Our Fourth of July

For our little family, the 4th of July means two things: 1) Fireworks, and 2) Parade/Candy!

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We went up to the fireworks show at the golf course near our house and had a great time. Arden and Dax played in the sand trap while we waited for it to get dark, my awesome sister Val brought glow-sticks to keep the kids entertained after it got dark, there was lots of yummy food and snacks, my mom was there to take Arden to the porta-potty (I HATE those things) and most importantly, no one freaked out when the fireworks started! Hoooray! Arden is usually afraid of fireworks, but she did pretty good sitting on Preston's lap. Here is Daxton's face as the first firework went off (I just happened to be taking his picture):

Obviously, he wasn't quite sure what to think at first, but pretty soon Grandpa had him saying "WOW" after the really big ones. Fall-down-and-die-cute. Corbie fell asleep about 10 minutes before the fireworks started and slept through the whole thing.

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The next morning, we got up and headed up to Riverdale, where my sister lives. They have the perfect parade for us: It is not very long, and (most importantly) there is a LOT of candy thrown:

Seriously, there was so much candy that after a while Arden decided that she had enough candy in her bag and couldn't be bothered to pick any more up. THAT is a lot of candy. Most of the time Daxton would just pick up a piece of candy in each hand and wander around slobbering on the wrappers until someone would take pity on him and unwrap a piece of candy for him. He didn't get the whole "put the candy in the bag" thing until right at the end of the parade. Once he figured it out, he would take off running up the street looking for more on the ground (the parade was over by then). Luckily I had lots of help and he couldn't get far.

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Here is what Corbie thought of the parade:

Actually, this is what she thought of the fireworks too. Oh well...by next year she will be running up the street too. Scary thought.