July 4th

Happy July 4th!  We had a busy day today.  Rhett was home and that just felt weird since it's Wednesday.  I kept thinking it was Saturday!

This morning, Rhett went over to a neighbor's house to help him install a ceiling fan.  He took Caleb with him and he played with their kids who are 6 and 2.5.  Caleb had a blast but I don't think Rhett did...took them about 3 hours to get this ceiling fan installed.  Normally it would only take maybe 45 minutes to an hour, but they ran into some problems.  Aubrey and I stayed home and while she napped, I finished up the last of the wallpaper removal in our master bath.  We are knee deep in updating our master bath - oh my!  It has been......probably the worst home project we've done.  All I have to say is WALLPAPER.  Have you ever tried tearing that stuff down?  and then re-texturing the walls?  It is not fun....but that is another post entirely!

Anyway, Mark and Megan came over (Rhett's sister and her hubby) and while Megan studied for midterms, Mark helped Rhett work on the crown moulding in the master bath.  Well, we thought we were going to do crown moulding, but it did not work out.  After they worked on it for several hours, they gave up because we have some really crazy wall and ceiling angles in the bathroom.  It would have taken FOREVER to do it right and even then, there would have been some sketchy areas.  Rhett decided it wasn't worth it and so we scrapped that.  Then they had to remove what they had gotten up and in the process, parts of the wall (that we had just finished re-texturing) got damaged....so then Rhett had to repair those areas, wait for that to dry well enough, and then re-texture again.  Oh man, it is a process!  We are hoping to put the first coat of paint on tomorrow night.  I will try to do a post on the update when we're done!

So other than that, I did not get too much done because my little lady gets her diaper in a bunch when "strangers" (aka, anyone other than mama, daddy or Caleb) come over.  She gets so needy and just wants me to hold her or sit right next to her if anyone is over.  She has the worst stranger anxiety EVER...and yes, to her, family members are strangers, ha!  I really hope she gets over this soon!  I tried to take a picture of her to use for her birthday invitations (so behind on planning that!!), but that wasn't the easiest task to do alone.  Plus, it was HOT outside and she was a little iffy about sitting in the grass.  In the end, I got one that is good enough to use but not exactly what I had in mind.  Oh well.  I also wanted to take pics of the kiddos in their red, white and blue!  HAHA!!  Try taking pics of a fussy, hot little girl and a wiggly little boy.  Not easy.  Needless to say, I would not make a good photographer....at least not for babies and children.  I do not have the patience.

We grilled burgers and hotdogs for dinner, then Megan and Mark went home.  By that time, it was bath and bedtime for the kids.  We got Aubrey in bed and then I went out to the garage to paint bathroom cabinet doors.  It sounded like WWIII outside with all the fireworks.  Kinda was wishing we had a burn ban this year, ha!  I used to love doing fireworks but now that we have little ones, I am not crazy about them because they are loud and happen after bedtime!  But I will say, we have two kids who seem to be able to sleep through them!  Anyway, Rhett put Caleb down and then came outside to see the fireworks.  We decided to get Caleb back up so he could see them too (he'd only been down for a few minutes).  We walked across the street to a neighbor's yard and watched from there.  Caleb loved it and kept shouting "wow!" and pointing out the "big ones" when he would see them.  The neighbor's daughter did some small ones in the street and he liked those too.  He also got to hold a sparkler for the first time and loved that.  I did not get any pics but wish I had.  He had fun!  Around 10pm, he said he wanted to go to sleep.....um yes, that is a sign that my child is beyond tired because he never wants to go to sleep at night!  (he did not nap today, so he was extra tired).

So anyway, we had a busy work day but ended with some all American fun!  Maybe next year, Aubrey can watch the fireworks too!

Here are the few pics I got of the kids in their patriotic colors.  Aubrey was infatuated with her dress and picking grass...oh and playing with her hairbow that she pulled off!  She was not interested in looking at the camera.

The only one I got where they were both looking in the general direction of the camera!

Caleb being a goober!

She did NOT want to wear her bow!

This started out sweet......

.....and ended in tears.  That little one is a drama queen!

"Mom, I told you I do not want to wear this bow!"

love those squishy cheeks!

what a sweetie!

look at those eye lashes

and two little teeth

and her very slow-growing hair!  :-)

my sweet boy!  (if only he was as innocent as he looks...)

why do little boys have such pretty eye lashes!?  I am jealous.