4th of July festivities in Catonsville, Maryland

Stella and I headed over to the home of Bill, Jen, and little Finley for their annual 4th of July shindig. Unfortunately, Sean was on the first day of his sinus infection (we didn't know it at the time) and we left him home to sniffle and nap on the porch. The Lockard-Dugan household sits right on Fredrick Rd and is a front row seat for Catonsville's parade. This is a big deal; for those who don't know, a week or so before the parade, folks start putting out their chairs along the parade route! Stella was a bit overwhelmed by the 15 or so emergency vehicles with sirens blaring that started off the parade but warmed up to the rest; she especially enjoyed the bands with drums.
The weather was lovely, the food was excellent, the company was great, and the parade was as quirky and entertaining as always! I'm not having good luck importing photos, so here are two links. The first one is a picture of Stella at last year's 4th of July bash, just over 2 months old. The second a shot from this year. What a difference! While you are there, Bill has some great parade photos too!
2008
2009

Both photos taken by Bill Dugan

Girl with Kitty and Patch of Sunlight

We're enjoying our new porch!

Little Teenager

Stella looked like a little teenager lounging on the chair; she was fighting off a cold so was moving slower than usual.

A Day with The Big Boys

We spent a fun morning and lunch with Mommy's highschool friend Cara and her sons: Owen, Ryan, and Noah. One of the younger boys asked: 'Why were there so many Mommies at your school?'

And a great afternoon with college friend Tina and sons: Dustin and Shane. We had a great time flying paper airplanes and playing in the front yard while avoiding afternoon summer showers.

Potty Training on the Horizon?

There is no photo to go with this story for reasons that will soon become obvious.

Stella did a poo on the floor today; she had been in her diaper and a t-shirt since nap time and I had just been marvelling at how she had not been messing with the diaper. She took it off and said 'poo'; so I looked at her diaper and said, "No Stella, no poo." She looked kinda cute in her t-shirt and nude butt and I value the merits of 'airing out'. I went to check on something in the kitchen, and was going to return shortly with a dry diaper to re-diaper. From the kitchen I hear 'poo...poo-poo' and sure enough, there I found her, thankfully on the tile floor between the new porch carpet and the living room floor carpet; she was not only looking at the little pile of poo she had deposited on the floor, but had a piece of poo held close to her sweet little wide open mouth; after yelling 'no' to the poo in mouth idea (thankfully startling her, perhaps causing irreversible poo-poo issues, but nonetheless enough to get her to drop said poo), all I could do was laugh and thank her for choosing her spot well.