The 4th of July!

Scott and I are kind of lazy holiday celebrators by nature. We're trying to rectify this now that Jane is starting to notice that all of the other kids have cooler parents than hers. We did a pretty good job this year at celebrating the 4th of July. Well... other than the fact that we ate tacos for dinner. Sorry, the pregnant lady gets what the pregnant lady wants.

We started off with patriotic waffles:


and while Jane isn't much for mornings (unless it involves a pile of animals/blankets and watching a movie) she thought that the waffles were pretty awesome. Especially since they came with "bewwys".

Because "bewwys" can turn a cranky toddler into this (sorry it won't flip):


We decided to kick off our Fourth by walking down to the Tosa Parade, a longstanding tradition in Milwaukee that we have somehow managed to miss every year.

On our way through our neighborhood we passed our very own neighborhood "parade" which actually was a bunch of cute neighbor kids who decorated their bikes/scooters/wagons with flags and received a POLICE ESCORT through the neighborhood. It was awesome. They were SO excited. They had a cop car (with lights going) at front and back and a motorcycle patrolling in the middle.

Jane actually really enjoyed the parade. She made friends with another little girl (who was very sweet and probably around 6) and REALLY loved that people brought their dogs to the parade. She spent the majority of her time trying to pet every dog she saw (which was a lot). Everyone was so nice and let her-- she was in heaven.




On our way home we passed our park and arrived just in time to see a firetruck shoot off it's hose for kids to run and play in. I hadn't seen anything like it! The water shot SO FAR into the sky (probably around 50 feet).




Scott, since he is the fun parent in Jane's book took her in her stroller and ran through the water.


We spent our afternoon at Fred's eating delicious food and hanging out with good friends. The weather was perfect, not too hot for the parade, but plenty hot for swimming.

We closed out our day with sparklers and smores around a campfire with our neighbors. I was lazy and didn't take any pictures, but we sure had fun. It really was the perfect fourth.


& a random picture of one of Jane's random quirks:
She is kind of a hoarder and will often try to bring all of her favorite "treasures" around with her wherever she goes. This particular day I had gotten out of the shower to find that she had decided to camp out in the bathroom with all of her treasures and wait for me.