The Fourth Revisited

 

 

I realized I never put anything else up about our Fourth of July other than this little number. So here are a few photos of our neighborhood extravaganza.

 Max went up and down the water slides this year ALL BY HIMSELF! I promised to never, ever take his physical accomplishments for granted. There was a time not too long ago when I thought this simple feat might not be attainable for him and yet, there he was, holding up the entire line with his slowness but happy as a clam that he did it on his own.

By the way, he also learned to swim this summer -real face under the water, get things off the bottom and jump in from the side kind of swimming. I think that's pretty amazing too.

 

Not only did we have waterslides, but we also had free food. Tell any kid they can have popcorn, hotdogs, snow cones, cotton candy and drinks for free and you'll get a smile every single time. Free junk and time with cousins made Dawson a very happy camper.

 

And when they got bored of the slides, there were plenty of carnival games to play. Those games included more free junk food as prizes. It was a virtual Heaven on earth for my kids. They absolutely love this yearly celebration

And this girl? She's getting bigger every day (as are all my children). It's more and more apparent to me, much to Nelson's chagrin, that she is not our little girl any more but a young lady. I find my prayers for her have changed tremendously. I pray that God protect her innocence and help us to catch her the first time she does anything wrong.

Sounds awful but God's been honoring this prayer a lot this summer and it's started many deep conversations about everything from how to talk about boys ("cute"-okay, "hot"- not so much), to music choices (I'm serious about this one. Check the lyrics of the songs your kids listen too. I did and was appalled.), to why she's not allowed a Facebook account or cell phone.

The times, they are a changing around here and we're learning as we go. There's a fine line between protecting them and suffocating them that we're trying desperately to find. Mostly I pray for myself as I always have where the kids are concerned.

Please Jesus, just help me not to mess them up!