Our Fourth!

For this week's you capture, I'm linking up my Fourth of July post.
There are many things that America means to me and certainly, living in the DC area, I could have captured many iconic American images, but we were busy with celebrating America in our own small way.
So this post is not so much "what America means to me" as it is about how we celebrated America's birthday.

******************************

I'm sitting at the computer at one a.m. on the 6th of July

and I'm still feeling an excitement high from our wonderful 4th of July.

I had lots of ideas, a few plans, but ultimately the day kind of flowed and we just went with it.

Best way to do it...ever!

We made sure to have lots of special treats for the kids.

Firecraker popsicles...

Yummy strawberries and picnic food.

The cousins enjoyed being together and playing in the pool.

They were in there for five hours, with just a few breaks here and there.

Natalie took charge of filling the water balloons.

Which led to...

A water balloon battle of epic proportions! 

Once they calmed down a bit,

(and took another dip in the pool)

they decorated a jello poke cake with yummy raspberries and blueberries.

It was pretty much unanimously agreed that this was the 

BEST CAKE EVER!

And there were many requests that this be the cake made for their birthday.

The sun began to set ....

So we got out a few glow sticks and sent them all "night swimming."

I think I might have heard a few remarks along the lines of 

"Coolest Mom's EVER!"

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the kids said that, but I might have mentioned it as well. 

Throughout the weekend and even into the day of the fourth,

I did much mental wringing of the hands as I tried to figure out what to do about fireworks.

There were none that I knew of that were close to home,

But I didn't want to fight traffic and crowds to get to a show.

So after a careful poll, it was decided that simple sparklers would suffice.

(This might be my new favorite picture.)

The sparklers were definitely a hit, 

but we were also lucky enough to have a few neighbors that were setting off a few bigger fireworks too.

So from the comfort of the pool and our lawn chairs,

we got to see a fairly nice display of pyrotechnics without the hassle of finding a parking space.

We also got a last minute visit from Natalie's parents 

who had a few low to the ground type fireworks that we set off in our (very dry) backyard.

Fortunately, the grass didn't catch fire, but we did have a hose running and ready

just in case.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful fourth of July.

I've seen that so many of my favorite blogs have put up posts about their 4th's 

and I'm dying to read them all, 

but it's 1:30am and I should be in bed.  

I'm hoping to catch some computer time in the morning before all the kids wake up and want their turn.