all tyed up: July 4th

We had a great day on the 4th of July this year. We swam in the pool all morning and grilled out for lunch. We showed Tyler some fireworks "snakes", which he loved. He also loved the "pops" (Not sure what they're called...You throw them down and they pop.).

Smashing all the ashes.

Showing me his dirty hands.

After the kids' afternoon naps, we went swimming again. Tyler loves swimming! He wears swimmies and gets around pretty well. After Cora went to sleep that night, we got out the rest of our fireworks that we bought. Tyler seemed scared at first, then he warmed up to them. Then, we had a malfunctioning firework that made us all scream, and Tyler said, "I don't wanna do dat anymah!" The next morning I asked him, "What did we do last night?" And he said, "Da fireworks very loud. Dey scared me a yittle bit." He was looking a firework that looked like a army tank. He said, "What is dat? It looks like a car or sumpin!"

Scared at first...

Getting more used to it...

"I did it!"

Tyler is hilarious and is still talking nonstop. One of Tyler's new sayings is, "No, not yet!" Today, someone knocked on the door and Buster started barking, and Tyler said, "Bubba! Shut it! Baby Toya's sleeping!"

Cora is changing a lot. She's almost 6 months old and she has two teeth. She is starting to really try to crawl! She gets up on her hands and knees, and rocks back and forth. Then, she ends up moving backwards almost every time. It won't be long until she's moving all over the place. She can sit up unassisted for a little bit now, but not for very long. She takes a pacifier sometimes, too, which has been wonderful for us. However, she's a terrible sleeper. She has been waking me up at least twice a night, and she can't soothe herself to sleep (I have to do a whole routine where I have to swaddle her, play a song, shush her to sleep, slowly lower her into the crib, etc.). So, the other day I realized that I couldn't go on like that any more. I decided it was time to let her "cry it out". I absolutely hate hearing her cry, so it has been difficult. She is doing much better. She's waking me up less at night, and she's soothing herself to sleep most of the time. She still cries sometimes when going down to sleep, but not for very long. Sometimes, she'll even go down without crying. I started giving her rice cereal a few days ago. Right now, she's eating about 2-3 tablespoons mixed with breastmilk twice each day. Here's her first time trying it out: