Independence Day

Independence Day is slowly getting to be more significant to me. Unfortunately, I still hate the idea of fireworks going off while Cara is sleeping (even though she sleeps through SO much at night, I still panic they'll wake her up). This year was a great year though!

Festive nails :)

For one, I've officially started watching my Christmas in July movies that I recorded off the Hallmark Channel and I realized that I seem to love the ones that have good traditions in them (the best one is Let It Snow with Candace Cameron Bure, but I also love Matchmaker Santa with Lacey Chabert and A Perfect Christmas with Susie Abromeit), but this definitely has me thinking of what traditions I want to start doing with my family, not just for Christmas, but for all the holidays. I'm probably getting out of control, but I just get excited to have yearly traditions with my kiddos!

Matching Mommy & Me red, white, & blue outfits
(Normally I'd get 4th of July shirts for us, but
I'm not spending money on a maternity one)
And also, Cara had JUST woken up, hence the hair haha

We decided to let Cara stay up on the 3rd past her bedtime to see if she'd want to play with some sparklers. We were going to wait until it got dark, but around 9 it got to be late enough so we decided to check then. She was not happy with it. You could tell she was tired and being forced to sit and watch a sparkler that she couldn't touch just wasn't happening. Maybe next year she'll be able to adjust a bit better.

The next morning Larry was a saint and woke up early and took Cara downstairs and let me sleep in until 9. That felt AMAZING! I always tell him how I miss being able to sleep in that late and how I wouldn't want to sleep past 9 in the morning, but I never get that chance anymore. Finally getting the chance to was great, but I can see I don't need that anymore, but once in a while is so nice!

During the morning hours we played outside since it was still semi cool in our backyard. We still have a little grass so it makes it easy for Cara to walk around in and get used to different levels as she walks. After outdoor time we came inside and watched Aladdin with Cara. She seemed pretty interested in it. I really wanted to put on Sandlot, but it turns out we don't have that one just yet...it just got added to our Amazon Wish List :) I'd love to turn this time into playing baseball outside eventually or watching a baseball game or something, but we'll see if we can make that work. After the movie we "grilled" up some burgers and hot dogs for lunch (on the George Foreman) and Cara gobbled those down!

Baby feet in sandals melt my heart!

After lunch and playing in the yard, we put Cara down for a nap so I put on Independence Day while Larry worked out and showered. After she got up we played in the house and part of the front yard until dinner time. After that we played with sparklers again to see if Cara would like them more now that she wasn't tired...yeah, she didn't. She just walked away from them. We're really going to have to wait till next year to make fireworks fun.

Still not even a little interested in the Sparkler

After all that we put Cara down to bed where she surprisingly slept through all the fireworks going on (I'm so thankful for a deep sleeper child). And even though they went way too late for my liking, it was still really pretty and I do get excited to take the kids out to see them one day!

So that was our 4th celebration. I can't wait to get some good traditions going for future years. Even if it means keeping them out past bedtime :)