The 4th, OKC-Style

One thing that is definitely true about Oklahoma is that it is VERY patriotic. I love it! It was really fun to celebrate the 4th here. We started out the morning bright and EARLY to get to the "biggest little-town parade in America" in our town, Edmond. They have a week-long festival here called LibertyFest. It is huge and really fun. They have all kinds of things going on all week, so this was part of it.
All ready for the parade.
His first time wearing a hat and it was Adorable.





Aren't those tiny ponies super cute?

We went home and invited some friends over for ice cream sandwiches and sprinklers. I didn't get any pictures of that, but the kids had a lot of fun and were able to stay relatively cool!

After we got all rested, we thought we'd do some fireworks and things before Griffin had to go to bed and before I took the kids to ParkFest.


Griffin is the only one of our kids at this age and absolutely LOVED the fireworks and was fearless. He kept running at them once they were lit. We gave him this used one so he could pretend to set it up and light it alongside Nate.
It was right after these sparklers that Jayci's traumatic incident happened. The tiniest bit of ash fell of her sparkler and onto her foot. Traumatic, no? Jayci refused to go anywhere near any type of fireworks for the rest of the night.

I got the kids ready again and I took Trey and Jayci to ParkFest while Nate stayed home and put Griffin to bed. And OH MY GOSH it was ridiculously hot. I am sure it was over 100 (since it has been all but four days since we moved here), and there was no shade and so many people! But it was worth it. They have all these free activities for kids to do there. The kids got their hair painted, tattoos put on by the Miss Oklahoma Teen (Jayci was in heaven having hers put on by a "queen"), had balloon animals and hats made for them, and bounced on bouncy things.

They also have free watermelon for everyone. It was SO delicious and cold.
We headed home and let the kids watch a movie so they could stay up until it got darker (which seems REALLY late here!). Then we did some more of our fireworks, which are obviously better at night. Well, Jayci got SO freaked out she took off running and screaming and wouldn't come near them the rest of the night.
Treyton, on the other hand, loved them.

Notice the PopIt marks all over the door. Nice...
We had a very busy, but SO fun 4th! This was our first one without family in YEARS, so we both wished we could have spent them together, but this was a pretty good alternative!