4th of July Weekend

My poor, neglected blog. We've continued to have an extremely busy spring/summer (not to mention exceptionally rainy!!) and while it's been fun, I've missed recording a lot of fun events. I wrote my "Zachary's 7 Month Birthday" post in my head about 10 times, but never got to write it down. Important to report in that post was that he is now a pro at sitting (since about 6 1/2 months) and now prefers to sit on his mat and play with his toys. He's also begun playing peek-a-boo (video to post later), imitating sounds like BaaBaa and DaDa, and his favorite game...coughing. Seriously, he thinks it's funny if you make a coughing sound and will cough to try to make others cough. It's hysterical...especially the way he cracks up laughing about it. Of course, he's never happier than he is when he's playing with his sister, and they both continue to play beautifully together.

This past weekend was full of excitement for the whole family! On Thursday we went to the circus with Daddy, Gigi and Poppy, and Lexi's best friend Riley and Riley's family. We all had a blast, and even Zachary seemed to enjoy the show, with the exception of the portion that he slept through.

On Friday evening we went to the common to set-up for the road race, and enjoy the little concert. Lexi had a blast dancing around, and even found some of her friends there to play with. Saturday was the 4th of July. This was such a big day for Lexi!! It began with her running her very first road race!! She did great, with the small exception of the fact that she tried to dive across the finish line, and landed on her knees. It upset her, but after we all joked with her for awhile about how you shouldn't try to dive across the finish line, she thought it was pretty funny...and I bet it won't deter her from doing another race soon. After the race we had a quick wardrobe change and she participated in the doll carriage parade. We didn't realize that this would be geared more towards really little kids (it was VERY short) so we decided that next year we'll do the bike parade instead. After all that work we had a yummy lunch on the common, and then it was off to the pony rides. Just a few weeks ago Lexi did not want anything to do with the pony's at her friend's pony party because they were too tall. Last week she agreed to go on the pony, but had to go on the smallest pony they had. Suddenly on Saturday she because Lexi Courageous because she waited in a long line specifically so that she could ride the biggest pony they had!! I walked with her, but she held on by herself and had a HUGE smile the whole way! We topped of the day with some fantastic fireworks in the evening. Again we were worried that Lexi might be too scared of them, but she surprised us again by absolutely loving them, and even picking out which ones were her favorite. Zachary also loved the fireworks, and sat in my lap watching the whole show. Every few minutes he would look up at me with awe, as though he couldn't believe we had brought him to see something so spectacular!!

It was just a fantastic weekend all around. The beautiful weather is finally here, and we plan to enjoy every minute of it. As soon as Zachy wakes up from his nap, we're off to the pond for the afternoon. We LOVE summer!!