Thursday, July 05, 2007

Independence Day photo blog

9:30 am: We arrive at the designated parade-watching site and settle in.

Henry digs in to his two huge donuts- picking them apart from the outside-in. (At the donut table, Bill told him "take one" and Henry attempted to carry off ONE BOX of donuts. Hee hee.)

Thomas, usually subdued at first in a new situation, sits down to watch.
This is Henry's "excited" pose. He waves his arms and kicks his feet as he watches the parade. It doesn't get much better in Henry's world. (Or mine either, come to think of it.)
Thomas livens up a little and retrieves some of the candy thrown from the passing floats. He did a great job chewing several pieces of bubble gum without swallowing them.

Henry eventually can sit no more. He runs out to wave at the passing parade.

Thomas' sugar begins to kick in. It's becoming harder to get a picture.
Got some excited energy to burn? How about attacking Daddy?

Henry would run back and forth, waving to the folks in the parade and then coming to report to us on what he had seen.
"They waved back at me!" He would say, "this is the best parade I ever saw!" (Until next year, I'm sure.)

The only downside to this holiday for us was that we were home from the parade by 11 a.m. The next event on the boys' radar was the fireworks: just 11 short hours away. We spent a lot of time yesterday talking about the clock, and answering the question "is it getting dark yet?"

A thunderstorm at 3 pm didn't help either- it meant that we couldn't go to the playground to kill some time. Next year we will have to plan some other events to get us through the day.

This next picture is one of my new very favorites. Kate came along with us to the fireworks and I can't remember the last time she did that. She's usually at her mom's house on the 4th or just too cool to hang out with us!

So here she is with the boys, waiting for the fireworks to start. They did not disappoint!

Thomas cried when the fireworks were over. Henry asked "why is Tommy crying?" After I explained it, Henry went over, put his hand on Tommy's shoulder, bent over and tilted his head in order to look Tommy in the face, and said "It's all right, Tommy." What a great big brother!

10 comments:

kristen spina said...

Gretchen, this is beautiful. And a beautiful family too. Sounds like it was a nice day.

kristina said...

Sounds like a sizzling, and satisfying, 4th!

Anonymous said...

Awww I LOVE your Fourth of July!!!

Niksmom said...

Wow. What a wonderful day...even with the rain and 11 hours to kill! So glad Kate joined you; seems to be a sign of some progress there? :-)

GClef1970 said...

I LOVED this! The pic of Henry running out to wave cracked me up because that.is.so.Conor!

I also loved the fuzzy pic of sugar buzzing Thomas and the photo of the boys attacking Daddy.

But, my favorite one of all is the fireworks picture. How cute is little Thomas in his Superman shirt and his arms tucked behind his head?!

Mamaroo said...

Very cute! I love all the pictures and reading about your 4th.

By the way, I got a very nice surprise in the mail today. Thanks so much!!!

Maddy said...

What a great post - super to see you all.
Pretty soon you too will master the art of count downs in minutes. [I'm working on converting my count downs in minutes to count downs in seconds - the mathematically challenged person]

KC's Blog said...

Hi Gretchen, your kids are so adorable! It looks like a super 4 th of July!

tulipmom said...

I enjoyed reading about and "seeing" your day. Great pics!

Lora said...

Hi Gretchen, sorry I haven't been around in awhile, I have enjoyed catching up on what you all have been doing though and it looks like you all had a great Fourth of July........love the pics! Take care my friend, hugs!!!!!!!!