Fireworks... finally

Sunday night we went to see some (belated) 4th of July fireworks. This is a tradition for us--we always get a huge group together, lay out blankets early in the evening, and just hang out. This year, I think there were 30 or 40 of us sitting "together," though I didn't necessarily know everyone. We gave a blanket to Pastor and Dawn at church in the morning so they could save us a spot, and it's a good thing we did, because Ari slept until 6 that evening. She always naps longer on Sunday afternoons, and she missed her nap on Saturday, so I guess she needed to make up some sleep. By the time we all got ready and had dinner, we didn't get to the town green until almost 8. But that was fine--we knew we had a spot saved and the fireworks didn't start until about 9:45.

First order of business was to buy some glow necklaces, and Tony insisted on getting Ari that spinny thing too. As you can see, she loved it. (And look--I actually caught a genuine smile!)



Me and my BFFs Kerry and Dawn--not the greatest picture, but oh well.



Since there were tons of kids in our group, there was no shortage of toys lingering about--everything from bubble guns to various glowing things to this Elmo. I have no idea which toys belonged to which kids, but they all did a good job sharing, which is all that matters.



Ari ended up with 3 glow necklaces, and Tony showed her how to attach them all together to make one super-big one.



Ta da! (And yes, those are my silver toes.)



Another failed attempt at a mother-daughter picture--she was trying to escape and I was laughing.



I think she was attempting a smile here... or some kind of weird face. Hey, at least she's looking at the camera.



And finally, it was fireworks time. I love the look on her face in this shot.



It was way past Ari's bedtime by the time the fireworks started, but she did so well. At first, she was totally into them, giggling and saying, "Ooh, that's scary!" and having a grand time. But after about 10 minutes, she looked kind of bored--I'm not sure if she actually was bored, or just really tired, but it was probably a combination of both. I was just glad she wasn't scared--I mean, she never has been, but you never know.

I love this picture too--the way she's looking at him is so sweet.



At one point, she held her spinny thing up... I think she wanted to participate in lighting up the sky.



And of course, I should throw in a couple shots of the fireworks themselves. You have no idea how long it took me to get these--my timing was so badly off that I'd catch the firework either right before it exploded or right as it was fizzling out. It wasn't until toward the end that I finally captured a few.



In other Ari news, she has been doing great with potty-training. She's wearing big-girl underwear all day long, and though we put her in Easy-Ups at naptime and bedtime, she keeps those dry a lot of the time, too. Tony says she's even gotten up in the middle of the night a few times to go potty, which is really impressive to me. I was also impressed with how well she handled herself when we were on the town green this weekend, with only Porta-Potties to use, but she did a great job holding it and waiting patiently in line. Yes, folks, she had her first Porta-Potty experience this weekend (*gags*). Looks like the end of our diaper days is in sight... I can't wait.

A parade and a party

Busy weekend, lots of pictures. I'll split them between 2 entries.

A town near us does a huge 4th of July celebration every year--except they don't necessarily do it on the actual 4th of July weekend. So, the celebration stuff was this past weekend. There's all sorts of stuff--tons of booths (our church had one on Saturday), lots of unhealthy food, a kids' area, a parade, a fireworks show, live music, etc. When we got there, we stopped by our church's booth first, to say hi and to drop off a couple things.

Failed attempt at a nice mother-daughter picture... but I thought it looked kind of cool, the way my hair is blowing over her face. (Man, I really need to get it trimmed...)



I think she was asking me to pick her up here. I just love her blue, blue eyes...



Oh, sure, she smiles when she's taking a picture with Daddy...



The main reason we went on Saturday was to take Ari to the parade. I didn't think to take any pictures of her during the parade, but here's one of her waiting for it to start (showing me the free fan she got at our church's booth)...



We've been to this parade before, but this year, Ari really got into it. She was cracking me up the whole time--squealing and giggling at everything, being completely un-scared by any loud noises or sirens, marveling at all the big trucks, waving and yelling "Hi" to all the people, etc. Every so often, a group would toss candy at the kids, and Ari would scramble to pick it all up. Then, every time, she'd say to me, very seriously, "If you see any more candy, you let me know." She'd repeat that 2 or 3 times, every time, too--pointing her finger at me to get her point across. She's so silly.

After the parade, we headed to Nick's birthday party, and spent the rest of the day there. Matt and Kristin rented a bounce house, which was a huge hit with the kids (and some of the adults too). Ari was a bit tentative about it at first--I think she was a little unnerved about not being steady on her feet when she tried to stand--but once I encouraged her to jump, and she could see that it didn't hurt if she fell down, she got right into it. I love this action shot...



