Happy Fourth of July!

By now I think we all know that *every* holiday is my favorite by far, but come on, who doesn't love the Fourth of July??? It was an absolutely fabulous day so brace yourself for another post of epic length....

First thing this morning we all did our nails to match.  Don't let his face fool you either. He was totally into it!

On to the cupcakes for fireworks night! Red velvet, cream cheese frosting (white) and blue sprinkles. 

Seriously. Sugar goes STRAIGHT to their brains.  

Still his favorite movie in the house. 

Hell yes I'm a pyro!

I didn't realize it at the time, but this is about when he started building up some toasty shoulders.  :( 

Yes, he puts his marshmallow on the stick to eat it right off again untoasted. 

Next door neighbors Emma and Connor came out to play. They're awesome. Really sweet kids. 

Utter perfection. 

And yes, she eats her s'mores in pieces. Primarily the chocolate pieces. :)

So yummy!

It wasn't even 1:00 yet! Can you believe how much we did in just the morning? Commence a long afternoon outside running, playing, laughing.....seriously guys, this day was just fabulous. 

Realized as I was sitting with my book and my feet in the wading pool how patriotically appropriate my view was!

Yes, they are tied together. Yes, it's insanely dangerous. Nobody died though, and we didn't even have to go to the ER. :P

Patriotic dinosaurs!

Stopped by the park on our way to our friend's house for fireworks night. 

She's getting so big....all you mommies reading this know what I mean when I say this was one of those days where she seemed to have grown a year since yesterday. 

Driving the pirate boat, keeping careful watch for sharks. Serious work. Plus, if it wasn't for fireworks, we'd have been brushing teeth and thinking about bed right around now. But he wasn't about to admit to being tired. :)

Trying to get a picture of all of us together. I hadn't remembered I'd have friends and a sister to take pictures later on!

Super cool man. 

She spends a lot of park time upside down. 

Poppers before the real show starts!

Just like last year, Evie daintily places them one at a time on the ground and then stomps. Adorable!

I can't remember if Jack did the poppers last year or not, but he was so brave about the whole entire thing this year!  He does NOT appreciate loud noises and surprising things. I pretty much think he gets to call himself a superhero tonight for how well he did and how much fun he had. :)

This absolutely cracked me up. My phone has about a 3 second lag. First firework of the night. All three of them are lined up on the curb in anticipation. Great shot, right? Hahahahaha.....yeah. In the three seconds it took from the first one being lit to my phone actually taking the picture, this is what I got. Priceless. 

All the kids backed up to the house to watch!

The girls with Rebecca are Annie and Eowyn, from after school care. She adores them and they've pretty much adopted her as their surrogate little sister. Especially Annie. 

We can never manage to get them to look at the camera!

Or stay still for very long!

Jack and Caiden watching fireworks together. :D

Sparklers are still scary enough to want your Mommy. Caiden wasn't having ANY part of fire in his hand this evening, thankyouverymuch.

Didn't take her long to start doing it on her own though!

And where was Jack during sparkler time? Raiding the food table, of course!

I have no idea what we were looking at. I assume it was something dangerous though!

Evie enjoyed the first few, then decided it was time to go home. Please. Home?

But all the adults were having so much fun!

Like, TONS of fun, guys!

And where was Caiden? Beating up a tree with an unlit sparkler, of course!

Food helps. This girl is freaking cute. 

Totally got the hang of it now. 

Caiden? Stabbing a bush. 

Beating up the electrical box. 

Raiding the snack table. 

Saber-battling with other people's smoke. 

There were some darn good snacks, let me tell you. 

So now we're home, we made it into bed a full two hours late without a single meltdown, and I won't be far behind. Just taking a moment to lay with my eyes closed and appreciate what sounds like the whole town blowing up en masse. 

I hope everyone's Fourth was as wonderful and fun-filled as ours!