Oh this wall- it's my fault that she loves to walk on it and we go back and forth several times, but there was a wall that I always walked on during walks with my mom, so I just had to put her on there and now she's addicted.  It's a fun memory for me, holding her hand as she happily walks along the wall :).

 See ya mom!

 Checking out her shadow...

 I walked into the sun room to find Iz on the coffee table coloring.. I know she probably shouldn't sit on the coffee table, but I just thought it was too cute to disrupt... she does so well playing by herself.

 Just to go with the picture above, I loved when I walked in and saw Iz and Lucy... Iz was just reading a mag ;).

I love my little!!

:: play date : manhattan ::

We drove to Manhattan with our friends Emily, Greta + Louis {after Isabelle's 10am wake up!} to check out the new Discovery Center and have lunch with my friends Bonny + Zach.  The Discovery Center was fun, but we thought it would be better once the kids were a little older... they did however have a mini splash park of sorts out in front of it and that was probably the highlight of the whole trip!  Unfortunately we didn't plan accordingly and had lunch planned after the center and Isabelle and Greta were soaked!  Here they are, just testing the waters...

 Isabelle decided to sit down right in the middle of the fountains to take her shoes off- soaking her bum {twice}.  She's running over to pull my shoes off so I would walk in the fountains too.

 Let's bend down and check this out..

 It flew up and nailed her in the face... you can kind of see it dripping from her nose.

 And, we're soaked!  With no change of clothes!

I was a little worried about what we were going to do in a restaurant with no clothes!  The whole thing just made us laugh, it was hysterical... I stripped Iz down for the car ride and Emily got a creative idea to just wrap a blanket around Iz 'sarong' style.  My friends walked up as I was trying to wrap this blanket around Isabelle on the sidewalk {sweating like crazy because it was over 100 degrees!}, so that was perfect ;).  We got into the restaurant and I couldn't get the blanket to stay up, so I just took it off- Izzy girl ate lunch in her diaper!  And of course took her shoes off at the table, she literally was nakey baby!  We couldn't help but laugh at the whole situation!

:: Happy Birthday Merica!!

We started our day with the bike decorating party down the street at country club park...

 Izzy girl's trike- ready for the parade!

 The girls hard at work...

Our little girl is looking so blonde...

 Iz had to have a little help from her cousins to go down.. she usually makes me go with her and that slide is not made for two {or at least not my size person}!

Cheesin', ready for the parade!

At the starting line...

emme + iz {I think Iz was a little confused as to what was going on}

harper

We thought we were clever with my outfit- stars and stripes! ;)

We had the fam over for dinner before the fireworks, grilled pizza, burgs, dogs, veggies + potatoes.. it was quite the spread!  I had to prepare myself to let Isabelle stay up late to see the fireworks, it was kind of hard for me, but I think her cousins helped keep her {and I} distracted.  We walked to the club to see the show a little after 9.. Izzy girl started to get a little scared of the fire cracks that were being set off in the neighborhood, but dad helped to prepare her by telling her they go 'boom'!  She was saying it too and it was pretty cute.  Poor girl was so hot and started falling asleep on dad a little after 10, she was pooped!  We carried her home and I had to rinse her a bit to cool her down and then put her right to bed.  I was so worried she was going to wake up early and be so cranky, but my girl slept until 10!  It was unreal!  Only bad thing was, we had a day trip planned to Manhattan with friends the next day.  Oh well, it was fun to hang with Iz for the night, special occasion!

 I wanted to test out the 'bulb' function on my camera to see if I could get some of the fire cracks.. pretty cool!

 Iz, Gigi, Harper

 This one is a bit crazy, I think I held the button down too long.. trying to capture too much.

Hope you all had wonderful 4ths!!

Look at my cheerleader!

This was a fun hand-me-down from the cousins, so I was excited when it fit!  We have some growing room too, so it will be perfect for football season!  We decided to have a little photo shoot...

This face {and flipped hand} just makes me laugh, it's her 'nooo' face.

This just cracks me up, her little run- so animated.

that tongue..

my little girl :).

Another one of my favorite faces 'the old man with no teeth' face.

Running from dad!

:: luau dinner party ::

We hosted our second dinner party and I thought it would be fun/funny to make it a luau theme... I kept everything from my tropical wedding shower and thought it was the perfect opportunity to use it again! Isabelle had a blast with all the inflatable animals and leis, she was so excited when she saw the monkey and flamingo/'mano'.

 Wearing dad's hat, trying to stay entertained while mom and dad ran some last minute errands for the party.

Here we are, looking cheesy with the inflatable flamingo, parrot and palm tree... I was laughing at my husband when the picture took, darn it.

Our entertainment for the night: Jess and Aaron live a couple of houses down from us and they had counted 42+ bats fly out of the side of their house the night before {crazy, right?!}, so we all walked down to check out the bats!  You could hear them making their little noise {creepy} from the down spouts, but we only saw 2 fly out, which was good news for them since they had put up a trap of sorts {just so the bats fly out and can't get back in, doesn't actually trap them.. for my fellow animal lovers- even though they are bats ;)} 

We had a nice little evening filled with good food, drinks + friends.