4th of July

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I love fireworks. The only time we really get to see them is Independence Day and New Year's Eve. There really should be more reasons to shoot beautifully sparkling explosives into the sky...

I worked for part of the day and unfortunately Dustin had to work the entire evening so Alivia and I were on our own. I planned on walking her down to the local recreation center where they put on a pretty good show. I had no intentions however of staying there until the fireworks started. It would have put her up way past her bedtime and that's not something we ever mess with. The plan was to go walk around, see all the people, play in the grass and have a few treats.

Before setting out I snapped a few photos in the same spot we did last year.

Look at my squishy baby! My goodness what a difference a year makes!!!

 

We had a lot of fun once we finally got to the park. There were so many people for Alivia to watch. Tons of babies and dogs which she loves so much. She wants them all to give her puppy kisses on her hand.

One of the best things about the 4th is the great food vendors. Luckily something sounded good to me because lately nothing does. Here we tried a Philly Cheese steak but made with turkey. She sure liked it! 

I also thought I'd throw in a few more photos from last year.

 

I may have also sprung for a funnel cake...since Alivia doesn't usually get treats like this, and I planned on eating some anyway, I knew there was no way getting around her trying some. :-) She mostly just wanted to pinch off the powdered sugar and eat it lol.

We had a good time together and it was so exciting to watch Alivia watch everyone else. There was a family right in front of us that had a big brother dancing around with his little sisters. It was so adorable and Alivia got up and tried dancing like they were. Then she wanted me to get up and dance with her too. When I figure out how to post a video I'll show you!

 As the night got further along she was actually doing really well and I felt bad leaving before the big finale. Since she was in such good spirits I thought she could make it through the evening. She did start to get a little upset right before the parachute jumpers came down but once they were out of the plane the look on her face was priceless. There were 4 or 5 of them and in the dark sky with their bright sparklers trailing behind them Alivia was in awe. I wish I could have captured that in a photo but I'm glad I got to see it.

 

The firework show was great as always. The music was incredibly loud but that didn't seem to bother Alivia. Actually she fell asleep half way through. But while she was awake she just stared up at the sky with the biggest eyes ever :-) 

Thinking about it now I'm really happy that we stayed and watched them together. Next year we certainly won't be staying up with her to watch them as we'll have another little one at only 6 months old and I don't think we'll be staying out all night.

I wish of course that Dustin could have been there. That would have made the night perfect!

 

First camping trip!

Last week we headed out to Lake Dowdy with my best friend and her family. This was Alivia's first camping trip and she did so great! We were worried about the whole sleeping in a tent arrangement but knew that sooner or later we were going to have to try it. Dustin and I both love camping and we hope that Alivia will enjoy it as much us as in the years to come.

Everything went pretty smoothly. Aside from a little hiccup in the beginning...we got all the way to the camp site and realized we forgot a shoe for Alivia. And she's in a cast right now so we really only needed to remember one shoe...

So we stayed back while daddy drove the 2 hour round trip to the nearest store to find a shoe. Alivia didn't even care. She plopped right down and started digging in the dirt!

Once Dustin got back we started cooking up some dinner. Cheese burger for Alivia and hobo pie pizza for me. Dustin and Steve actually went out on the boat to see if they could catch some fish in the late day. In the mean time Jenny, Coltrane, Alivia and I played in the dirt, kept warm by the fire and took little walks around the site.

 These two had a ton of fun together. I can't wait to go camping with them again.

 I had been talking this trip up for 3 weeks with Alivia. Telling her we were going to sleep in a tent, cook by a fire, play in the dirt, see a lake, I even showed her pictures online of camping so that she was familiar with what was going on and she learned some new words in the process too! She LOVED being in the tent. The photo above was her first time in it once Dustin got it all set up.

 The night actually went pretty well. We don't have the best sleeper on our hands here as it is so we were really concerned about how that would go. At home she sleeps in a very dark bedroom with a fan and a sound machine on to block out noise. We did bring her sound machine...although it was acting very possessed and kept changing to a freaky heartbeat repeatedly throughout the night. She did have a hard time going to sleep at first and then woke up about 30 mins later screaming so I had to call it an early night and just went back in and slept with her. I was awake a majority of the night because I was uncomfortable. Other than a few wake ups she did really great! And was very happy to wake up and see that she was still in the tent lol. (photo above)

 The next day we had some breakfast and then set out to take a nice walk around the lake. Well...by the lake. There was no way two pregnant mama's and two toddlers were going to make it all the way around in that heat!

 It's so much easier to go over things than around them right??

Looking for bugs!

 There were a TON of these little ground squirrels all over the place. Here we happened upon a mama and her babies. They were so cute. We also saw hummingbirds and lots of crows. Alivia loves birds. Actually she's a huge fan of nature. She is always pointing out new and different things, wanting to smell flowers, touch the grass, follow bugs around...I love it!

 Alivia's first s'more! She doesn't get sweets as it is so this was a really big treat for her. Yeah she loved it! Even better though was after she ate half of mine she didn't want any more.

My little helper!

 Quick family photo before we had to leave. We couldn't get one of course where all of us were looking and smiling at the camera but whats new? Before we were even 5 mins gone Alivia was out cold. Little girl was worn out and it was past nap time.

 This was such a great trip and I really do look forward to doing more this summer. Hopefully I'll still be comfortable and not super huge with this next baby. By the way, Dustin and Steve caught 6 fish each that first night and a few more each the next day! Not too shabby! Of course Jenny and I couldn't stand the smell of them...yuck.