The 4th on the 5th...or something like that.

I just downloaded a few hundred pictures to my computer. As I contemplated posting them in order of occurrence, the thought crossed my mind that you probably aren't going to be interested about the 4th of July come September when I finally catch up...hey, you probably aren't even interested in the 4th today...but here it is anyway. Earlier photos are just going to have to wait.

This marked the 4th year that our family paired up with my sister's family and participated in our town's Independence Day Children's Parade. The idea is that you decorate your bike, wagon, stroller, motorized Jeep, or whatever and walk a couple of blocks with your kids, while pretending not to melt. Then you find a shady spot at the end to enjoy hotdogs, popcorn and lemonade while trying to convince your kids that although the bounce house slide is white, it will surely burn their backside all the way down.

Last year's celebration can be found here. Thank God I wasn't blogging the previous year...when we attended two days prior to having Jade. My Old Navy t-shirt just didn't do justice for my belly that year. (Oh, my! I just went to grab the link for that post. Lo and behold, I had gone back and scanned in pictures of my pregnant self for that post. Why, oh why?!?)

This year we didn't stay long because Jade's party followed the parade. I will be rethinking that for future years. Nothing like greeting guests while completing drenched in sweat and smelling your absolute finest.

Here is our day in pictures:

Little Sis in her red and blue. Never mind the fact that she wanted to wear sister's yellow flipflops.

Big sister ready to go.

Doing a little decorating.

3 cousins on the stairs.
The family.
Heading to the starting line-up.

Kelly and Avery getting pics before the sweat started dripping. Who am I kidding? That started on the way from the door to the car.

Sisters.

Waiting in the shade before the signal to begin.

And we're off.

I wish I could have fit in the wagon. Jerry is glad I didn't.

The grandparents reluctantly came out of the shade too.

We weren't the only ones enjoying the 101 degree heat.

I'm sure Jade was wishing she had a thumbsicle.

Later my mom said, "Well, Kerry, I'm glad I got to experience this with you guys...ONCE".

At least we weren't wearing spray painted fur.

Jade cooling off Papa with some ice water.

She got such a kick out of dripping water on his face and legs.

We headed home on a shady trail.

And Jade traded her thumb for a bottled water.

Hey, she's an aging woman...staying hydrated is important to ward off those wrinkles.

Hello there.

Wow. This week flew by.

I was reminded tonight by my one faithful blog reader, my mom, that I hadn't posted all week. She had been hoping to see pictures of a special wedding we were a part of last weekend. Oh yes, those pictures and tons of other ones are all awaiting download. Multiple posts are swimming in my head, but we've been too busy actually swimming and living life to pause and record it.

Round 3 of swimming lessons are over for Lily. I broke my own rule though and purchased 4 private lessons. I know, I know. I said I was ready for a break. But I can see a glimmer of hope in her and feel like we should capture the momentum. Shoot, we've been at this since January, whats a few more dollars and days now?

We spent the morning at the pool as a family today and she was gaining confidence by the minute. Jade was the superstar though...that child is fearless. We had so much fun.

Tomorrow it is off to the town's children's parade and festivities and then back home for Jade's second birthday party. My baby will be two on Monday. *tear*

It will be a simple Winnie the Pooh party with some backyard water balloon fun. My Mom and Jerry are really hating me now for wanting to do the water balloons. So far my excuse for not joining them has worked. I seriously CANNOT tie a balloon...not even a regular balloon...much less a water balloon.

So I am paying my mom and her sore fingers back with this little post. Thanks for all your help Mom!

I am going back to living life...here's to getting it all recorded later! Enjoy your holiday!

I guess we're not sweet enough to melt...

or else we definitely would have by now. It is so stinkin' hot. 10 degrees above normal all week means we have broken 100 daily. It takes 1/2 an hour to cool down the car as your back sweats and your kids complain and you lose your mind.

It is 6:30 AM here and I just went outside to water some flowers. After being greeted by the curtain of death I decided I better change into my swimsuit and try again later...when the hot breeze begins to blow. When the swimming pools feel like bathwater at 9AM, you know the only relief is to just stay indoors.

We are doing just that. We've been spending time coloring under the fan while the A/C blows full blast.

Check out these new color rolls my aunt made for the girls.

I'm sure she has a much cuter name for them, but that's what is coming to my mind at this fine summer hour. Stay tuned because when she gets her website up and running, she's planning on doing a giveaway here. She is so crafty...these little color rolls are a work of art themselves.

We've also been practicing new hairdos. My poor children were born to a hair challenged mama. You know your husband has embraced this fact when you find him trying to fix your 4 year old's hair with a stack of Wikipedia pages next to him entitled "How to Braid Hair". God love that man. I sure do.

