Red, White and TWO!

It’s so fun to have Adelaide’s birthday fall on a holiday, because we both have it off of work. That means we get to spend an entire day celebrating with our daughter. And, we packed a lot of celebrating into this 4^th of July.

We started off with a 4^th of July breakfast picnic put on by our church. There were bagels, donuts, fruit, water guns, swings, bubbles, flags, speeches and good friends. It was a great way to kick off the day!

Please don't mind Adelaide's 

I-Want-To-Go-Back-To-The-Swings look, 

both girls had a great time!

Blowing Bubbles

After celebrating America for the majority of the morning, we rushed home to enjoy some more Adelaide-focused activities, like PRESENTS! In retrospect, we probably should have spaced the presents out through the day to give her more time to enjoy them. Adelaide was delighted by each new gift and wanted to play with each toy and read each book before moving on. Thanks to everyone who sent gifts, she was in two-year old heaven. 

Yes Adelaide, they are all for you. 

The Alphabet Pal caterpillar from 

Mom and Dad was a surprise favorite.  

She's "cooking" Mommy some tea with her new tea set. 

Eleanor thought watching Adelaide open 

presents was thrilling. She tends to think

anything her older sister does is wonderful.

Adelaide was very excited to blow the candles out on her cupcake. We made her finish a healthy lunch before we brought out what Adelaide called her "chocolate muffin tins." She enjoyed counting her candles (1...2, 1...2) and wanted to blow them out over and over. After blowing them out 4 or 5 times, we finally got around to eating our cupcakes.

Blowing out her candles the first time.

Threw this shot in because we were so impressed that

her hair was still intact by lunch time. 

After lunch we were planning to fit a short trip to one of the local 4th of July street fairs... however, a couple of the Jensens were all tuckered out. So, we decided to skip the fair for an early nap.

Adelaide fell asleep on Matt while Melinda 

was getting Eleanor ready for her car seat.

He thought it was a good idea and ZZZZzzz....

Once our nappers awoke, most of the street fairs were shutting down to prepare for fireworks. So, we decided to go to the a splash park instead. Though Adelaide loved the splash park last year, this time she was feeling a bit more timid around all the other kids. 

She took a few laps around the edge,

but the large crowd of kids in the middle of the 

fountain kept her cautious of going any further in. 

She and Dad did have a blast on the kiddy train! 

From the safety of her train car, she waved at all the shoppers

and pedestrians as they rode around the lot.

After a delicious BBQ dinner, we headed out to the side street near our townhouse to explode the firecrackers we got at Cost Co. We're glad we had some on hand, as the girls were both far too worn out to stay up for the big show put on by the city. Eleanor started falling asleep while we were lighting off our noisy firecrackers. 

Adelaide loved picking out which one 

we were going to explode next.

After our Cost Co. cache was done, the girls practically fell into their beds - so we'll call the day a big success. Happy 4th of July everyone! And, Happy Birthday Adelaide!