Happy Fourth of July!

I love this holiday. But I have serious issues with it here in AZ. First of all today's forecast showed a high of 109. Hardly the kind of weather you want to get out and celebrate in. My friend Renae did her very best to drag us out last night to enjoy some fireworks and though we spent the evening marinating in our own juices the fireworks were worth it. I miss sparklers. How can you be a kid on the 4th of July without sparklers? There is just something about writing your name midair with a sparkler to make the holiday seem official.

Because we are without family close we celebrated today with just the five of us. Alexia and I went to the store for the ingredients our traditional red, white, and blue jello calls for. While there I decided to call Darren and tell him to open his anniversary gift from me over the phone. I know - it's a few days early - but I'm going to miss it anyway while I'm in NM helping my mom after her knee operation. I bought him an ice cream maker over a week ago and since he mentioned this morning wanting to buy one today in order to make homemade ice cream for the holiday I thought I'd just let him have it. I also wanted to pick up anything I might need for it while I was there at the store. The kids and I had wrapped it and hidden it in the house in order for him to have something to open while we were gone. I handed Alexia the cell phone and told her to tell daddy where it was hidden.

"Daddy, go in the living room and in the enematainacenter on the left under the TV it's there." Daddy opened it while we were on the phone and we finished our shopping.

Let it be known that this might just be the last hold out of cute words Lexi says. When she was younger it sounded more like "inna-taina-senna." Her aunt Becca and I used to make her say it over and over because we thought it was the cutest thing ever. I'll be so sad when it goes too. Anyway tonight at the dinner table I asked her again to tell dad where we had hidden his present in an attempt to hear her pronunciation of the word.

"I told dad to go to the enema-taina-center (it has evolved it seems) and get it out of the cupboard under the TV."

Darren knew what I was getting at... "Lexi, it's enter-tain-ment-center."

"I know dad, I've just got an accent."

HA! I almost snorted when I heard this.

Here are a few pictures from our 4th of July celebrations:

Lexi and her bff Kalissa just before the fireworks began last night. Man my night shots are bad.

The highlight of our festivities here in AZ - RED WHITE & BLUE JELLO - designed by Lexi this year and never eaten by Parker.

With Liberty and Justice for All!

Let's eat! On the menu tonight Catfish and Shrimp on the barbie!

On a totally unrelated note these are Lijah's feet. This is what I spent most of Wednesday looking at. Poor baby couldn't keep anything down and just wanted to lay on me all day long. My children know that my lap is strictly off limits during the months of June, July, August and part of September. It is just too dang hot! But he ignored my rule and camped out all day moaning and groaning and making me look at his cute little feet. Seriously I was so in love with his little feet at the end of the day I was snapping pictures like crazy. My favorite part? The absence of dirt under the nails because of the uber hotness going on outside. I could just eat these toes.