'Oppies and Fiewors

Happy [late] 4th of July! I hope everyone had a fun, safe time. We had ourselves a fun little celebration. We had a barbecue and invited some friends over to eat and to light fireworks with us. It turned out to be a really nice evening. I ate too much, as usual, but at least I didn't get sick this time.*

I made some cheesecakes, and I got a little enthusiastic and turned them into the following:

Drew and Owen had a grand old time. I have never seen Owen so excited about anything in his entire life. All 20.5 months of it. When we started lighting the fireworks (or "fiewors" as he calls them) he started yelling and jumping around and pumping his little fists in the air. He had an ear-to-ear grin on his face the entire time. He was so fun to watch. Owen didn't care for the city fireworks, which we watched from our back yard (they light the fireworks at the fairgrounds, which is about three blocks from our house), he just enjoyed the chance to be running wild in the back yard, having all the fun toys to himself.

Drew liked the all fireworks, but got a little scared at the ones that boomed and crackled. He loved the screamers, though. He kept saying, "Woo. Wooooo!" over and over. And he really enjoyed the city firework display. Everything was "pippie" (pretty). Drew's favorite though, were the little Snappers that don't need to be lit; you just throw 'em and they pop when they hit the ground. The boys can never throw them hard enough to pop, so they have to stomp on them. Owen likes that part a lot. We opened up a pack and would go outside and throw a few every day this week. I would say, "Do you guys want to go throw some poppers?" And Drew would yell, "Oppies!" and run for the door.

Here are some pictures from our fireworks:

The biggest smile Owen's ever worn...

And some of my favorites from the city's display:

*We went to our friend Little Mary's birthday party on Tuesday. She turned five, and got a Cadillac Escalade for her birthday. They had a barbecue there, and I ate four hot dogs, some potato salad, a bunch of potato chips, a piece of cake, some ice cream and a can of soda. I think I might have also had a few chocolate covered pretzels and some honey-roasted peanuts. I'm pretty sure I went far beyond "eating for two." I woke up at 4:00 the following morning absolutely sick. I kept everything down, but I don't remember having a worse stomach ache in my life.