Boom-boom....pop...pop,pop,pop,pop!!

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July....ours was fun! Eli celebrated his 2nd Independence Day & this time......he got to see LIVE fireworks! Last year, Eli was such a chubby little guy & this year, he is long & lean (I weighed him last week & he is 30 lbs)! Here are some pictures of the festivities:

We bought $4.10 worth of fireworks that consisted of sparklers, snakes, flower spinners, & poppers. We figured these were simple fireworks to start Eli out with. Fireworks had been going off pretty much all day & when we came outside after dinner to do ours, our neighborhood sounded like a war zone! Eli was a little uncertain about it all & ran to grandma for some security:

This is as close as Eli got to the sparklers:

Poppers!:



Since Eli had been talking about fireworks all week, I really wanted to try to have him see the big display. After seeing our own & some neighbor's go off, he still seemed interested so we headed out. It was an hour past his bedtime & by the time we got home, 2 hours past his bedtime, but he did well considering. I was concerned about him being scared of the noise, so we decided to watch the display a few blocks away in a bank parking lot. It worked out great because we could see them well but the noise wasn't bad. Eli seemed to be mesmerized (& tired) & went between daddy, mommy & grandma to watch them:

Some video of the event:


He looks a little tired here:

This week Eli continued to try to put more words together into phrases. Before we know it, he'll be speaking in sentences!!
"Fall down, duck!" (When duck fell down)
"This way"
"I sweet"
"Bright...sun"
"____ break"
"Again!"
"Side down" (going down slide)

Now a few pictures from the week:

Looking like a "2 year old" on the couch (he's often mistaken for at least a 2 year old and sometimes a 3 year old!):

"Aipane....fly!":

Mommy took out all of Eli's toys from his toy box & Eli enjoyed walking around the circle & counting them:

Building stuff with blocks with mommy:

Silly little man:

Silly big & little men:

Swimming lessons ended last week & we hope to do some fun activities over the last couple of summer months with our buddies. This week we hope to go to a petting farm & Toddler Town. The weather will be warm, but no rain is called for until Friday....here's hoping! Hope everyone continues to enjoy their summer!!