But let's face it, they were just too excited to go to sleep. Grandma's house, go-kart rides, fireworks tomorrow, etc...after 3 times to "get a drink" we decided it was a losing battle to try to confine our children to their beds. And besides, we had fireworks to light and tomorrow night there will be too much competition. Originally we had believed our kids would be too tired to stay up until 10:00 pm to watch the fireworks (silly parents!)
So at 10:00 pm we brought the kids back out and set up a little fireworks display. The kids had to relearn the art of sparklers but finally got the hang of it. We lit a fireworks special from Sam's Club and had a wonderful show of various fountains. The first few fountains had the boys undivided attention and they were so excited. By the last fountain our boys were done and ready for more sparklers or something that would make a bang. That's where Uncle Kyle comes in. He had brought his own supply of fireworks and most of the things he had made noise! He discovered that some of his noise makes did wonders if you shot them into the sky with a sling shot; you just had to have the right timing. It was great fun and the boys were sad when Uncle Kyle ran out of toys. The next door neighbors had a few imported (illegal) fireworks that they shot up and those were fun supplemental action to our evening.
The boys really got a kick out of the sparklers because they could handle them and (with the propane torch lit) they could light the sparklers themselves. They also loved the pop-its, the ones you throw on the ground and the pop. Then Donovan got to try a few pull-string pops; the first one scared him but then he thought they were great.
By 11:00 pm we were done with fireworks and it was time to bring the boys in and clean up our mess in the street. Aleky was ready for bed but the other boys were even more excited. This time we had to put our foot down and declare it officially time to sleep. This time it worked and within less than 5 minutes the room is completely quiet. I wonder what time they'll wake up tomorrow...?
(pictures pending in another post)
