Fabulous Fourth

Oh, I do love the Fourth of July!  There's just something about the smell of gunpowder in the air on a hot summer night with a beer in my hand that tells me that everything's right with the world.

Of course, all proper Independence Day celebrations must start with the ceremonial decoration of a flag cake.  WanYing decided to start with the blueberry stars...

...but quickly realized that decorating and sneaking the occasional blueberry is small potatoes when you could be licking the icing bowl!

Sasha, however, stuck with the decorating until the bitter end.  She meticulously placed each strawberry in each stripe, even insisting on adding an extra stripe to fill in an unsightly gap.

After cake decoration come the daytime incendiaries.  Pops and smoke bombs are the favorites in our family.  And there are rules about how these things must be done - to prove oneself, pops must be ignited by squeezing them between the thumb and index finger (it doesn't hurt, but it sure looks badass) and smoke bombs require dancing through the smoke. 

The rules are firm and the outfits are awesome.  Bear in mind that it's about 95 degrees and WanYing is wearing leggings under her tights and her wooly Crocs.  The belt was also all her doing, but I approve wholeheartedly of that particular choice.

Next comes dusk and time to start the real show!  We start with sparklers because it's best to start with the most dangerous element of the evening.  I've never been hurt by the big fireworks, but man have I gotten burned by those hateful glowing metal instruments of torture!

We are always very careful with our fireworks

At least somebody has the proper awe and respect!

We decided that WanYing is thinking, "Dude, I'm Chinese.  My people invented fireworks.  And you give me a glittery stick?!?

But never you worry, she enjoyed them nonetheless

Oh, and strobes must be danced around.  Again, I don't make the rules, I just take the pictures and laugh at the monkey dances

We had a fabulous Fourth all together at last and survived with no injuries and only a few cranky kids the next morning after a very late and exciting night.

Thanks for giving us a heck of a birthday party every year, America!