A milestone I wasn't excited to reach

Rebecca's first temper tantrum. Ah yes, toddlerhood is here.

Over the weekend (on my birthday no less) we were strolling around the mall killing time before we went to dinner. Rebecca is usually great at staying with us and holding our hands while she walks. This time, she had other ideas. She kept trying to walk on her own, run in front of us, lag behind, etc. Well, if the mall had been nearly empty I might have been more flexible on this, as long as we were right with her, but it was 5:00 on a Friday evening.

Brian and I reminded her "Rebecca, you need to hold our hand when you're walking". After several determined "NO!"s from her, she slowly crouched down, then even slower lay on the floor (ewwww mall floor!), then cocked her head as if thinking "How did this go, again?" and kicked her feet and pounded her hands a couple of times.

She looked up at me to gauge my reaction. I said "Are you done with your fit now Becca?" to which she replied a perky "yep!". She then got up, held both of our hands and walked politely the rest of the way.

I could tell if I was trying to hold back laughter harder or if Brian was.

Little booger.

Rebecca's newest toy- Fun for the whole family

We got Rebecca a tunnel last weekend and thus far she loves it.

She plays in it all the time.

George loves spending his time in there, too.

Sometimes, even Daddy gets in on the act.

Life's a beach!

Just over a week ago we took Rebecca swimming at the beach for the first time. We weren't very sure what to expect since most of the time this girl HATES the bath. She hates the water on her face, hates the whole darn process (accept, mind you, the part where she plays with a boat.... ahh the simple life).

We geared up, slathered with about 45 cans of spray sunscreen (we're white as white can be, so in the sun we turn to solid red) and traipsed down to the sand. Right away Rebecca started pointing out the things she saw. "Ball!" (a buoy) "Rocks! (the sand) "Boat!" (a boat, obvs). We held her close and slowly walked into the water. Since it wasn't very deep I kept kneeling down so that her feet would get a little splashed to get her used to the water. She clutched onto my shoulders with a look of abject fear. Then gradually, as we splashed her feet, she started to grin.

At least I think she was grinning. It was hard to tell under the hat and sunglasses.

After a little playing in the water we took her up to the sand with her bucket and shovel and taught her how to build, and thus knock down, sand castles.

Happy 4th of July!

Yesterday was a low-key 4th for us. Brian's brother Mike came over to hang out and have dinner. Rebecca, as per usual, followed him around and every time he'd move out of her view she'd yelp "MIKE!"

Mom and dad are chopped liver when he's around :)

We decided to be brave (or stupid, depending on how it turns out) to try to take Rebecca to the 4th of July fireworks downtown.

The show started off with a new addition this year with the Blue Angels doing a few flyovers. They did a dusk "after-burner display". I'm not entirely sure what that means in real life but in my mind it means "Extremely loud planes flying low with flames showing against the night sky".

I should probably mention now that I HATE loud noises so the planes are not my favorite thing, cool though it may be.

Rebecca thought they were so cool! (and so Mike and Brian, but I didn't say that) After she got past the very loud noises she was digging it. She would point at them in the sky, grin, and say "Plane! Airplane!"

We found a great seat right on the beach to watch the fireworks. We were amazed that there were so many open spots right there to sit considering it's crazy busy during Cherry Festival. As soon as the first firework went off we realized why. Yeah..... we were sitting right near a huge tree and the fireworks were shot off directly behind said tree. Dang. We did a mad dash to find a different open spot to sit where we could actually SEE the fireworks. Novel concept.

Thankfully it wasn't too difficult. It only took a moment to find a seat right behind where they were shot off.

Rebecca loved the fireworks but not nearly as much as she loved staring at the bunch of balloons inexplicably tied to a tree behind us.

Considering we were up and in town until 11:30 we expected her to crash out when we got in the car. On the contrary, she was wide awake the whole evening/night and sang to us as we were driving home. She did great and she had so much fun!