July 4th Activities

This year we stayed close to home for the 4th and it was GREAT! We loaded the girls up and joined friends at Miromar for fireworks on the 3rd. Payton had fun playing with her friends Ava, Charly, and her newest friend Jacob. She snuggled in with Daddy for the fireworks, but spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to keep up with the big kids without getting trampled or in the way. Poor kid was begging to go night-night the whole ride home. Miromar is only about 1 1/2 miles from home, but it took us about 40 minutes to get out of the parking lot so it was about 11 p.m. by the time we got her home. Miss Parker on the other hand slept and ate right through the whole event. The fireworks didn't phase her a bit, although I really did try to cover her tiny little ears.

Being the cruel mother that I am, I dragged poor little Payton out of bed bright and early Friday morning and made her jump in the car and head to the parade in Bonita while Daddy and Parker took the morning off and hung out at the house. That didn't seem to thrill her nearly as much as I'd expected! She just didn't get it. The floats did nothing for her, nor did the firetrucks or various cars with politicians riding in them (I'm with her on that one). What I find truely shocking is that she didn't even seem to get the whole concept of CANDY being tossed at her!! I collected some for her, I just couldn't let the candy lay on the ground in front of me. Which is really quite silly since I'm the mother who just threw away most of her Easter candy last week that I never gave to her. Anywho, I did break open a piece of Laffy Taffy for her, and she thought that was pretty good, lots of "more, more?!?!" The one thing she did seem to appreciate were the horses. After two groups of horses when by she kept asking me for "horsies, more horsies". Really she was not so much asking as demanding, didn't seem to understand that I had zero control over the parade.

We spent the evening in true 4th style, hanging out with friends in the pool, grilling and watching the neighbors set off fireworks. I was really looking forward to relaxing and doing a lot of nothing. Well, I realized something profound which Jason put best, it really does take 4 adults to take care of 4 kids. We pretty much spent the afternoon and evening waiting on our children hand and foot. Between diapers on both girls, Parker eating, Payton not eating, changing into and out of swimsuits, going in and out of houses, cooking, and keeping all of the kids from drowning I never even had time to finish a glass of wine. Which is fine since Payton and Ava thought the greatest game in life is to fill the wine glass with pool water!

Parker did have a big first, she went swimming! She wasn't so thrilled at first, but warmed up to it. We hope that she'll start to enjoy it more as we get her in the water more often.