4th of July

I know, I know... It's September and I'm writing about the 4th of July.  I told you I was way behind!  I'm trying to get back on track, but between work, being pregnant, having a two year old to keep track of, daily chores, and never being home, blogging has taken a back seat as of late.

Anyway, We had a really fun 4th of July.  Steve had the day off of summer school and the gym was closed, so we had the whole day to relax and have fun.  We just enjoyed the first half of the day being lazy at home and barbecued.  Ellie loves having her nails painted, so we festively painted her nails red and blue with silver sparkles.  The girl loves sparkles.  Later in the day we took Ellie to a park so she could feed birds and enjoy her FAVORITE activity on the planet - throwing rocks into the river.

We came back home to barbecue for dinner and Ellie and I played in the yard for a while.

Later, we headed down to the river walkway in Pasco to watch the fireworks on the river.  This is the barge full of firepower.

Our family hanging out enjoying the time together and Ellie trying to take pictures using the tripod afterward.

The fireworks didn't even start till 10, so Ellie was exhausted, and with her dislike of loud noises we were afraid of how things would go, but it's amazing how much you can sell something to a toddler.  She was not impressed at first, but we kept excitedly pointing out the different colors we saw since Ellie loves labeling colors, letters, objects, or ANYTHING, and how there were "Sparkles!"  Yes, we applied her love of fingernail polish to get through fireworks, but hey, it worked!  After a while, we weren't selling anything anymore and she was calling out colors at the top of her lungs and yelling "See that? Sparkles!"  It was SUPER cute.  Not sure all the people around us agreed, but too bad.

After that, we heard about sparkles, fireworks, and colors for days as well as hearing a lot of the phrase "See that?" (A Steve phrase).  Pretty much made this my favorite 4th of July ever, to get to spend the day with Steve and Ellie and see her amazement at fireworks.  Parenting certainly has it's days when I wouldn't trade it for the world.