Red White and Blue

 Claire

Claire still fits in her patriotic outfit from last year even though she's getting a little tall! I'm just glad she let me dress her and she didn't want to go in a princess dress to our ward pancake breakfast. We also went to the beach with some friends this week and Claire loved the floaties that we could borrow. She told me twice how funny it was that when she ran in the water it made her slow and borrowing my goggles was the best. I pushed them out to a tiny island on a one-person kayak because Claire wanted to climb a big rock, but I only had my phone for one picture because Chris was at his current rotation and I needed to keep track of them.

Shay

These two are as thick as thieves, literally because they stole my dresses! Shay saw when Claire put my dress on and then wanted a turn so I got her a dress out to wear too. They also like to put on my nice bras if I don't put them away fast enough after getting dressed from church. Shay's time at the beach was fun too because she was obsessed with this sparkly purple tube that she wanted to hold on to while I pushed them around. They had to hold on and I would only ever go far enough out that the water was as high as my own waist so if they lost balance they weren't in danger. Right before we left she fell and scraped her leg and foot on some rocks right where the water started so she remembers getting hurt. Now they both keep asking to go back with daddy because that's how I convinced them to leave...

July 4th

We went to our ward 4th of July celebration yesterday and attended the flag ceremony with breakfast right after. The girls were overly excited and had a hard time sitting down for long enough to watch the flag raise, sing, or eat their whole breakfast. It's been a long time since I've sung the National Anthem and I just love it, especially since we did the other verses today at church too. One of the Young Men recited the Declaration of Independence from memory, and the wind blew the flag beautifully while we sang. There were pancakes with a delicious homemade creme syrup by someone from our ward, on the side we had a hashbrown egg casserole, bacon and sausages, and fruit. I loved hearing all the patriotic music as we ate and socialized and the girls played with their friends. Now we get to have a day with Chris off work tomorrow and grill some hamburgers and watch everyone else's fireworks tonight.