"It’s Fourth of July weekend, or, as I call it, Exploding Christmas."
-Stephen Colbert
This was a week filled with some new developments from Isla and a multi-day celebration to “say happy birthday to the American flag” as the kids would say. Let’s start with Isla developments. She’s made a tremendous amount of progress in the last week in her standing. She’s now able to stand up and balance for a few seconds before falling back down. She’s not deterred and gets right back up again. I’m still betting she’ll take her first step before her first birthday, but the clock is ticking so it will be a close call.
Like many babies, and definitely like her siblings before her, destruction is much more fun than building. If there is a tower, Isla will find it and knock it down. Ashlyn encourages the behavior and makes towers for her.
James on the other hand is more into the building. Unlike Ashlyn he does not encourage Isla to destroy his creations.
That doesn’t stop Isla though. Sorry James.
We thought that maybe Isla would show more respect for her parent’s creations. Nope.
On to celebrations. This was the 4th of July weekend and the kids were excited to celebrate the country’s independence. It started with the annual neighborhood parade. James couldn’t attend due to a conflict with swim class but Ashlyn and Isla joined in the fun. This was the first year Ashlyn rode on her bike.
And you can’t have a holiday without dressing the kids up and forcing them to smile for pictures. Actually our kids just do it naturally, say “cheese” once and they’ll grin for 5 minutes letting you take all the pictures you want. They’re good kids. I look at these pictures and hope more than anything else that they can continue to be this close as they get older.
Ashlyn wanted to see the real fireworks this year and we finally decided to give it a shot, even if it meant the next day would be filled with cranky children. We went out to the Bedford “4th Fest” around 7 so the kids could play around for a bit before it got dark. When it came time for the fireworks we weren’t sure how they would react but we were worried for nothing. They loved the show, even Isla didn’t make a peep. She just stared up at the sky and occasionally sucked on her binky.
And if that weren’t enough, Uncle Scott was in town and I’m glad we were all able to get together for a little swimming at Nina and Papa’s. Cousin Ben was in attendance as well and everyone had a lot of fun drinking margaritas and splashing around the pool. Isla even let Nina hold her, so it was a good day for everyone.
Happy Birthday America!