Happy 4th of July (just a little late...)

It's a little late but here's a look at our 4th of July for this year.

Now that we actually have an American in our family it felt so much more important that we celebrate 4th of July - not that Mathilde had any idea what was going on of course!

Like the last few years (which you can see here and here) we decked ourselves out in red, white and blue and headed down to Berkeley Marina for the 4th of July celebration. We ate festival food, the kids played on bouncy castles and obstacle courses and we soaked in the sun as we took in the sights and sounds of the celebration.

Ava and Lola love giving their little sister big cuddles so there was plenty of love being heaped on Mathilde as we sat in the sun. And maybe just a little fighting over who was going to hold her. Mathilde enjoys the attention from her big sisters but her absolute favourite thing at the moment is standing up with Mummy. She locks those little legs of hers and holds her arms up in a triumphant "hey, look at me!" pose, usually with a pretty big smile on her face. It's absolutely adorable how proud of herself Mathilde looks when she "stands".

Corn dogs and freshly squeezed lemonade are always a big hit with Ava when it comes to  festival food. Lola quite likes the corn part of a corn dog but won't eat the sausage. Same deal with hot dogs - she eats the bun but leaves the sausage. A cheese crepe was much more to her liking. And the lemonade of course. Later in the day all that greasy festival food was washed down with syrupy sweet snow cones.

The big girls had fun throwing rocks into the water and "fishing" with long sticks. Needless to say they didn't catch any fish but they did manage to drag a few pine cones ashore - which of course, they had thrown in earlier.  

The biggest hit of the day for Ava and Lola was the bouncy castle and bouncy obstacle course. Lola was a little scared of climbing the higher parts of the obstacle course but with Ava's help she made it through most of it. The bouncy castle was much easier and they both had an absolute ball bouncing as high as possible.

In the evening we headed home to watch the fireworks show from our roof deck. We're so lucky to be able to watch the fireworks from home. I'm sure that the fireworks would be spectacular up close at the marina but it gets absolutely packed down there and getting home in the dark and cold with sleepy kids is not my idea of fun. Being able to watch the show from the roof deck is perfect as the kids can head straight to bed as soon as the fireworks are done. Plus from the roof deck we could see the fireworks shows in Oakland and Marin as well as many smaller neighbourhood and backyard fireworks. This year we couldn't see the San Francisco fireworks due to, you guessed it, the fog!

  

I hope that all of my American friends out there had a wonderful 4th of July.

P.S. How adorable do the girls look in their red, white and blue head scarves? These were a last minute crafty project that I came up with the afternoon before. They were super easy to make and the big girls were excited to be involved in decorating their own scarves. I'll have a DIY coming soon and I imagine we'll be making lots more.