Little Hiccups: Happy 4th of July 2013

Friday 5 July 2013

Happy 4th of July 2013

Happy 4th of July!

I can't believe we're already celebrating our second 4th of July here in America. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were celebrating our first.

Today we celebrated in much the same way we did last year. We headed down to the marina here in Berkeley for junk food and carnival rides at the 4th of July festival before heading home to watch the fireworks from the roof of our building.

Here's a look at our day of red, white and blue fun...

Hanging out at Berkeley Marina

We started the day with a breakfast of red, white and blue. Well, kind of... Pancakes with blueberries and raspberries. Mmm...

Delicious

After breakfast the girls donned their red, white and blue outfits for the day and we had a little fun with some of the crafts that we worked on. I had made up a simple photo backdrop out of crepe paper streamers and hoped to get some nice photos of the girls to celebrate the day. Lola was in a particularly mischievous mood and insisted on tickling Ava with the decorations that we had made - or shoving them directly in front of the camera. Needless to say I didn't quite get the photos I'd been hoping for but we did get some cute shots - even if Lola was being pretty cheeky in them!

Stars and stripes

Lola tickles Ava!

That streamer just kept getting in the way of the camera

Trying to look innocent - but we know better!

No tickling this time

Next up we headed back inside to play with some confetti "rockets" that I made for the girls. You can find a fantastic DIY here on alphamom.com. These cute little rockets were filled with confetti that poured all over the girls when they pulled on a string attached to the base. They had so much fun with these that I think I'll have to make them again for a birthday party.

Read to pull on the string

One, two three...

...and pull!

Here comes the confetti

Red, white and blue flying everywhere!

So much fun

It made a mess but it was worth it

In the afternoon we headed down to Berkeley Marina for the annual 4th of July festival. We got ourselves some late lunch and found a shady spot on the lawn to sit down and listen to a brass band performing on the main stage. The girls had fun climbing on a nearby sculpture with lots of other kids and Lola also spent quite a while dancing to the band.

Hanging out at the top of the sculpture

Lola was pretty proud of the fact that she could climb on the sculpture too

Hello down there

A comfy place to lay and watch the band

Oops... looks like we're not supposed to climb on this!

Lola dances to the band

Singing along with her own lyrics

She's got the whole dance floor to herself

Dancing babies!

Of course, being a festival there were plenty of carnival rides for the kids too. Ava had fun bouncing and sliding on an inflatable pirate ship while Lola preferred a good old fashioned bouncy castle.

Ava on the inflatable pirate ship

In the evening we went up to our roof deck and watched the fireworks displays unfold around the Bay Area. As well as the fireworks at Berkeley Marina we took in the displays in San Francisco, Oakland, Marin Headlands and various other locations around the area. Lola was especially excited by the fireworks and squealed with delight non-stop!