4th of July Celebrations

Our 4th of July was a little crazy this year. Its hard to make plans when you're married to a roughneck. We didn't think Bret would be here so I didn't really plan much of anything other than to have hamburgers for dinner. Maycie is terrified of fireworks so I didn't plan on even watching any. Turns out, Bret was able to make it home in the afternoon. The only plan I changed was getting sparklers for Haylee. I knew I wouldn't have been able to do them on my own but now that Bret was here I figured we could celebrate a little. When it got close to dinner time we were invited to a last minute company barbeque. The guys had set up tables out in the middle of the driveway and were going to cook hamburgers and hot dogs. (I was happy we didn't have to cook!) Bret's rig is the only one working so those two crews were not here but everybody else was. It was fun getting together and meeting lots of new people. With the night crews sleeping during the day and the day crews out working we might see one or two guys here and there. Its easy to forget how many really live here! I always like the girls to be dressed festively, especially for the July holidays. When I found out we would be out in public I started digging through the two bins of clothes that I have stored in my car.  I found two dresses that I made for Haylee when she was younger. One fit Maycie and the other fit Haylee. It was a little tight around the top but she said she wanted to wear it. Everything worked out perfectly. We had dinner provided for us and we had a nice long evening with Bret.

 

Here we have Haylee playing football with the guys. She tried so hard to catch the ball or run to get it but never actually did. That didn't bother her though!

 

 

She LOVED the watermelon! I don't know how many slices she ate, she was in heaven!

 

 

Maycie sat on my lap, very cautiously, eating cheese puffs.

 

 

I asked the girls to go over by this chair so I could take their picture... Maycie would NOT get off my lap. Now when she looks at this picture she says I shouldn't  have taken the picture without her.

 

Just on a side note, this was the most stressful firework show of my life. People were just lighting them off all around us. There were kids running around with those lighter sticks, the ones with red hot tips. People putting those loud bombs by groups of people to scare them. Well, I'm pretty sure Maycie was the only one who was scared. She was in tears and crying to go in. She is so noise sensitive this was torture for her. We tried to keep her entertained and away from the group but it didn't last long. We tried to distract her with sparklers but she wasn't thrilled about it.

 

 

 

She glared at me with this face when I asked her if she wanted more:

 

 

Not happy. (Yes, that is a bruise on her forehead. She fell off the swings and landed flat on her face)

Haylee on the other hand was excited to play with sparklers. We had a bunch of different sizes, different colors and different spark levels. Seriously, some almost shot flames!

 

 

 

One family picture!

 

 

After hours of being a nut case due to the lack of supervision, safety and not being able to keep Haylee to stay a safe distance away from exploding things; I finally took her aside to have a little talk, I think I scared her to death. I told her she has to stay far away from the fireworks and she was not allowed to touch any until the next day. Some kids were grabbing them as soon as they quit sparking. I told Haylee she couldn't touch them because they could explode in her hands. Seriously, I scared her... but it worked! She even made sure to protect her friends.

 

 

I took this picture shortly after 10:30pm. See how light it is!? 

 

At this point Maycie was scared, tired and in tears. I took her in to watch a movie but she called Grandma Julie and Grandpa first. She talked to them for a few minutes then it was my turn. By the time I was off the phone Maycie was sound asleep in my lap. I laid her down, covered her up and went back outside.

 

 

We had a fun night together. I'm glad our original plans of doing nothing changed!

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!