Independence Day!

Today we played as much as possible!  We decorated bikes, swam, had a water balloon fight and, of course, played with fireworks!  This year has been considerably drier than normal for our area.  There have been many brush fires and there was a lot of concern about fireworks.  Fortunately we were still able to enjoy them.  Hopefully they wont decide to ban them completely in coming years.  Carson took a while to warm up to everything; He seemed nervous about everything including sparklers.  By the end of the evening he was playing with them and having a wonderful time.  The loud booms scare him but we were able to borrow a pair of ear covers for him from a friend.  Kayda and Dillon on the other hand lit a lot of the fireworks!  They are so mindful and listen so well to safety directions that we were able to just direct them!

 

 Sneaky Daddy decided to have the kids pose and then drenched them!

 We got each of the kids a parachute.  It was a little windy so we gauged as best we could and lit them off.  We missed.  By a lot.  They went flying off over the neighbors' houses into the green belt never to be seen again.  The kids were really disappointed.

 As always the tanks were a big hit.  Kayda's flipped over almost every time which was exciting for the kids.

 The kids helped with all the clean up throughout the entire celebration!  It was so wonderful!

 

 Hank does pretty well with all the noise but is really in need of snuggles.  So we try to give him extra!

It was a great day!  We are fortunate that the homes around us go big on fireworks so when ours are done we are able to sit and watch the neighborhood light up.  I really hope the fireworks don't get banned.  They are such a wonderful part of the celebration and it would certainly lose a lot of magic without them.