Celebrating Independence Day (and Maddie!)

Ok so if you haven't noticed, I'm WAY behind.  It's mid-August.  But again, let's just count this as catch up month on my blog.  So much fun and traveling and celebrating has been had in the past couple months...I haven't had time to keep up with my blog!!  But I will want to look back on this (crazy) busy summertime at some point in the dead of winter - so I'm starting over!!

Let's talk about July 4th.

We had a fabulous day celebrating America AND our sweet girl's first birthday.

It's pretty crazy to think that just a year ago on July 4th, we had surprised everyone because I went into EARLY in the morning and got to send out a fun message to our family and friends that sweet Madeline had arrived!

And then this year my kids are both looking all patriotic and BIG!

I posted this picture on Instagram and just love it.  That morning of July 4th I caught Maddie taking a nap on her dad...just like she did the morning of her birthday.

We kicked off the morning with our neighborhood bike parade!  Maddie put on her birthday party outfit (so awesome to get to use it multiple times - best part about using the July 4th theme for a birthday party too!) and we decorated Charlie's bike and Maddie's car that was her birthday present and headed to the pool parking lot.

There were LOTS of neighbor kids biking around our park area and pool parking lot.  It was fun to see them all big and small and get to catch up with some of the neighbors that we have met/seen at the pool or met through mom's club.

Good dad right there!

Then?  It was time to ditch the bikes and then eat POPSICLES.  nothing more American than that, right?

And of course, we had some visitors to celebrate this sweet baby girl on her birthday.  Crazy to think that last year this time on July 4th they were meeting her for the first time!

After naps, we headed out to Paola, KS to our sister in law, Hillary's mom and step-dad's house.  They actually invited us last year and we were planning on going, but sweet girl made her debut instead!  They have a great house with lots of land and a great pool, gator and their own fireworks display.  A patriotic paradise!

Charlie LOVED the gator and begged Doug to keep taking him.  He was so brave!

We seriously had the best night with the best company.  Lesle put on quite the party!  The food was delicious and the conversation was even better.  Hillary's sister's husband also had a birthday the following week and Stephanie got a delicious cake  and everyone sang happy birthday to George and Maddie and it was just so sweet.  Couldn't ask for more fun celebrating our sweet girl.

And then?  The main event!!  Fireworks.  They even had their own fireworks show and it was pretty awesome.  I tried to put Maddie down in a pack n play that they let us borrow, but sweet girl didn't stay asleep for so long.  So she joined me right on my chest and slept through the whole show.

As for Charlie, he LOVED the small fireworks (sparklers and poppers), but the big stuff?  Oh my.  Completely terrified.  Like Charlie was crying and screaming by the time he got over to me.  

Charlie saw fireworks at our church fall festival last fall, so I figured that he would LOVE them.  So we stayed out way past their bed times.  Welp, parent fail!  We should have just gone home!!

But at least we got one decent pic of our family all patriotic!

My favorite thing though? This cute video of Charlie that my sister in law, Hillary, got while they were over doing sparklers while waiting for the fireworks to start.  Charlie LOVES singing Happy Birthday (to Maddie, of course!) and every time he lit a sparkler he sang to her.  So awesome!!!

There you have it - working my way through the summertime.

Maddie has a fun birthday - always going to have it off from work/school and spend her day with family and friends celebrating her and America's birthday.  One year with this little lady has been amazing and I can't wait for each year after to celebrate her!!!