Holiday Weekend

This 4th of July weekend was packed and laid back all at the same time {if that makes sense?}On Friday Brian took the day off and we spent a family day at home. After Brian spent the entire month of June on the road {save 5 days} it was nice to just be here all together.

Grace got her leotard, tights, ballet and tap shoes on Friday and spent the entire afternoon, dressed, hair pulled back and showing us "what we do in class". She has yet to take a single dance lesson, but has these crazy moves and after each one she will say "Did you see that? This is what we do in class."

While I'm on the subject of dance class... *sigh*... I attended a strict ballet school for...well all of my childhood. I won't deny that dancing in the nutcracker every year was a blast - And maybe in part why I stayed a "dancer" for so many years. But this school was for hard core dancers. Something I am not, was not and never wanted to be. I started dancing at 3 and at my dance school the attire for the 3 year old dancers was the same as it was for the company dancers; Black leotard, pink tights, pink slippers, hair pulled back tight and neat. No legwarmers, no skirts, no exceptions. I knew girls at another dance studio that were allowed to wear whatever they wanted and was at times envious. I though 'IF' Grace took dance lessons I would send her somewhere where she could wear whatever she wanted...Have fun... Be a little girl... But when it came down to it... You go with what you know! So my little Grace is in black leotard, pink tights, pink slippers, hair pulled back, no skirts, no legwarmers, no exceptions.

I was a little emotional when Grace put on her leotard, tights and shoes for the first time. With her hair pulled back looking so grown up. I wasn't ready to lose my breath - She went from "toddler" to "little girl" in that moment.

On Saturday our friends Grace & Keith celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary. {Congrats guys on 11 years of wedded "bliss"!!} So... Grace, Lily, Brian and I did the least we could do and selfishly {yes, selfishly not selflessly} watched Vincent so that Grace & Keith could have a quiet dinner out, just the two of them.

As I said we "selfishly" watched Vincent - It was selfish because I swear we get more out of it than Grace and Keith do. Aside from the fact that Vincent watered all of the plants in the yard for us - The girls, Brian and I all adore him! He is just the nicest, funniest little kid! He plays so well with our girls. Grace & Lily are just as rough and tumble as boys are so I never worry that Vincent is going to be too rough with them. On the contrary I often think it an unfair fight that both Grace and Lily are full on tackling him. 2 against 1 are unfair odds. So when Vincent is here the girls have a playmate to run them around and wear them out. Someone to play duck-duck goose with {beside me and Brian!!} someone to join in the tea parties, kick a ball around with and race strollers with. And Brian... well Brian gets to have a boy around the house for just a little while. I know that Brian would never trade his girls in for a boy in a million years. I am reasonably sure that Brian has never wished he had a boy - But I know that he likes evening the odds up a bit from time to time and Vincent evens those odds up a bit!

Having Vincent over for the evening was the perfect excuse for me to make play-dough. My mother always made our play-dough when we were kids and I have had the recipe sitting in my recipe box for the last three years just waiting for me to get motivated enough to make it. The play-dough was a big hit! All five of us spent at least an hour making snakes and using the play-doh presses to make "worms" , "spaghetti" and "hair" . Lily pounded and made impressions of her face. Grace and Vincent just laughed. At what I don't know but they were cracking each other up! It was a great night!

{I love this picture! I just wish Vincent and Lily had been looking!!}

Sunday evening Grace, Keith and Vincent returned for a BBQ and a plan to go see fireworks. Grace L. and I did not have high hopes nor high motivation for going but felt like "we should". So after a laid back dinner and some "play time" or rather "wrestle time"...

{FYI Vincent is NOT biting Grace's leg - He's getting kicked in the face}

we packed into our cars, and headed towards the Sports Complex where the fireworks and 4th of July festivities were being held. Thankfully non of us had any desire to go into the complex so we joined the masses in the mall parking lot to watch. I was impressed. The mall turned off their already dim parking lot lights just before the fireworks began. We sat in the back of the car, well the kids sat in the back of my Edge with the tailgate open and we sat in folding chairs right there next to them. The display was pretty impressive although the kids interest in in lasted about 5 minutes. Thankfully the show was over after about 17 minutes and the traffic out of the parking lot and home manageable {as long as you have "MASShole driving moves" like Brian does according to Grace & Keith!!}

We wrapped up the long weekend on Monday with my family in Scottsdale. We spent the afternoon lounging in the pool and then ate ourselves into a BBQ coma with a few of their friends and neighbors in the evening. It was a great, lazy, family weekend!