They set up a couple kiddie pools too (which explains why she's wearing a bathing suit), and Ari helped fill one up...



The party fell right during her naptime, and it quickly became obvious how tired she was. She didn't throw any screaming tantrums or anything--but every little thing was making her moan and cry and whine. After a while, I took her inside and we rested for a bit, away from all the activity and other kids. I didn't want to put her down for a full nap and have her miss the party, so I tried to get her to lay down quietly with me. That lasted for all of a minute, maybe, and she wanted to get up. I let her play alone inside for a few minutes, and then we rejoined the party. I think it really helped her to have that little bit of downtime. But even after we went back outside, she still chose to play alone for a little while... she shot a few hoops...



Sunday was church as always, and I grabbed a couple pictures before we left, because I had to get some shots of this dress. We bought it for Ari while we were on our cruise last year (in St. Maarten). It was October when we got back, so it was too cold for her to wear it, and I was hoping she wouldn't outgrow it before she had a chance to wear it. And right now, it fits her perfectly. She got so many compliments on it at church, too.



Then, while we were at it, we each posed with her... (And as a bonus, I got a shot of my new dress, the one my mom bought me a few weeks back.)



And that's it for now. The rest of the pics are from the fireworks last night, but I'll save them for another entry.

Yes there's a chance that I've fallen quite hard over you

Just some randomness, with a couple Ari stories mixed in...

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The sandals I'm wearing today are trying their darnedest to give me a blister between my big toe and the one next to it on my right foot. And, no, they're not new--they are plenty broken in. This is the third pair of not-new shoes lately that have attacked my feet. I don't know why they're deciding to blister me up lately, but I am not happy about it.

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My brother spent the weekend with us last weekend, and he took home my copy of Season 1 of "Pushing Daisies." He and I have talked about the show in the past, and I've hyped it up to him, assuring him he would love it. Well, he called me a couple nights ago specifically to tell me he'd watched the first 3 episodes and was totally hooked. This made me so happy. And of course, a little sad, since the show's been cancelled. I still need to watch the series finale, which is waiting patiently for me on my DVR.

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Special K was on sale last time we were at the store, so I grabbed a box of the new Cinnamon Pecan variety, and I am in love. So yummy... and good for me, too!

See, I can be in love with healthy foods. I'm not ALL about the brownies and donuts and Pop Tarts and Twizzlers and... crap. Now I'm hungry. And not for Special K. This is all your fault.

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Our church has been doing a Vacation Bible School program for the kids this week. If you don't know what that means, it's basically a week-long program for kids, a couple hours each evening, where they do crafts, sing songs, play games, have a Bible lesson, etc. Normally, it's meant for school-age kids, grades K-6. But since our church recently started up a preschool Sunday school class for 3- to 5-year-olds, they decided to hold that class during VBS... which means my 3-year-old Ari is a part of VBS. This is really weirding me out for some reason... I guess because I figured I had 2 more years before she started doing school-ish stuff like this? She came home on Monday night all lit up and babbling about everything she did, proudly showing me her craft and her coloring pages and her bag of candy, and I got a little choked up.

I mean, you all know me... I've never been one to get all weepy at her milestones and sob about how she's growing up so fast, but for some reason, this VBS thing is making my heart twinge just a little. Maybe it's because it just seems like, lately, she's growing up so rapidly. I don't know. But I'd better get used to it, right?

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Speaking of her... I was leaving for work a couple days ago, and Ari was already up, snuggled in on my side of the bed and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I was running late (as usual), so I flew into the room and popped a quick kiss on her forehead. Her eyes were fixed on the TV, and I was sure she hadn't even noticed the kiss. But as I turned away, she said, "And a hug too!" When I turned back around, she already had her arms outstretched for me. And as I hugged her, she added, "I love you."

Talk about making it hard for me to leave her...

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I am obviously in a sappy mood today, huh? Sorry. One more thing, then I'm done, I promise.

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I've got a new favorite song... one that I heard in a cell phone commercial. Until today, I'd only ever heard the first few lines, just in the commercial...

I think that possibly, maybe I'm falling for you.
Yes there's a chance that I've fallen quite hard over you.
I've seen the paths that your eyes wander down,
I want to come too.

So I looked it up on YouTube, listened to the whole thing, and I love it even more now. (Embedding was disabled on the "official" video [why do they do that?], so the video may seem random, but the music is the real song.)

