Happy 4th of July!!

This year the girls were so excited to see some fireworks! We had planned to just stay in the neighborhood and watch the ones here - they collected money from neighbors, so we knew it would be a pretty good show. Well, we also have some new neighbors (3 younger guys renting the house next door) and they said they were going to have a really good show too. So, at about 6:45 we had the kids outside playing trying to burn off time until it got dark. The guys next door just couldn't control themselves and had to start lighting some off. This scared them to death!!!! They were not expecting that at all! Chloe took off into the house, Carly buried her head into Matt's lap, and poor Harper was in the middle of the yard mowing, so he had to abandon his mower and took off screaming!! At this point the girls said, they were done with fireworks and wanted to go to bed!!! So we went inside, got baths, and ready for bed. Harper went right to sleep (he did need Daddy to go in there and hold him a little bit to unwind). The girls and I made some firework pictures and then headed to bed. Of course they needed us. I couldn't deny them some security - they were petrified!!! As we were snuggling in, Chloe looked at me, rubbed my arm and said, "You're nice Mommy." Oh!! Sweet girl! She just needed us and I am so glad we were there for them. We laid there for a while and all was quiet outside as everyone was awaiting the 9 o'clock hour. No go. They were not going to sleep. They are too big now to know that more were coming. I told them I was going outside to watch some and they could either come or stay in their beds. They came - cotton in their ears and all. We had to cover their ears and smash their heads against our chests. I had Chloe and Matt had Carly. We tried to give them their glow sticks that they had to have for the big show. Carly had a long one death gripped in her hand and it looked like Matt had an antenna! We watched for a little while and they just were so tense, I felt so bad. So we headed back inside into our bedroom. We opened the blinds so they could see the ones outside and we turned on the TV and watched the fireworks in NY and DC. They loved this!!! They liked the music and the quiet firework display! I even let them snack on some Cheerios. When I brought them the Cheerios there was someone singing on the TV and they said, "Mom, this is our song." It was the song Big Girls Don't Cry!!! So funny. Anyways, we watched these until about 11:00 and all was quiet in the neighborhood. They were pumped at this point, but managed to go to bed. It was really fun to stay up and enjoy the night with the girls, even though the beginning was really rough. And the past 2 days all we have heard about is how they want to go see fireworks!!!

Here they are with their glow sticks enjoy the show on TV in our bed!