God Bless America

We had a fun-filled fourth of July. It started out by going outside at 7am to see the hot air balloon festival that happens every year. Then we spent the rest of the morning watching the big parade. That evening the we had a BBQ, did fireworks, and then watched the Stadium of Fire Show from our front yard. We love having such a great view of the big show!

Bradley at the parade

On our way home from the parade Mackayla told me she needed to get that picture from me of her with the big Curious George Balloon so she could put it on her blog.

The kids both loved the parade. Bradley fell asleep before it was over but had a great time clapping with the crowd while he was awake.

Watching the balloons from our front lawn-

This pig ballon was Mackayla's favorite.

We had planned on making red, white and blue cupcakes and decided last minute to also decorate them as a flag. They may not be the prettiest but we had fun making them.

I didn't end up taking many picutes that evening but it was a lovely night for a BBQ. The Henrys, Doug Trees and Christine joined us.


SPARKLERS!

With the days being so crazy this week, we went on our weekly trip to the library in the evening with Jared. He picked out a DVD of Looney Toons shows (bugs bunny, tweety, daffy duck, etc...) to check out. I had to take a picture of him watching it. He was loving it! It was pretty fun to watch.

We started putting sticks into our bananas and making them into popsicles. The kids love it. I think it felt pretty good on Bradley's sore gums this week.

What a week we had!

Bradley cut his first two teeth this week so he had a couple of rough days. On Monday afternoon I decided it was time to get Mackayla potty trained. I took off her diaper and its been off ever since. The potty training was a success but it was absolutely exhausting for me! She was capable of doing it but not wiling to. I didn't want to force her so I had to be creative in motivating her to sit on her potty every time. We had a chart and treats but she needed even more than that. I had to make up songs, do dances, play games, everything you could imagine to keep her going. I spent the week saying things like, "Horray! Your pee pees make me jump so high!" (as I jumped around the bathroom) "hurry up and sit on your potty, all your animals are waiting for you!" (after having moved a pile of her stuffed animals into the bathroom)... it was so tempting to just stick a diaper back on her, but we made it through the week! The first couple days she had a couple of accidents. Then the third day she had six accidents. As soon as Jared got home from work that day I went straight to my room for a little time out. Then the last three days she hasn't had any accidents! Success!

Also, I've been babysitting another kid in the mornings and that has made things much more hectic.

Then before we started fireworks last night Mackayla suddenly got a very high fever. She was very sick all night and today. We finally seem to have the fever under control so hopefully she'll get some sleep tonight. I think we just have to make it through one more week then things will quiet down a little. I'll be babysitting for one more week and in another week I'm hoping things will be running very smoothly with the potty business. At that point we will shampoo the carpets. :)

Another big milestone this week is Bradley learned to clap. As soon as he figured it out he didn't stop clapping for days. He's so cute! Even though all babies learn to clap and even Mackayla started clapping at an earlier age we just can't help but watch him and think he's the smartest, most talented, genius baby in the world. Here's a little video of the day he started his clapping.