Fourth of July fun!

I know. I know.  Someone's seriously behind on blogging, but what can I say, I don't blog well in heat waves (I can't concentrate well when I have a steady stream of sweat pouring from the top of my head down my back all.day.long. ...and my duties at home have kept me busy till the point of "It's too late and I'm WAY too tired to post" so while I've wondered how you all pull it off, I've pushed aside my envy of those more organized and instead I've stored all those ideas up in my head and hope to send all my little posts out into the blogosphere soon. 

All belated and out of order-like, ...but oh well.

Anyhow... Fourth of July (Let's post on the 9th of July, Marijanna style!  For all those who know me in real life, you know punctuality is simply NOT one of my strongest attributes) still gonna link up with Cari, though!

My Momma in Law sent a text on the 4th that said

"Happy 4th of July!  Celebrate your Freedom!" 

...and we did.  Well, most of the day, poor Shaun took advantage of this rare day off and got seriously caught up on yard work in the weather that reached upper 90's and was sprinkled with a KEG load of humidity.  ...but he felt so good when he was done and everything looked SOooo very nice.

We decided to keep the girls in another year from the fireworks as it was WAY past their bedtime and Shaun still needed to be up around 3:30am for work the next day, so no fireworks this year.  They were fast asleep when the first booms began.

Still we had fun! 

We don't mess around here... we survey the situation...

...and plunge right in!

Ava's great pleasure as of late is to practice the art of...

 

Humble silence you wonder?

No no, people!  SCREAMING!!!

Can you hear it?

Now?  Now can you hear it?

 

It's that beautiful...

Shrill...

(take a coughing fit/breather)

and start up again...

High Octave...

Toddler scream.

 

That keeps going and going and going. 

Did you think I was done???

Oh NO!  I am...

 

Celebrating...

My FREEDOM...

to use my "outside voice".

Hmphf.  Perfection!

Did I mention my neighbors just LOVE that? 

Then there's Clara, who loves her sister's serenades.

Daddy's girl.

Got my patriotism on!

Ok, "wiggle wiggle" let me at that water!

I'm ready to take after my sister!

Just warming up!

And just for all you bloggers who thing EVERYONE looks amazing after two back to back babies... not all of us look fabulously fit...

...but this Mommy sure is happy with her girls.  (I was doing anything I possibly could to try to cool off)

Coming in for the night, Ava "read" stories to her sister.

She'll sit for a long while in here just "reading" to Clara.

She's so gentle with her!  Thank God for great big sisters.

All day I kept thinking of that line "Celebrate your freedom" and while looking at my TWO beautiful girls I thought of the other parts of our world where girls are not considered such a blessing as they are here.  I tried to love them like crazy to make up for it in some small way and thanked God that even when our country seems to quickly be going to hell in a hand basket... I am blessed with the freedom to celebrate a family full of GIRL children with great joy!