4th of July

In the evening on the 4th of July we went and hung out with some friends who live close by to watch fireworks. We don't live within any city limits so pretty much any fireworks are allowed where we live.  Drew and I didn't buy any fireworks besides sparklers and I am very glad that we didn't.  People started setting fireworks off around seven and they continued until at least midnight.  Aerial fireworks are legal here, which I am still not used to since I grew up in California.  It was a really impressive to see fireworks going off in every direction for 5 hours, although it was also really loud.  What impressed me the most was that around 9:30 Alden looked at me and said "bed please."  So, I took him to bed and laid him down and he went right to sleep. He slept through the rest of the fireworks even though there were fireworks going off right above our house.  He was a very tired boy by the end of the night but he enjoyed watching the fireworks until he fell asleep.

These where the red and blue cupcakes that Katrina and I made for the 4th of July.  They were blue raspberry cupcakes with a buttercream frosting.

Alden had a lot of fun popping all the snaps with Daddy.  He threw them for awhile and then figured out that it was fun to jump and stomp on them. Here is a video of Alden popping his snaps.

Daddy laid all the snaps out in a nice little pile for Alden so that he could grab them easily but at the end Alden decided to just jump on the pile and pop them all at once.

When we went over to watch the fireworks Alden kept moving the cones and trying to play with them.

These boys had a lot of fun on the scooters together.

Alden was still being cautious with sparklers and this point and wanted Daddy's help. Here is a video of Alden using a sparkler with Daddy (it is from earlier in the day).

But, pretty soon he was ready to do it all on his own.

Some of the first fireworks going off when it wasn't even dark yet. This was the first video I took of the fireworks (sorry it doesn't focus right away).

It was fun having my sister there too.

Finally getting dark enough so that we could appreciate the fireworks. Here is another video I took of the fireworks and this doesn't show the best of them. This is the last video I took of the fireworks, I am just sorry that it goes out of focus so much.

It was a really fun 4th of July and I was glad that Alden handled all the fireworks so well.  I always love holidays where I get to spend time with my family but I'm not too stressed, so this was perfect.