Hottest 4th Ever

We can sum up harry's first fourth of july as parade, party, fireworks and freakin hot!  chicago broke a record with 102 degrees.

Oak Park, IL fireworks 2012

eleven month old harry still managed to look cute in the 'first fourth' bib.  mommy's been holding onto this one since jude was an infant.

cute on number two

harry's first fourth of july

oak park, illinois, has a lot of advantages.  lots of people, small footprint.  which means we can walk to the parade and see neighbors and friends along the way.  today we met up with friends Catherine, Gigi and Andrew to watch the celebrities like uncle sam!  bonus: jude got one more day out of his fourth of july hat.

stars and stripes forever!

After wishing for an ice bath but settling for ac for a few minutes, we were off to a thankfully indoor potluck and playtime.  jude, harry and four girls under seven.  jude watched his first princess sing-along dvd. we hear he was not impressed.

lunchtime with dad

can i get some AC?

We had the yearly dilemma of bedtime and fireworks.  we believe in the benefits(thanks weissbluth) of early bedtimes and well-rested kids.  this year we put harry and jude to bed as normal (6:45 for harry, 7ish for jude) except jude enjoyed a chance to head to bed in his clothes.

the plan was to get them up at 8:30 to head to the stadium for fireworks.  harry got some rest but mister jude didn't sleep.  the experiment did give mommy and daddy a quiet hour to recover so it still felt like a win.  sadly daddy used his hour to confirm that mommy's laptop hard drive is a goner.

but back to happier times... here are a few shots from the fireworks adventure:

jude and mom on the way in, all smiles

during the fireworks. less smiles, more hiding

we tried to use the peltor kids ear muffs, basically noise cancelling headphones, for harry.  jude got them from greg's co-workers as a baby gift(i heard gwyneth uses them for her kids).  they worked like a charm on infant jude- he slept through two years of fireworks.  tonight mister harry would have none of it. he cried when they got near his head.  jude eventually slipped them on which made his fireworks experience a bit better. though he still saw more of dad's back than the show.

thanks greg for doing the heavy lifting while mommy got to lean back and ooo and awe.

happy fourth friends. happy birthday america.