Happy Fourth of July

Jared and I had a pretty laid back Fourth of July weekend.
 
On Sunday we went to church and left Claire in the nursery for the first time. I didn't like it very much. Jared had to let me hold the pager (in case she needed us) the whole time. I also tried to go and check on her once, but they have these safety doors that automatically lock until the end of the service -- which I fully support in theory, but they were keeping ME from my baby -- so I couldn't get in to see her. The nursery never paged us and she was asleep and being rocked when I went to pick her up. I am sure she was fine, but I am not sure I was. I think we might wait a few more weeks months before we take her back to the nursery. 

Sunday evening we had dinner with my parents and Jared's parents at the Wright compound. The food was good and it was fun having all the grandparents together with Claire. We also went swimming. Claire is so stinking cute in her little bathing suit and floaty. I also made a festive cake for the occasion.

We did buy some fireworks to set off on our way home from dinner, but it was late when we got home, so we decided to wait to set them off until the actual fourth.

On Monday we cleaned the house all morning because Jared had invited some guys over, but it ended up that no one could come and we just laid around (playing Dragon Age II and working on the blog) for most of the afternoon. It was a nice relaxing day as a family. Around 8:45 pm we took Claire outside and started setting off some of our fireworks. She seemed surprised about the noises, but she didn't ever get upset or cry. She was fascinated by the lights and flashes. We tried to give her a bottle while setting some off, but she was too distracted and we had to bring her inside to get her to finish and go to bed. Jared and I set off the rest of our fireworks and then called it a night.

(This is not a pic of our fireworks - some of our neighbors had some pretty spectacular fireworks though)

I hope everyone had a fantastic Fourth of July. Also, thank you, thank you to the men, women, and families that have and continue to sacrifice so much for my and my family's freedoms. I appreciate you more than I could ever put into words.