Fun on the 4th (& 5th)!

After much anticipation around the Ward household, the 4th of July finally came!  We've been reading a book about different parades throughout the year and every time Amelia would get to the Independence Day parade page, she would say, "Parade!  Me go!  Me go!".  And, the parade did not disappoint! As we have for many years before, we met Jason's family along the parade route in Bridgeton.  GG and Papa even came this year!  Amelia was decked out in her cute "pillow case" dress that GG made for her.  She brought her Elmo bucket and the highlight for her seemed to be snagging the candy and putting it in Elmo.  By the time the parade was over, Elmo's head was overflowing!

She enjoyed 3 suckers during the parade alone!  Normally, this is WAY MORE than mom would allow, but she was so fast getting the wrappers off, it all happened before we could stop her!

 She also really, really liked waving her flag and waving to those passing by in the parade!

Later that night, we had GG and Papa over for BBQ pork steaks, tomato crostini, corn, broccoli salad, brownies, and fudge pops.  

After a quick bath, we then made our way over to Grandma and Papa's house to watch the fireworks from their yard.  Unfortunately, Amelia was all talk and when the time came, she wanted nothing to do with being outside.  We spent about 90 seconds of trying to convince her the fireworks were "pretty" and to try to get her to watch them, the whole time she was saying in a frantic voice, "inside, inside".  Here's grandma escorting Amelia to "safety":

On the way home, of course, we spotted numerous firework displays and she kept saying, "more fireworks".  So, we pulled over in a parking lot to watch from the car and once again, she was through with the whole thing! Oh, the drama!

Amelia finally got to bed around 10:30 Friday evening and didn't get up until 10:30 Saturday morning!  Jason and I got tons of yard work done while Amelia was snoozing away.  After naps, we headed to our friend Andrea's house for a BBQ.  Amelia enjoyed playing around with Andrea's cats, chasing bunnies in the yard, and catching lightning bugs. (Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I have no cute pics of these things).  When all the other party-goers headed out to go see the St. Charles fireworks, we went home figuring we would not be successful again in getting Amelia to watch them.  Of course, at our house, day 17 of the fireworks extravaganza went on until well after midnight.  Although, given our busy schedule for the previous two days, Amelia did not seem to notice and fell asleep immediately!