Celebrating the Fourth of July (a very late post)

First, apologies for the delay in publishing these photos!  Where I once was able to blog at least once a day, I am discovering that I am excited if I remember to post once a month now.  It's terrible, and I sincerely apologize to those of you that read this!  That being said, here is a little something about our Fourth of July celebration this year :-).

We were lucky enough that Katie, Sahil, and Lark came to visit us for the holiday again this year, so it was even better than a day of grilling, sunshine, and parades would have been with just us.  The weather ended up being perfect, so we started the day by enjoying a local park (The Bog Gardens).

We dressed in our patriotic best, Willa chomped her carrier and got bored quickly

It's a long system of wooden walkways that takes you by a lake through a forest area.  Lark and Sahil noticed that it looks a lot like Endor, which made them enjoy it just a little more, I think!

They looked for speeders and ewoks the whole time!

The outdoor festivities continued throughout the day with Lark, Katie, Willa and I playing in our neighborhood playground.  While Lark had a great time with the plastic playhouse and the slides, Willa snoozed away in her carrier on me.  I'm very excited for the days when the two of them can cavort together, but for now it was nice to be able to sit and savor the feeling of her sleeping on me.  By random chance a local candidate for city council arrived for our neighborhood parade while I sat quietly with Willa, so I asked him about the start of the parade.  He told me a full forty five minutes before I thought it would start, so we hurried home so that we could get ready to attend it with everyone.

The Kirkwood parade is a neighborhood tradition that dates back to the end of World War II when a street called Independence Drive was populated by veterans making good use of the GI Bill.  Four families on the block decided to dress patriotically and parade up and down their streets with bicycles and wagons to mark the occasion.  Since then it has been an annual tradition and gets a little bigger each year.  With the Republican primaries for local government seats coming up soon, this year was very heavy with politicians.  As it turns out, the city councilman I spoke with earlier in the day was mistaken and we ended up being extremely early for the parade; interestingly, I think his mistake was deliberate because he had a large set-up of food and supporters meeting before the parade.  Perhaps he was trying to get us to come too early, have too much time on our hands, and hear his message?  

Anyway, I digress.  Here are some cute pictures from the parade:

 Katie and Lark got a prime seat

 Willa was confused by the concept of "selfies"

 Then she took this photo of the sky. It may have been an accident, but baby's first photo!

All of the floats were lovingly made with a patriotic theme, and most threw candy

 We will have to take this family portrait at this corner every year, the parade is a fun tradition!

My favorite picture of the day, taken as Lark waited patiently for more free candy

There was a moment when I was speaking to Jeremy's dad about our day, saying that we had just gotten back from the parade, Jeremy was lighting the grill, and Lark was about to run through the sprinklers that it hit me.  We had the perfect Fourth of July celebration.  Future celebrations will probably be compared to this one because we had such a good time.  To top it all off, Jeremy and I got to take in a movie later that day while Willa stayed with Katie and Sahil.  This was only the second movie we had seen in the theater since Willa was born, and it was a movie we were both very excited to see.  It was also completely deserted because most people choose to take in fireworks after dark on the Fourth.  Again, it was perfect.  We are so lucky to have great family that made it all possible!

6 month state of the address

Willa had her half birthday!  Our little miss is 15 pounds, 1 ounce (lower than my rough at home estimate, I'm terrible at those!) and 27 1/4 inches long.  This puts her in the 24th weight percentile and 93rd (!!) height percentile!  The doctor says she looks great, is hitting all of her developmental milestones, and was surprised that she already has two pearly whites!  We are very proud of how well she is doing.

This month has been marked by lots of new discoveries and adventures:

Sporting a Moroccan outfit from her godfather

She can stand for a little while after we prop her up!  The doctor recommended no more than 15-30 minutes of standing time a day for now, but she definitely impresses me with her balance during that time!

Why buy expensive toys?

She has also recently discovered that she, like many other little ones, loves the tags on things.  She can spend a nice long while chomping away at one, as seen here with my nursing pillow.  Forget those musical toys and ones with moving parts, she'll take a tag every day of the week!

Can I help you?

Finally, she also discovered that super attractive baby in the mirror that likes to follow us around.  She started to try to kiss it, and in this picture she seems to be letting me know that she is a little busy at the moment!  I don't blame her, she is quite kissable :-).

Willa continues to amaze us every day with how fast she is growing, and how much she is learning.  We couldn't love her any more!