Happy birthday, America!

Yes, the fourth of july was a while ago.  A month ago practically.  But that's how far behind i am, so... oh well.

Holiday weekend was moving weekend for us, so we didn't do anything super exciting (except break in our new home, which was actually pretty exciting).  We caught the tail end of the parade -- I should say the tip of the tail because we missed the entire thing minus approximately four minutes -- but that's fine because we felt like sleeping in and I don't think Bob would have lasted through the three hour duration anyway.

At least I got the photo op of bob in front of the pittsfield birthday cake float.

And we got to see my cutie niece bailey for a bit...

Cass was there, too, but she was somehow able to avoid the camera.  She did take this picture of us, though.  Boy are we looking rough... Moving does not leave time for haircuts or even hair brushing apparently.

Later on I picked up Chloe and Mason and we made a stop for ice cream.

Bob was diggin the leftovers.  soggy cone and all.

(background explanation: we don't eat bananas by the case.  banana boxes are our moving boxes of choice because they're free and they're a nice carryable size for stuff like books and picture frames and such.)

Re-assembling our furniture has gotten bobby very into tools and power tools and "fiffin stuff."

Almost every day at some point he'll suddenly exclaim,  "I need tool!  Fiffin stuff!"  So I'll grab him a wrench or something and he'll climb up somewhere and get to work.

Mason saw a neighbor of ours outside playing basketball and ran out to join him.  He's friendly like that.

And bobby's basketball obsession grew.

He doesn't usually like to dunk the ball in the hoop when we lift him up because he's not sure he'll get the ball back.  he can be a little bit of a ball hog.  here he's doing a fake-out on uncle james.

Chloe and Bailey spent the entire time picking through all the stuff our landlord threw away that belonged to his grandparents, who lived in the apartment before we did.  Weird?  yes.  Gross?  a little.  but chloe couldn't be stopped.  she dug through boxes of greeting cards searching for ones that weren't written in and saved the ones she found.  most of them were completely useless to her seeing as how they said things like, "happy anniversary, wife," but she kept them anyway.  goofball.

Bailey joined right in.

Later that night we went to the fireworks.  Bob had lots of fun being out late.  Very mature.

Here's a little splice-together of videos taken while we waited for the show to start...

Bubbs was pretty impressed by the fireworks i suppose.  it was worth the late bedtime even though the show was cut short due to some kind of technical difficulties.

Chloe and Mason spent the night on our pull-out couch.  I had to get a shot of mason all wrapped up in the covers in the morning.

Chloe tried to get up early with me and bobby but fell back to sleep on the couch shortly after.  I did, too, actually.  Which means bob had reign of the house, unsupervised.

When I woke up I said, "bobby, where are you?"  i heard a "wheyah are zou, bobby?" from the kitchen and went to check it out...  I found him eating a piece of leftover pizza that he pulled from the box left on the kitchen table the night before.  So that would be bobby's first time serving himself breakfast, and his first time eating cold pizza for breakfast as well.  I have a video which I forgot to upload, maybe i'll add it here in a couple days if you wanna check back...

Later on my mum and her boyfriend tom and his kids stopped by to check out our new digs.  bobby's first priority was, of course, to show them the basketball hoop.

tom's daughter gracie was just as determined as bob, and almost as unlikely to make a basket.

but she was super cute trying.

and so were you, bubby, don't worry.

we are loving summer, loving our new place, loving each other.  life's swell.  hope yours is, too.