Happy Birthday, America!

We had a fun time with the holiday this week! On Monday, we made Firecracker Crowns from the Family Fun Magazine and had FHE on America's history of gaining independence. We colored some patriotic pictures and hung them in the front window.



After it got dark, we tried a few little fireworks on the driveway. Our kids don't really know that you can buy big fireworks to do at home. We're keeping it that way for as long as possible.


Tuesday evening we went to a BBQ with some other families in the ward and then drove into Idaho Falls for the big firework show. We wanted to avoid lots of walking and crowds, so we plopped ourselves down in the middle of a dry sticker patch to see the lights. It was ok until Rebekah wanted to start crawling away. We used the firework option on our camera and these are a few of the shots we got. They look pretty neat, if I do say so myself!


A big pile up on Daddy. This seems to be a favorite pasttime around here. Daddy can't breathe, but he's used to it.




Rebekah is piling up on Mommy. This is also very popular in these parts. I guess I'm used to it, too. Gotta love her spikey hair!




There were all kinds of fireworks.

Some were fuzzy...






...some were colorfull...




...some were wispy....





...some were bright...



...some were timed together...



...and some were funny.

Chad is modeling Daniel's firecracker crown. It was a good day and the fireworks were good. My kids quickly lost interest, but I enjoyed them (mostly through my camera's display).


Happy Birthday, America! We're blessed to be living here!




In other news:

Leah has been dry since going potty for the first time on Thursday. We're thanking our lucky stars for that! She turned out to be a potty-training prodigy, once she got started!

Rebekah finished taking her antibiotics today. That's just in time for Leah to start hers. She has an ear infection. So her ears hurt, and our ears hurt (from her screaming about how her ears hurt). She slept most of the afternoon.

It's just a countdown until we take the next child into the clinic. We're very good about supporting small community resources!