::july the fourth part 3::

Whenever I do a multiple part post I always get really stalled out. I need to stop doing it. But those extra long posts are probably just as dang bad. Anyway, here's the last part of the fourth, a super fun day.
SPARKLERS!

This was extra fun because Sandy has never done or seen sparklers and Max hasn't done them since 2010. Good old wildfire danger. So the boys were very excited and charmed.






Max didn't remember that you could draw stuff in the camera with your sparkler. And my little camera did an awesome job capturing it all.



Max was working up to writing his name. He was trying hard.


This circley thing of Sandy's is spectacular!



Max never quite got his name written, but he got awfully close. So cute.
That was a blast to do the sparklers, eat the smores, hang out and watch the concert in DC with the big fireworks on PBS. After that we put the little ones to bed and let Max stay up. Our new house has an awesome view across all of Santa Fe, and we had heard that the fireworks show at the high school was supposed to be really visible from our area. Boy was it ever. At about 10 it started up and it looked great from our back porch. We watched the whole show, ooohing and aaahing just like we were supposed to and then we closed it all up and headed into bed.
All in all it was a great 4th. I couldn't have asked for better. We even had a delicious BBQ that I forgot to mention and Kris went on a bike ride and I went on a run. It was great.

::july the fourth part 2::

We had a great day of swimming, watching the hot dog eating contest, a little running for me, a little bike riding for Kris and some hamburgers.
When dusk fell it was time for some fireworks to finish off the day right. They boys were so excited because we haven't done any sort of fireworks for ages. Maybe since Max was a brand new baby. They're not illegal here but they just don't sell them--probably because of the fire risk. Anyway, Kris was out of town and found some sparklers and a few other things. I found smoke bombs and pops at Target so we were well supplied. We did have kind of a strange assortment of stuff, but at least we had stuff.
Lucy and I took a seat and watched the proceedings.



Sandy was very very excited about the smoke bombs. He kept calling them smoke balls.

He jumped and danced around in the smoke until the moment when he got some in his mouth--yuck.



It was great except that the smoke kept blowing right on Lucy and I of course.
Then we took a break for smores, which were delicious as always. I think they were Sandy's first smores.


The firecrackers were too scary, so we didn't do many of those. Well, if you're Sultan all of it was too scary. He wouldn't come out of the front gate to the driveway.
Kris had some of those little tank fireworks to do next. The boys thought they were really fun. They make me nervous because they roll around, but it's true, they are fun.


Then we tried these weird tall fountain things and realized they shot way up in the air. So we put the rest of those away. No forest fires for us.
It was cool looking though.

One more part, coming up as soon as I can make it happen!!

::july the fourth mezzanine::

Not quite part two, but like an interlude. This photo deserves a post all it's own.

It just illustrates the Max/Lucy relationship perfectly. They really love each other. He coos and goes goo-goo over her. If she's crying and he comes over she stops. If she's unhappy in the car and he sits next to her she's quite the whole way home just staring at his face. If she's crying in the house he comes running over to see if he can help.

Yes, it's adorable.

::july the fourth part 1::

First, Lucy in stars & stripes:

In a moment of weakness Kris and I took the family shopping on fourth of July morning. Well, the weakness wasn't in the shopping, it was in what we bought WHILE we were shopping.
WE went looking for BBQ supplies and some sort of polish water toy sort of thing that we could put in the courtyard next to the kitchen so that the kids could have a fun weekend.
We didn't have a ton of places to look, and it kind of turned out it was either a smallish thing or a largeish thing. So after much deliberation and checking amazon reviews we decided to go with the largish thing. And by largish I mean QUITE LARGE.
When we got home the boys were immediately in their swimming suits and waiting extremely impatiently for Kris to set it all up.
It was torture just to make them eat lunch. You can imagine how hard it was to make them stand still for sunscreen!


Lucy looked on of course. She thinks everything is either super interesting or super boring these days.

The set up really wasn't too bad--a lot quicker than I was afraid of. But not quick enough for the boys of course.



And up it went! It's like a bouncy house waterslide castle thing. A blower has to blow the whole time it's on, and little sprinklers run pouring water down the slide all the time. That water fills up the little pool area.


The boys were SO happy. Check out Sandy jumping.

Sooooo happy. Sandy kept running up to us at the edge of the pool and saying, "I love this new thing!!"


Kris and I pulled up a couple of chairs in the shade and enjoyed the show.

The boys spent all afternoon out in the freezing cold water and had a blast. It may be the best remembered Independence day ever for the kiddos. I guess we'll find out.

::in which sandy truly enjoys some chocolate ice cream::

It was wednesday night. I was feeding Lucy and getting her ready for bed back in the bedroom and Kris had to quickly run out to mutual. (of course as soon as I got released from Young Women Kris got called right into Young Men--we'll have busy Wednesday nights for the rest of forever). Anyway, I heard some commotion outside and so I stepped out of my bedroom door--I was intending upon taking a Lucy & Mom selfie. I only got this far:

Because then I looked and saw Sandy.

He said to me, "It's a pewfect night for ice cwream!" And obviously, it was.

Evidently Max had helped him get his shirt off after it became covered in ice cream.
Sandy's face was so out of control that I didn't even get a picture of poor Max. He's gotten to the point where he can keep his face clean, which is a good thing in a 10 yr old.


Happy eyes.

We love our goofy little Sandy.
And Lucy looked on, anticipating the day when she could be covered with ice cream as well. In the meantime she thought maybe she'd make some bubbles. It kept her busy.

::max makes lucy laugh::

Max is the expert at making Lucy laugh. I can do it once in a while, but he's consistent. She thinks he's hilarious. And since he also thinks he's hilarious they're a matched pair. But seriously, when he's holding her she's just completely transfixed by him. It's very cute.
For some reason Max loves the face that Lucy makes when she's lying on her back and somebody picks her up--she makes this frowny concentrating face and it really cracks him up.
I think this night he was watching Lucy for me so that I could get Sandy into bed.  He's a real help sometimes.  It's hard some nights when I'm the only parent and now I'm so outnumbered.  It's great to have a big kid around that understands I need help.  I love him.

::sandy candy::

When I was going through my photos I realized I just have so many goofy pictures of our Sandy. Sweet ones too actually. He's just such a funny character. So here are a few of the fun ones for you.

Goggles--they're pretty much like sunglasses according to Sandy.  He used to call them "goo-goo goggles" because of the Dr. Suess alphabet book (he called all glasses that for a while too).  So we still call them goo-goo goggles quite often.



More goggles and some mommy too.

Maybe he's pretending to be a dog here? I can't remember why he wanted this picture taken specifically, but I know it was requested.

Yes, he's super adorable.

Our cute little babysitter took this one. She loves the boys. That's all it takes to make me love her.

Back seat pirate.
A few weeks ago we were on a Sunday afternoon hike as a family. Some folks came along going the opposite direction. They had a little yappy dog with them. Little dogs make Sandy really nervous, which is pretty funny considering how big HIS dog is, but anyway. As they came along the lady called out, "Felix! Come!" Sandy says to me, "That's funny, Felix the DOG."
I was really impressed (and amused) that he got the joke--that it really should've been Felix the cat. He's smart and pretty funny too--when he's not making poop jokes.
There's your taste of Sandy Candy for the day.

::found::

I was scanning really boring work stuff in my home office when I turned over a seemingly blank piece of paper and found this: I was pretty delighted to run across this intriguing piece of work, and just disappointed that there was no more to it. I'm going to have to sit down with Max and force him to finish the story.