Ari's 3rd birthday party

We had Ari's birthday party yesterday evening. Kind of an odd time for a birthday party, but since Saturday was the 4th of July, and we had church on Sunday morning, there wasn't much else we could do. It was a crazy-long day, but fun.

I'm a bit bummed that most of my pictures came out crappy. Of course, I was scurrying around being a good hostess, so I had to force myself to remember to take pics, which may explain why they're blurry. But still.

I remembered to get a few shots before the party started. Here's Ari, posing with the partially-decorated table. We did a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme (what else?) using her toy as a centerpiece for the table.



A shot of the cake, which tasted just as awesome as it looked...



Tony, hanging up the birthday banner...



One of the goody bags we gave out. We've never done them before, and I wasn't going to do them this year, but Tony insisted, and who can argue with a Daddy when it comes to his little girl?



We got a few family shots before the party, and I'm glad we did, because I never would have gotten around to it during the party.



The best of the family shots... and Ivan decided to crash it. *sigh*



I love how she's looking over at Tony in this one...



This one cracks me up... I have no idea what this face was about but I promise, we were not squishing her head that badly...



The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and considering the un-summer-like weather we've had lately, that was no small miracle. By the time the party started, we had a good layer of shade in our "backyard" and almost everyone hung out outside.

And now, random party shots. Ari and her cousin Micah...



Ari and her posse hanging out at her picnic table...



After eating-time, it was present-opening-time... I promise, she was much more excited about it than she looks in this picture.



I believe this one was from Dave, Jess, and Micah...



I asked Ari to pose for me with this gift, and this is what she did. We were amused (as Tony is demonstrating)...



Yay for clothes! She got tons of clothes, and it's a good thing, since she's grown out of a lot of stuff lately. (Also, Nick cracks me up in this picture... I'm pretty sure he'd just gotten scolded for hovering too close to Ari, so it looks like he's walking sadly away.)



2 adorably awesome dresses...



And then it was cake time. And because I'm an idiot, I missed getting a shot of her actually blowing the candle out. But she did. All by herself, if I recall correctly.



I love hoops and yoyo--this card was from our friend Wayne. I asked her to show it to me, and this is what she did. I'm not sure what her deal is with peeking through things when I ask her to pose... maybe she's being artistic?



After we passed out pieces of cake to everyone, I went over to talk to Ari, who was sitting just like this, head on the table, looking all melancholy. I asked her if she was eating her cake, and she sadly said no. Then, just as sadly, she said, "I want to go and play." It seemed like she thought she had to stay put and eat her cake, like it was dinnertime or something. Yes, what a rough life she has, being forced to eat cake. (And yes, I gave her "permission" to go play, the silly thing.)



Tony had set up this inflatable giant basketball hoop thing outside, and I'm not sure anyone ever used it properly. Every time I looked, the kids were tackling it, like this.



Ari and Molly got into Ari's dress-up shoes, and were strutting around in them. I asked Ari to show me her shoes, and for some reason, she plopped onto the ground and gave me this oh-so-ladylike pose...



And then it was time to go swimming. Our apartment complex has an indoor pool, so that's where we all headed. I got a picture of Ari and Nick in the locker room--Kristin told Nick to put his arm around Ari.



And this is the shot you saw in yesterday's entry... my favorite one of the day. Mostly because it's the only one that came out clear.



Almost everyone swam for a little while, and then the party fizzled out as bedtimes drew near. All in all, though, it really went well--it seemed like everyone had fun, there were no major meltdowns or injuries, and there was plenty of food without being way too much.

And in other awesome news--Ari has been in big-girl underwear all day long for the past few days. We made a big deal out of buying her some on her birthday, and she's done so well. We're still putting her in a Pull-Up for bedtime/naptime, but she is doing fantastic during the day. She even wore her big-girl underwear to church yesterday and kept them dry. So all we need to do is get her to learn how to hold it when she's sleeping, and we are golden. I cannot wait.

Lovely, never ever change

From this...


(Birth Day--July 3, 2006)

..to this...


(1st birthday)

...to this...


(2nd birthday)

...to this.


(3rd birthday)

Her birthday party was today. Many, many more pictures to come.

When I put her to bed tonight, I asked her what she wanted me to sing, expecting her to say she didn't want me to sing. Instead, she laid her head on my shoulder, thought for a moment, and then said, "Someday" (known to the rest of the world as "The Way You Look Tonight").

That's "our" song. I can't remember the last time she asked for it.

The tears finally came as I sang the words "Lovely, never ever change, keep that breathless charm..."

I'm not entirely sure how I finished the song, to be honest.

Bedtime for me. Picture entry tomorrow.