house.
Then we came home. And crashed.
It has been such a wonderful weekend, but after throwing off the girls schedule so much, with back to back really late nights, I think I'm just ready to sleep now. Even if it is only 8:45PM.

The Zoo, Fortress of Solitude, Sleeping Angel & Paint Wars . . .

Greg had yesterday off work for the holiday, and so did Aunt Talina & Uncle David, so we all headed out together to take the girls to the zoo (for the second time in 5 days! It feels nice to be getting our money's worth outta the annual pass!) We had fun, even if all Annie's talked about today was how we "didn't get to ride the carousel this time!" I keep trying to explain that it's not an 'everytime' activity, but she ain't hearin' it.

Here's Annie & Greg, while they were supposed to be looking at rhinos but were mainly just putting on an acrobatic show for the other zoo-goers.

Aunt Talina & funny-face-making-Ellie in front of one of the monkey cages.The only picture that proves that I was actually at the zoo too.

We refused to bring in the stroller, since Annie has suddenly become the world's LAZIEST toddler, and wants to ride in the stroller constantly. This way she was forced to walk most of the time . . . her work around was just planting her feet on Dad's and make him do all the walking, but it actually seemed like more effort to do this than just walk.

The baby oragutan (well, juvenile now) was playing peek-a-boo from under this blanket . . . Annie and Ellie found this hilarious.

Uncle David & Ellie inside the reptile house . . . where all the meerkats seem to have gone missing! I swear when we went a few weeks ago, there were a half dozen or more meerkats, then Monday there were none in any of the three different cages that normally house them, and Friday we only saw one.

Annie and Ellie hug constantly now. It's so adorable. They probably throw their arms around each other and hug and giggle a dozen times a day or more. It's awesome.

Annie & Uncle David getting a drink from the worst water fountain ever . . . it sprayed randomly, in a wide, dispersed pattern . . . after several attempts, I just told Annie we'd go get her a water bottle . . .

Later that evening we went out into the front yard and watched while Uncle David put on a fireworks show in the middle of our street! Annie was mildly freaked out by the first one, so she insisted on her tent being placed out on the front lawn for the duration of the show.

Annie telling me about the fireworks I'd missed while I was inside putting Ellie down for bed.

Annie and I both hanging out in the fortress of solitude.

Annie didn't get to bed last night until almost 10PM! This is unusual for her, as she's usually asleep between 7:45-8:30PM. We have now had NINE nights of sticker-earning-bliss! She's gotten kinda fussy a few times, but if we just go in, remind her that she's a big girl and doing such a good job filling up her sticker chart, she calms herself down and falls asleep on her own. Last night I noticed she had her 'Bambi' book clutched tigthly to her chest, and just had to go grab the camera.

Then, this morning, Annie, Daddy & Ellie decided to paint pretty pictures for awhile, while Mom got some stuff cleaned up. It was Ellie's first time painting, and she loved it, although Greg told me he's pretty sure she got way more paint on herself, on him and in her mouth, than even made it on the paper!

In other Ellie news, she seems to be right on the verge of using walking as an actual transportation means . . . she walked back and forth from Greg and I across the hall like a dozen times or more this morning, just beaming with pride as she did it. She seems to be really getting it! She also added a new word, when reaching desperately for my water bottle last night she suddenly called out, "Wa wa!" She doesn't really use anything besides Mom and Dada consistently, but she does surprise us occasionally by using a recognizable word in a proper context . . . only to frustrate us by seemingly never using it again.