A Fun Fourth

We had a great Fourth of July this year.  Dutch is a little over 16 months old, so he can actually appreciate some of the festivities now.  Holidays are definitely more fun with a little one around.  My neighborhood puts on a parade and carnival, so we invited over my sister and her family to enjoy that with us.  It's pretty sweet to be able to walk just a block over and participate in the free events.  We set up shop in a neighbor's yard and enjoyed watching the floats, cars, kids on bikes, decorated dogs, and festive walkers go by.  Here was our group:

And here's a quick peek into what the parade was like:



The kids were pretty excited that candy was thrown at them!  I picked up a sucker and let Dutch experience that for the first time.  He enjoyed it!

Of course we tried to be festive for the 4th.  Dutch had on his cute red, white, and blue shirt.  He even humored me and wore these sunglasses for a brief minute:

My niece, Olivia, had gotten her nails painted red and blue a couple days prior.  She was so excited about them, that she asked my sister if I was home so they could drive by and show them to me.  It broke my heart that I wasn't home at the time, so I knew I had to make it up to her.  I painted my nails to match.  :)

After the parade was over, we headed to the carnival.  It had stands for free popcorn, snow cones, lemonade, and cotton candy.  It had a small petting zoo, a bounce house, and a kids craft area.  They gave out prizes to various parade participants and did a water balloon toss competition.  I was very impressed that my neighborhood put this on, and also very pleased that we chose to live here!

 

Dutch's favorite part was the petting zoo.  He cracked me up because he would point at each animal as it went by, like, "Mom!  Did you see that one??"

Later that day we decided to introduce Dutch to some fireworks.  We gave him poppers and he thoroughly enjoyed throwing them and hearing the bang.



Then we went outside and Daddy put on a mini-fireworks show.  Dutch was enthralled.  I can't wait until he gets a little older and we can stay out late and show him a real fireworks show.



In the afternoon, we headed over to our friends' house to swim.  Dutchie had a great time in the pool, but he did get a little jealous when the big boys were playing ball in the pool. Such a sweetheart.