I did manage to get Jade's locks into a little pony. Meet Bam-Bam.

Bam-Bam has been a wonderful observer all week at Lily's swimming lessons.

As far as news on that front. Hmm...well, she's the oldest one of the four and the only one with previous swimming lesson experience. Yet, she's without a doubt the most behind. I like this coach though and going every day versus once a week is giving me a glimmer of hope. I'm still sticking to my guns though and giving myself a break from lessons after this session.

This session has been fun though...there are twins in our class and then a private lesson with triplet girls going on next to us. Makes me thankful I don't have identical triplets of Lily...I seriously can't imagine swimming lesson stress x 3!

Well, I'm off to enjoy a heat advisory with a side of ozone alert...make yours a good day too.

Glutton for punishment...swimming lesson style.

Remind me, what are the purpose of swimming lessons?

Oh, yeah. To learn how to do that "s" word. Swim? No, swim wasn't actually the "s" word I was thinking of. Survival was the word on my mind.

We have survived two 8 week sessions since January and I am feeling like a glutton for punishment by enrolling her in yet another session. Obviously I don't have a future swim team member on my hands here, but I would like her to be able to survive if she ever accidentally fell in some water deeper than 18 inches. 16 lessons later and we still aren't at the point of flipping over and swimming to the side.

To Lily's credit, she has overcome a lot of her fears and will on occasion put her face in the water. It is in a quick plunging manner though that has caused us to have our first bout with swimmer's ear...kind of odd for a non-swimming kid.

Also to her credit, we haven't exactly had the perfect coaching situation. We've experienced 4 different coaching changes over those two sessions which is enough to confuse any child I'm sure.

Remember this post? Well, we started out with a guy so young that I swear his mother must have been dropping him off to teach the lessons. So I made a change to a young mom who was excellent. Lily started to build a rapport with her and things were on the up and up. See these pictures? She is actually off the step and in the water...big improvement over this.



It takes a lot of effort to float on your back and keep your ears out of the water at the same time.

Then the club abruptly changed instructors which brought us to another guy who was easy on the eyes but not so great on the lessons. Yet again another staffing change delivered a sweet grandmotherly woman who Lily simply didn't respond to. Sadly, 4 months of dragging two kids to the gym for lessons at the crack of each Monday dawn didn't produce many results.

Although I'm not asking for prayer for her swim coach like I did in January, please keep us in mind as we try another venue this afternoon and hopefully stick with the same coach for these next two weeks of daily lessons. Third time is the charm, right?

And if it's not? This mom is thinking of a "d" word. No, not drowning....just DONE...I plan on being done with swim lessons regardless of how all this turns out...until it is time to put Jade in of course. Notice how I wait until they are old enough to do it on their own? Mommy and me swim lessons just do not sound fun. If I'm going to be dealing with a screaming and kicking child, I'd prefer to be humiliated while fully clothed. Thank you very much.

Surprising Dad

Let's face it. December birthdays are not the best. My dad is blessed with one such birthday...a whopping two days before Christmas.

As hard as we try to separate the two occasions, they often blur together as one celebration. I'm not a fan of giving him combo gifts and always make sure to find some birthday paper amid the sea of red and green Christmas wrapping that is going on. Sadly though, even with different paper and putting the gifts as far from the Christmas tree as possible, his birthday never seems to get enough significant attention as its own meaningful event.

I was determined to make that different when he turned 60 last December. But as the holiday rush and madness hit, coupled with our trip to Disney World, my determination waned. Plus, how do you squeeze a big birthday bash in among all the other holiday parties and expect it to be well attended?

I now have an answer for that. You throw a surprise 60 1/2 birthday party 6 months later. I guess you could say the surprise part was pretty easy...who would be expecting a party in June for their December birthday?

Needless to say, he was shocked. And after the initial blow was just setting in, he went around the corner to find 3 of his siblings and a couple of their spouses who had traveled down from Wisconsin for the event...something that would have been hard for them to do in December.

He basically spent the whole evening in utter amazement of how we pulled it all off without him catching wind of it at all.

It was PERFECT.

The cake was ready.

The food was ready.


The paparazzi were ready.

He finally came in the door. (My sister got a great pic from her angle...hoping to switch it out soon ;) hint, hint!)


Video of his entrance, his first question? "Who cut the grass?"...classic dad.

The second shock of his siblings in the next room.

Here is a slide show of the rest of the pictures. If you're interested in captions, run your mouse over each picture. If you want it to go faster, just click the + sign.

A special thanks to Kim for hosting it at their house and keeping it a secret so well. She did a wonderful job! And of course it was extra special to have that many people traveling down from Wisconsin for the party...thanks so much y'all!

We love you dad and can't think of a better way to have spent Father's Day weekend!