The McGarys : Happy 4th!

Every 4th of July our ward has a flag raising ceremony and a breakfast. We sang patriotic hymns and ate a tasty pot luck. Someone always brings Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which I look forward to the most but there are also good homemade dishes. The "productions" they attempt to put on are hilarious because they're never rehearsed or very well prepared for. At one point a couple young women brought out a CD player to accompany everyone singing more patriotic hymns. There were lyrics printed out on every table but the handout only included the first couple verses of each song so the CD would continue a few lines into the third verse before they stopped it mid-sentence, realizing everyone had stopped singing because their lyrics ran out. Half the time the microphone wasn't working so most of the ward members didn't know what the heck was going on.

Later that evening we went to our friends' house for a small BBQ and fireworks in the street. A few minutes into setting up the camping chairs and stuff in the driveway it started raining, which no one expected. None of the news reports predicted rain on the 4th of July. Instead we grilled on the porch and played games inside. Let me tell you, playing Apples to Apples with six toddlers running all around us was an adventure. Luckily the hard rain didn't last all night so the boys were able to get their "Walmart special" firework fix and we lit sparklers to entertain the little ones. The fireworks scared the heck out of Kallie. She cried and clung to me the whole time. We've come to enjoy fireworks at home rather than watching the big public ones. No dealing with crowds or traffic. We had even put out a kiddie pool in the lawn thinking it would be blazing hot and a two-year-old named Rosie, who was NOT dressed for swimming but rather wearing a cute pink dress and white sandals, wandered into the pool and plopped right down on her bum.

We recently bought a new piece of living room furniture for Kallie: a bean bag chair! She hasn't quite warmed up to it yet but I need to take away her baby bouncer. She still sits on it all the time and I'm afraid she'll either break it or throw a HUGE fuss when her little sister is born and has the gull to use her chair.

Kallie found one of our CD holders and brought it up to me so I would unzip it for her. I didn't want her touching the CD's inside so instead I put the handle strap over her arm and she walked toward the door thinking it was a purse saying, "Babble babble GO! Car! Bye!". It was SO cute.

This week Kallie's friend Rosie celebrated her second birthday at a gymnastics area for toddlers called Gymboree. One of the employees carried out the "schedule" of the party by playing music when it was time for the kids to run around and have fun and then she rang a bell when it was time to gather the kids together for a short activity. I've never seen a birthday party like that before but it's a pretty neat idea for toddlers. Kallie's more comfortable spending a lot of time on a couple activities by herself rather than running around trying everything. When we brought her over to participate in the group activities she didn't always like it. As soon as we let her go she ran back to the slide she had already climbed up and down twenty times. When we sang "Happy Birthday" to Rosie and she was presented with her cake, instead of blowing out her candles she reached over to touch the flames. There was an audible "gasp" in the room as all the moms instinctively reached out their hands to push Rosie away from the candles. It was pretty funny.


Notice Kallie's onesie has a cupcake on it

Nowadays when a prayer is being offered not only does Kallie fold her arms but she says a prayer right along with the person actually offering it. Kallie did this during the whole closing prayer in sacrament meeting today.

Kallie's cut is doing very well and the doctor said her glue should fall off within 5-7 days of the accident but it's going on day 10 and it's still on her forehead. I've been wanting to rip the thing off for days because the edges have peeled away and it looks gross and ridiculous. We've tried a couple times but Kallie always fussed and ran away so today we decided to pin her down and actually take a good look at it. Once I had Kallie still it peeled off fairly easily. Of course she screamed the whole time but we followed up the procedure with lots of hugs and kisses. Kallie was holding a teddy bear so we put the peeled piece of glue onto the bear's forehead and Kallie did the CUTEST thing. She talked to the bear, pulled off the glue and then gave the bear lots of hugs and kisses.

July in Florida has kicked off with deathly hot weather. My new "thing" is going out to start the car about 15 minutes before we plan to leave so it has a chance to cool down. Yay.