S'mores and Fireworks

Cora was the only one in our family that looked festive on Independence Day, so (of course) I had to get a picture of her!

On Sunday afternoon, we told Aiden and Seth that if they took a nap, we could go watch fireworks in the evening. Thankfully, they did nap - an hour and a half - and weren't too crabby in the afternoon. After the evening church service, I put Cora down to sleep, but we let the boys stay up. (I have to say that our life for the last 3 1/2 years has rotated very much around nap times and that 7pm bedtime. I don't mind it either, because I know that well-rested kids are happy kids, but we have skipped out on fireworks for the past three years because of not wanting to tire the boys out too much. It was a very big step for us to decide to keep the boys up this year!) Once Cora was down, we went outside and toasted marshmallows and ate s'mores.

Zion helped clean Seth and Aiden's fingers, chairs...

and faces!

After getting the boys ready for bed, I woke Cora up and we all drove to Corning to watch the fireworks. We found a place to park and spread the blanket out really easily, despite the fact that we arrived only about 10 minutes before the fireworks started. All of the kids loved the fireworks (although Cora did cling pretty tightly to me whenever they were loud), and Dan and I both enjoyed watching their expressions as they experienced this Independence Day tradition for the first time ever.