Happy Fourth of July Birthday, Kennedy!

It's hard to have your birthday the day after the Fourth of July. Everyone is already tired of celebrating, and tired in general from being up late the night before. But five years ago, in the heat of summer, when Shulamith's doctor happened to say, "Nope, nothing has changed. No way you're gonna go into labor on your own. If you want to, we can deliver by C-section July 5th," she was all in!

So now this poor girl is stuck with a post-Fourth of July birthday for life. It could be worse, I guess. It could be Christmas.

The funny part is, I think on some level Kennedy believes that people celebrate the Fourth of July in honor of her birthday. Every time she sees red, white, and blue stuff, she says they are "July colors" and that it's because of her birthday. That said, she still prefers Halloween over all other holidays, so she was determined to have a Halloween birthday party in July, complete with face painting courtesy of Amanda:

...but back to the Fourth.  Our celebration was full from start to finish. After stopping by our stake's annual Freedom Breakfast to say hi to Eli (who was there to make pancakes, though ultimately they didn't need him), I headed to meet Shulamith at a big parade on State Street. Parades are so fun, and this one really was. Floats came by one after the other. Kids scrambled to gather candy thrown by float riders. Marching bands played. It was just perfect.

In the afternoon, we went to a fair in Riverton, where Shulamith and I shared some chicken and rice (sorta healthy), followed by a funnel cake (not as healthy, but delicious). As it got closer to dark, I found myself missing Seth so much. He loves the Fourth of July. He and Isaiah always go together to get fireworks. This year, Swen had to take his place and go with Isaiah.

This nostalgic mom kept thinking back to Fourths of the past, especially the one I wrote about here exactly 10 years ago. I know the blessings Seth is receiving from serving his mission reach far beyond what even he can understand, but still I miss him. Next year on the Fourth of July, he will be almost home. Hold that thought.

We waited not so patiently for it to be dark enough, and finally, Isaiah began the annual fireworks display.

It was excellent, and just like that, it was over, but not before I grabbed this next picture. Here are three of the most amazing people I know. I am so proud of each of them and so grateful to call them my friends:

The following day, though tired from all this partying, it was time to celebrate Kennedy's birthday. She picked Waffle Love for breakfast, but she was mostly interested in opening her presents. Before I go any further, let me tell you that both her mother and I consider ourselves fairly fashion savvy. We love clothes and know what looks good and what doesn't. However, there's this girl named Jo Jo, who is a fashion nightmare. She is now 16 but started performing as a much younger child, singing, dancing, and making YouTube videos that encourage children to make good choices. Her only problem: her choice of clothing, which includes giant hair bows and hideous dresses, like this one:

Eeeeek! But Kennedy loves her, and has wanted one of these dresses for months now, so believing that people should get exactly what they want for their birthdays, not what anyone else thinks they should have, her mom and I got her this Jo Jo dress. And this Jo Jo jacket:

She was delighted.

Which is all that matters.

From Waffle Love, we headed to Classic Fun Center to play for a couple hours. By this point everyone was exhausted, including the birthday girl, so we took a break for some R & R. That night Shulamith's sons stayed home with their dad, and we took Kennedy for girls' night out: pedicures and dinner at Cheesecake Factory.

We all had pretty toes for Kennedy's friend party the following day, which brings us back to the top of this post, with Halloween cupcakes and face painting.

Happy Fourth of July birthday, Kennedy! This was your "golden" birthday, as you turned 5 on the 5th!