The Fourth!

Mooky has been looking forward to July 4th for quite a while now.  I don't know how it came up exactly, but she knew we had some leftover "fireworks" in the drawer so she was pretty excited about them {the "fireworks" were just glow worms and poppers}.  We also picked up some sparklers at a local tent that was selling them.  I'm not entirely clear on what the rules were, but fireworks haven't been allowed for a while so I think we were all pretty excited to get something as small as a sparkler.

I bought a really simple craft kits for the girls to do this summer and it included a couple of fourth of July projects.  They wore their hats and the necklaces and insisted on marching around the house to very loud band music pretending to have a fourth of July parade.  I wished we lived in a small town somewhere, with cooler weather, so we could take them to a real 4th of July parade.

This was literally the only picture that wasn't blurry from their "parade".

Previous to the 4th, I did my best to explain to Mooky what exactly is it we are celebrating on the 4th of July, including a short bit about the war.  A few minutes after I explained it to her she says, "Well, let's not do that again."  I wasn't sure what on Earth she was talking about so I asked her what she meant and she said "that fighting part, let's not do that again".

So, after explaining to Mooky how we gained our freedom from England, I thought it was rather funny on the morning of the 4th the girls were pretending this box was a boat and they were headed for, none other than, England.

In the afternoon we decided to head off to our local Children's Museum.  We usually go swimming on the 4th of July, but we had already been invited to a swim party and a friend's house to swim that weekend; so, we decided to change up our tradition a bit this year.  The museum was really empty, which was actually wonderful.  The kids got a chance to do everything they wanted and we even squeezed in the museum's craft time.

The girls in front on the giant sunflowers at the museum's garden.

Daddy in the dinosaur room; Mooky is NOT a fan of this room.

Craft time!  Painting fireworks with straws.

Fire Engine

I think Hubby was hoping he could take this home with us.

Mooky was obviously okay with this dinosaur.

After the museum, we made our way to a local sandwich/slushy chain.  They are awesome!  We sat and enjoyed the air conditioning while we split a big slushy.  We watched the traffic go by and realized our first monsoon was about to hit.  We finished up and reached the car just as the rain started.  This was our view about three minutes after we got into the car.  Once we turned the corner about a mile down we found trees in the middle of the road and the water already up to the sidewalk.  This is why we have flash flood warnings and "stupid motorist" laws.

However, back at our house, we couldn't tell if it had even rained.  We got some confirmation from neighbors that is had rained some, but it was quite disappointing after the downpour in town.  On the other hand, there have been a few times that we haven't been able to get in or out because the main road to our house was flooded, so we were grateful to be able to get home.

We spent the rest of the evening with our silly little "fireworks" and letting the kids stay up way too late...just because.

Pumpkin throwing a popper "firework".  {Please ignore the dead plants.}

Mooky didn't like how loud the poppers were.  I thought that was a little odd because two years ago {or was it last year} I thought she would react that way, but that year she loved it.

Burning grow worms or glow worms...I dunno...yes we are aware of Hubby's sock and flip flop issue...we don't claim to be fashionable people.  :-)

Mooky not so sure about the sparkler {and giant bucket of water because we are not going to be the people who start another fire in this state}.

Mooky ended up doing almost all of the sparklers.  She thought it was a lot of fun and was really disappointed when we ran out.  We had quite a few duds.

Pumpkin's turn at the sparklers.  She wasn't a fan and only did this one.  She really dislikes being around smoke.

So, it was an enjoyable 4th.  We always remember the 4th of July that our air conditioner was broken, so any 4th with a working air conditioner is a good one in our book.