Fourth of July

Collin came into our room on the fourth of July announcing that he saw a four on his clock.  No buddy, four is for naptime, seven or eight is for the morning!  So we drug him into bed with us and then noticed his pajamas were all wet, have leaked out his pull-up.  Lovely, no wonder he woke up in the middle of the night.  It seems like 5 minutes after we settled down, Maya was up a few minutes before 7am, so my day officially started. 

With both kids wide awake, I decided we were going to attend the parade a few minutes from our home.  Here's their picture along what I thought was the parade route.  It concerned me that we were the ONLY people there, but thankfully we were directed to the correct route a few minutes later and caught the beginning of the parade. 

By that time Maya was down for a snooze, which was interrupted by the fire trucks!

They handed out flags, which Collin would wave while shouting, "Happy 4th of July!"

But of course his favorite part was this parade threw out candy from the floats and cars.  Here he is with a mouthful of candy at 9:10am!

And as a result of the candy, the sleep deprivation, and general excitement of the day, he was a wild man at the parade in my grandmother's neighborhood, screaming "Attack!" with his flag to the surprised neighbors. In typical second child form, Maya slept through it all!

Watching the parade with my cousins Melissa and Kirk and Grandma Betty -

Another fire truck - you can almost see the excitement in this profile shot

He burned a lot of energy on the parade, running and jumping with each passing group -

After a nap to regain some more energy, I got a few shots in our red, white, and blue (Cas was wearing an orange shirt so he wasn't invited, plus I needed him as the photographer.)

 

Collin accommodated the photo session with the incentive of a swim at Aunt Debbie's.  I tried more photos in their swimsuits, but they turned out like this.  Clearly Collin is thrilled to be taking pictures rather than swimming, except not at all. 

Maya was big eyes and smiles in her adorable bathing suit

Super Collin coming in for a kiss - 

Maya sat on the steps with me for a few minutes, but decided she'd rather be high and dry.  Aunt Debbie took Maya so Cas and I could both swim with our son.

Like his mother at his age, Collin at three doesn't like to put his face in the water, but loves swimming with his puddle jumper!

After an early morning, two parades, and swimming in the evening, Collin crashed by 8:30 and missed the fireworks!