Mireya Ruesch: Happy 4th of July!

This year was Mireya's 2nd 4th of July, but it felt like her first. Last year Mireya was so young (4 months) that we didn't feel like we needed to bother doing many fireworks or celebrating, because she wouldn't be aware of everything enough to enjoy it. This year, though she's still very young, we decided to celebrate with a dinner and fireworks. I invited Nana, Uncle Jaime and Uncle Jesse over. We ate spinach artichoke dip, bruschetta, mini couscous-stuffed bell peppers, rice stick salad and fruit tartlets. It was all really good and Mireya ate a bit of everything. She really enjoyed the bruschetta and the fruit tartlets. I also gave her Oreos and Reese's sticks too, which disappeared pretty darn quick. After we had all stuffed ourselves, I had to pop Mireya in the tub. She was super happy and super messy.

Then we all went out and sat in the driveway to watch Daddy light fireworks. It was still light out, but I didn't want to keep Mireya up really late, which would have been the case had we waited for dark. Anyway, Mireya wanted to get down and run over to help Daddy and it was tough to keep her still and on someone's lap between fireworks. She was absolutely mesmerized by them, particularly the fountains. I was glad she was enjoying them. We really only did any fireworks, because we wanted her to see them and experience something new and exciting. I didn't enjoy them much, however, because I knew how dangerous they were and it was clear that she wanted to go touch the pretty colorful things. After all, Daddy was touching them, so why couldn't she? Thus, I have to admit that I was terribly anxious the entire time. Mireya is just so darn fast and I had images of her slipping out of my arms and barreling over to Daddy just in time to get horribly burned. Ugh. I drive myself crazy. Welcome to parenthood, right?

By the time the fireworks were done, Mireya was too pooped to party. We put her straight into bed and all of us ate caramel apples dipped in chocolate and candy and lemon-lime orange julius. Here in Cedar, there is a big firework display at 10:00 at the airport. It's really close to us, so everyone in the neighborhood goes outside and watches it from their driveway. I wasn't initially planning to wake Mireya up for them, but she was already stirring from all the local fireworks, so I figured why not? I snuggled her up in a blanket and took her outside. She got so excited!! She pointed at all of the really big ones and she kept looking at us with a HUGE grin. It was definitely worth her losing 15 minutes of sleep over. Plus, she went straight back to sleep when they were done.

It's going to be so much fun when she gets older to take her to one of the really big firework shows at the U of U or someplace. Holidays in general are so much more fun with a child. The excitement and happiness that seems to ooze out of her every pore is amazing and contagious. She is such a cutie pants!!