Sparkle.

This year to celebrate Independence Day, we went to the LeCuyers, some good family/high school friends of Matt's. It was a lot of fun for everyone, and we even stuck around extra late (like 10:00 p.m., whoa) to watch them set off some fireworks. Unfortunately, our sensitive first-born was horrified of the loud noises! He stayed in the house while the fireworks were going off, cried much of the way home, and would only go to bed if the radio was on to drown out the fireworks still going on outside. I feel bad for the little guy as it's taken him over a week to get back to a normal sleeping routine that doesn't require music, and he's been waking up in the middle of the night to come into our bed.

Although scared of loud noises, he was not bothered by the sparklers, which we did first. Nathan got to hold one all by himself-he was very careful and very proud!

I wanted a picture of Ella with her sparkler, but of course by the time I got around to it she had had enough! She did enjoy it the first few seconds, but then I think it set in that she was way to tired to enjoy this.

Here's Matt with his good friend from high school, Brian LeCuyer. I immediately smiled when we arrived because it was quite obvious that they were wearing the same shirt:) Too bad Brian didn't choose blue, it would've looked a little more festive!