Pre-Gaming for July 4th

One of my favorite things about summer is the July 4th holiday! I love the day off from work, more time with the kiddos and soaking up all the celebrating and memory-making with our family and friends. I loved that the 4th fell on a Saturday this year. This meant that we got Friday the 3rd off from school and work as the observed holiday. More time to spread out the celebrating!!

Up first, the Bartlett Fireworks. This was our 2nd year to go and I'm so glad the rain came and went so we could enjoy the fireworks fun! Our neighbors, the Nowlins, joined us for the fun.  I love, love that Bartlett does their fireworks a few days early so that we can do other things on the 4th. We got there early again to claim a prime spot for firework-watching and then walked over to enjoy the bounce houses and such. We treated the kids to some snow-cones, which they both loved and promptly spilled all over themselves. :)

Sweet Case and Emery

Our blurry family selfie after eating sno-cones!

We headed back over to our spot, broke out the snacks and glow sticks and waited for the fireworks to start. Our kiddos were having trouble sharing our glow sticks...even though we had 1,000, they of course all wanted the same ones/colors. Typical!

Great pic of James and Anne!

The fireworks were great again this year. I have been so impressed with the show that Bartlett puts on...they definitely don't skimp and the show lasted a little over 20 minutes. Caroline was a little scared of the noise and went between Russ and my lap during the show. She would bury her head in our shoulder, but then would still be peaking out. Haha. It was a fun 1st night of celebrating and the kids were excited to stay up until almost 1045p! :)

We were supposed to have our neighborhood parade he morning of the 3rd, but it was postponed to the 4th due to rain. So with our morning now free, we decided to take the kids to the movies to see "Inside Out". Neighbors Justin and Bennett joined us, too. It was SUCH a cute movie and a little emotional for all the adults...even Justin and Russ, surprisingly. The kids all seemed to really enjoy the movie, too...it and the popcorn! It was Caroline's first movie to see in the theater and she did GREAT! She sat in her booster in the seat almost the entire time and was just mesmerized. I am always shocked that she can sit still because she does it so rarely! Ha!

That night, we had our own little fireworks show in our driveway. We did simple things...bottle rockets (which I think are pointless!), roman candles, a few other random things that Russ picked out....and of course, sparklers. Russ picked up all the fireworks and didn't get the long-handled sparklers, so the kids were kinda scared of them. I was, too, because I didn't want them to get burned. We also got eaten ALIVE by mosquitoes! There were swarms everywhere and Russ even got bit (which means it was really bad, but they never bother him!) Caroline and I got it the worst with about 30 bites each. It was awful! :( But, the kids had fun shooting our own fireworks, so that made it worth it.