Fireworks and Marshmallows

In trying to "catch up" on blogs, the next big thing after the beach trip was the fourth of July. It is one of my favorite holidays. Good food, fireworks, outdoors, summer time, no pressure to travel or give gifts, what could be better?! We celebrated pretty low key this time around, inviting over our Aussie friends, Ali, Matt and Lachlan, to celebrate the fourth with grilling, s'mores, and then fireworks.

our Aussie friends! :)

As we have demonstrated in past posts, we like to dress by "themes", so we were all in red, white or blue. Here's my attempt at a cute 4th picture for the girls. As you can see, it didn't go so well. Too much wiggling and squirming. And despite her expression, Hayden did not get to try her first beer on the fourth.

Since we were going to spend a lot of time outside, we thought that getting out the pack-n-play would be a good idea to corral the babies and give them a safe, soft place to play. Even Hayden wanted to get in and play. Of course, we didn't really think about the threat of another monster-Eliza...


We had a yummy dinner and then we moved on to dessert. Hayden and I had succumbed to marketing at our favorite grocery store and bought GIANT marshmallows. Here Hayden demonstrates the size - a regular large marshmallow and a GIANT marshmallow.
They came in regular and strawberry in one bag. Hayden and Jason liked the pink ones. I thought they were gross. :) Here are a couple more demonstrations of size...


And then we used them for s'mores. Perhaps a bit too much inner marshmallow that was hard to get toasted, but still...YUM!!!


After stuffing ourselves with GIANT marshmallows, we headed into campus to go to our favorite spot for the fireworks. We made sure to bring Hayden's blanket for comfort measures. It was a good thing we did, because she was not interested in watching the fireworks. She spent the whole time under the blanket, with maybe one peek outside. She didn't cry or ask to leave, she just didn't want to watch. She even got under the blanket before we sat down.

Eliza started off in the wrap, and I was hoping she would go to sleep. That's what Hayden had done when she was a baby, and it was pretty late. And she was content to watch the fireworks for a little bit.
Even Lachlan was nice and comfy with Ali, watching the show.

But then Eliza decided that she was not Hayden, and she had no interest in going to sleep. Nor did she care much about the fireworks. I let her out of the wrap and she spent the rest of the show (it goes on for about 40 min or so!), cruising around our camp chairs, dancing to the music and having a great old time.

We have loved Fourth of July in State College, they have the best fireworks. 45 min, set to music. Amazing! Click here to see a video.
Happy Fourth of July!