Fourth of July

I love the Fourth of July! There's nothing like blowing stuff up to show your patriotism. :) And this year aerial fireworks are legal in Utah! Not that we really paid a whole lot of attention to that in years past... we may or may not have gone to Wyoming to buy pyrotechnics that may or may not have been legal... Anyway the point is that we're going to explode some stuff tonight and I'm really looking forward to it!

I always complain about how Utah never celebrates holidays on the actual holiday but this year it actually works in my favor. I work the 3rd and 4th (gotta love those holiday requirements) but the city is doing the fireworks show on the 2nd so I'll be working for holiday pay and not missing anything. I'm just not sure how Mira will handle fireworks so we'll see how that goes. Fingers crossed!

Here are some pics of Mira. She wants to sit up but doesn't have the upper body strength yet, and loves when you hold her so she can stand. It's really cute but eventually I need to go do something that requires the use of hands and her bouncy chair isn't quite as entertaining as it used to be. The other day I went to Kid 2 Kid and found this super cute walker for a really good deal. Her toes just barely touch the floor and she hasn't quite figured out how to make it move yet but she loves that she can be upright and looking around, plus the steering wheel is really tasty.

Driving the walker.

Checking her blind spot before changing lanes.

She loves to talk and she's always smiling! She hardly ever cries and she's been sleeping through the night for several weeks now. That newborn period really is exhausting and I didn't realize it until she grew out of it. She's getting chunky and I absolutely love it! Babies should be chubby and it's nice to see mine finally getting there. She has dimples in her elbows and forearm fat that hangs over her wrists and some really satisfying fat rolls in her thighs. In fact her thighs are so fat I can't get my hand around them anymore! I don't know what it is about fat baby thighs but I just can't get enough of it.

As you can see she's getting better at grabbing things and of course they all go straight for her mouth. It's so satisfying and reassuring for me to watch her hit her milestones and develop normally. For a paranoid PICU nurse it seriously puts my mind at ease! You worry enough as it is and it's worse when you work in a PICU and all you see is the really awful stuff. It's just crazy that this is the same little baby from a few months ago! Four months really isn't a long time but for babies it's just full of change. They go from being demanding, helpless, lumpy little blobs to miniature people with a budding personality. It's just mind-boggling. I have to admit that being a mom is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Everyone told me that having kids is so much fun but, like many things in life, I didn't get it until I experienced it myself.

The Fourth of July weekend is also full of memories for us because it was just this time last year that we found out I was pregnant. We drove to Evanston to buy some fireworks and I was just so carsick on the drive up. I get carsick really easily and usually have trouble on that drive anyway but that time it was just beyond awful. I could barely concentrate on looking for fireworks because I was so worried I was going to barf. We stayed for dinner at a restaurant and I ate exactly 2 bites of food before calling uncle. The car ride home was horrendous too. And the funny thing is that even then it didn't occur to me that I might be pregnant! I think it was the next day I took a test just to see and lo and behold it was positive. I'll admit that my reaction was to have an all-out panic attack. I couldn't be excited because I was so scared. And then just a few days later The Drama happened... That's a whole post by itself and don't worry, I'll write about it. But it definitely makes me nostalgic getting ready to make another Evanston run for fireworks.

Everyone have an awesome holiday!