4th of July Weekend and kid updates (of course)

We had a very nice 4th of July weekend (and by WE, I mean me and the girls).  Unfortunately, Jason had to work all weekend, as usual!  He had a festival in Illinois that he was doing sound for, that we could have stayed with him at his hotel, but I didn't want to miss the family party we had!  We had our neighborhood parade in which Venily dressed up as Pocahontas (famous American hero) and Haven was the Statue of Liberty (famous landmark).  Both girls did good!  I was a little disappointed in the whole thing... but I'm not on any neighborhood boards or go to any meetings or anything, so I guess I can't complain!  Then we went to my Step-Dad's family's party.  Both girls had a lot of fun!  Venily got to play with Alana (who she only gets to see a couple times a year), and they are only a few months apart and were soooo fricken cute together! :)  Played and held hands together the whole time.... I really wish we lived closer, b/c the girls could be really great friends!  There was a bounce house thing they rented, they have a pool, and some ponds with fish... so the girls were set! :)  And I actually let Haven out of my arms and into other people's a few times while I was there!!!!  Pretty crazy, lol!  And she did good as long as she couldn't see me! :)

We never actually got around to seeing any fireworks (it's past the girls' bedtimes and I didn't feel like attempting that one alone), but we sure do hear them all night long every night, uhhhh!  Good thing the girls don't have a problem sleeping through it!

And some updates!

Today was the first time (that I noticed) Haven was walking, bent over and picked something up without getting down and then stood back up and continued walking!  I watched her do it a couple of times today!  She is really walking well now and definitely prefers it over crawling.  I'd say she walks about 75% of the time now.  She usually pulls up on whatever is closest to her, walks as far as she can before falling and then will crawl the rest of the way until she gets to what she wants or gets to something else to pull up and walk from.

Sleep training continues to go amazing!  Haven is putting herself to sleep now for naps and bed every single time again.  I rarely make it past the 5 minute mark when I am supposed to go and comfort her and usually only have to wait about 30 seconds now before she is fast asleep!!

The race is on for her next 3 teeth to come in.  I change my mind every time I look in Haven's mouth about which one is going to be next, lol!  They are all really close and look very painful!  Luckily, Haven doesn't seem bothered by them much at all!  If you look at her and think about the top 4 teeth, and number them left to right as 1-2-3-4 (with 1 already being in).... I now think that they are going to come in this order: 3,4,2.  I guess we'll see soon! :)

I've noticed that Haven doesn't suck her fingers any more! :(  Which makes me sad, b/c it was so darn cute... but makes me happy too b/c I don't need to worry about putting on the finger sucking guard to make her stop, lol!

And a Venily update!!!  We are working on common sight words now!!!  Venily is super-duper excited about it!  She is ALWAYS coming up to me and asking me if we can read her cards, lol!  She has known all of her letters and what sounds they make for a while now, so I decided to try some words!  I will update as she begins learning them! :)  I haven't done much in the "specific teaching to Venily" department in a while now, and feel really bad about it.  A lot of my focus goes on Haven because she is picking up new things so quickly, so I have decided to make more of an effort to give her more one-on-one time during the day!!  I think she'll really enjoy it a lot!