4th of july

we celebrated the 4th of july at my parent's house again this year.  we love going down there for this holiday because they live outside the city limits and you can buy and shoot fireworks to your heart's content.  and believe me when i say this, those people down there are serious about their fireworks!

i grew up doing this because my parent's current house was my grandparents' house.  i have such fond memories of exploding ant hills with black cat firecrackers, eating homemade ice cream, and watching other people set off fireworks in the street.

not much has changed over the years and i am not kidding when i say that you can hear some sort of firework going off every second from dusk till whenever you go to bed.  and this is for DAYS, not just the night of the 4th.

i will say that lighting fireworks takes on a whole new meaning as a mom.  i was trying to be real cool about it all and only lost it when a lit smoke bomb rolled toward a pack of 300 firecrackers sitting on the ground right in front of us.

but you should have seen john and the boys!  they had the time of their life setting off our quaint stash of fireworks that we indulged in this year!

love these brothers and their kool-aid lips!