Happy 4th of July!

What a ridiculously steamy 4th of July we had this year! We started celebrating on Tuesday. Chris took the day off and I am done with work by 2 this summer so we picked Linnea up early and headed to the movies! We saw Madagascar 3 and really liked it! My parents joined us and enjoyed it as well.

We picked up Burger King and brought it home for supper. Linnea earned herself some ice cream from my parents for sleeping all night in her bed and not coming into ours. We have been having some major sleep issues over here for about 2-3 weeks...I can't even keep track anymore. We switched her into an actual big girl bed (just a twin mattress on the box spring for now. we want to get a nice bed frame that she can use basically forever but haven't gotten around to it yet.) We realize this transition could be part of the problem, but she has slept in many twin beds and in many different places in her life and has never had the issues she is having now. Who knows...it all seemed to begin when she was sick with strep. We let her sleep in our bed and since then she has been crying every night when we lay her down. She either wants us to lay by her on the floor or she wants to come in our bed. We have been caving in and laying by her to help get her to sleep because the crying just doesn't stop and then no one can sleep. and its not like she is going to bed at 7, she goes to bed around 8:30 or 9 when Chris also likes to go to bed. Anyways...she eventually falls asleep but proceeds to awake and cry a few times during the night and needs us to help her or rather we just do because we want to sleep as well. Sometimes she does need to go potty. We will get through it, I'm convinced it's just a stage. Hopefully it ends before baby comes! or we really won't be sleeping! But at any rate Linnea earned ice cream because she didnt come in our bed. Our next step is getting off her floor and having her not cry when we say goodnight. She never did before! So weird! We are bribing her with stickers, if she doesnt cry before bed or need us to lay by her bed for at least 5 nights (they dont even need to be in a row) we will take her on rides at Como Town. So everyone be rooting for Linnea! 

I could ramble on and on about this but am going to move on to more of our 4th of July.

We originally had planned on going to a parade but with temps in the high 90s and heat indexes of low 100s that sounded AWFUL! So humid, sticky and gross! so we went to Tanner's Beach in Oakdale for almost 2 hours Wed morning and then had a yummy "picnic" inside at Megan and Brian's. They only had Kaylan since the boys were at their cabin and Erik and Lisa went up to Lisa's aunts lake, so it was a small group but we had a great time!

We made an American Flag cake after lunch, ate that, played with the boys' gerbils and then headed home. 

Linnea took a nap and Chris and I played Scrabble. After Linnea's nap we had hot dogs and suddenly salad for dinner for our holiday meal. 

 I attempted playing Winnie the Pooh CandyLand with Linnea for something different. She did pretty good! 

We gave her a bath, got her jammies on and came back downstairs to watch the fireworks on tv.

We just didn't have the desire to go sit in the heat and have it get so late. We both had to work the next day and with Linnea's terrible new sleeping habits it has been quite the challenge to get her up in the mornings. 

I watched the fireworks on tv last year too and really liked them but it was even more fun watching them with Linnea and Chris this year. We turned the lights off so it was just like we were at the fireworks except for we weren't sitting and sweating. The show we watched had the fireworks set to music which Linnea loved and danced around our living room to. I think we made a good choice staying in. Linnea wasn't crazy about the loudness of the works we saw at Christmas so I just don't know how she would feel about them. Linnea's fav part was when they shot the fireworks off to God Bless America. She sings that everyday at preschool so when she heard it on tv her face lit up and she sang right along with it. so fun! Hope everyone had a happy 4th of July!

She stops a little in the middle because she didn't know why daddy turned the lights on. It was so all of you could see her dancing and singing better ;)