The Fourth.

I know, more terrible blogging behavior! I haven't been taking tons of pictures lately, so I guess I feel like there's not much to say. And we've mostly been hanging out, doing our things. Ellie had a couple of days last week where she was acting three going on thirteen with her attitude and her sassy mouth. I was pretty sure that she was hoping to be banished to her room FOREVER, because that's the only thing I could think to do.

Meanwhile, Adam is as naughty as ever. He gets away with it because he's less shrieky than Ellie was, and he has such a cute smile when you catch him, but he is definitely the more devious of the two. One afternoon I put him down for a nap, and then when he didn't quiet down I went in to check on him. He had thrown his lamby out of his bed, pooped his pants, and then laid down on his belly on one side of the crib so that he could open his wipes container (which is on the floor next to the bed) and then taken the dozen or so wipes he'd yanked and threw them onto the floor on the other side of the crib. When I opened up the door and discovered his mess, he just laughed at me. He loves to take our phones and when we chase after him, he sort of shrugs up his shoulders, giggles and tries to break into a run. He's also discovered the monkey game app on Grizz's ipad, and gets very excited about it (gives me hope than when we go to Wisconsin in October. And by we, I mean I am flying into Wisconsin by myself with the two kids.)

We had a really nice Fourth. I realized this year that if I can't be in Door County, being at my house and having a party with our friends is a pretty great substitute. Being in our tiny apartment in LA with no BBQ, no sparklers, no fireworks (other than the illegal ones that jerks in our neighborhood would set off at all hours for the week around the Fourth) was depressing, but being in our house is pretty great. We had a big group of Tim's coworkers and friends as usual and tons of food. Ellie was initially freaked by the sparklers (she informed us that "last day" she touched one and burned herself - she remembers her accident a year ago) but she got into it pretty fast.

She had an especially great time playing with Uncle Jake and Auntie Dawn as the sun went down, and that was incredibly sweet to see. Once it got really dark, we went outside and shot off a bunch of stuff in the drive way. You can't get anything that goes airborne, but the legal fireworks were pretty great. And like idiots, we let Jake be in charge of lighting everything, in his bare feet. Because you know, if he gets hurt, it's not like four other people at the party haven't invested a couple thousand dollars into seeing him compete in the Ironman! Should have made someone less athletic take over. Ellie liked the fireworks this year, and I put Adam down at 7:30pm and he slept straight through until 8 the next morning.

We spent the rest of the weekend swimming. Saturday afternoon we went over and had a nice float in our neighbor's pool, and then brought our leftover brats and party potatoes over to Gigi and Grizz's, where Ellie and Grizz had their first swim in the big pool for the summer. Then yesterday we spent the afternoon swimming in the community lagoon for Sara Jo's birthday. Ellie is our big swimmy fish, that's for sure! This week we're starting semi-private swim lessons at Kristen's pool with all the girls (and the boys as well, Adam's first lessons!)

So that's where we are. Just trying to stay cool, and not too chlorinated.