Epic 4th Weekend Part Two - Fireworks

There are only two things we need for a great Fourth of July celebration - flag cake and fireworks. Oh, and beer. Don't forget beer.

As has become tradition, the girls outdid themselves with the annual flag cake. And I got wise this year and bought more than double the fruit we need because somehow a whole lot of strawberries and blueberries disappear during the decorating process.

The very best part about hosting an Independence Day BBQ is that everybody brings fireworks to share! We ended up with quite the haul and, yes, lit of almost all of them.

I know that fireworks are polluting and dangerous and fire hazards... but man are they fun!

The kids divide up the loot and plan their attack

Despite the face, sparklers are still fun for teenagers, I promise

But six-year-olds do enjoy them more

We did this for hours. And it never got old

The aftermath - God bless America!

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!

Something you've been waiting to see

We got to enjoy the 4th all together in Utah!

Two weeks ago, a judge in Maryland agreed to modify the terms of Steve's bail and allow him to return to Utah, so Steve and the boys jumped on the next reasonably priced flight and high-tailed it home!

We're definitely in the midst of a tough adjustment period as Steve re-learns how to cope with the noise and chaos of four little ones after 6 quiet months in Maryland, the kids remember what it's like to listen to two parents, and Steve and I get to know each other after so many months of separation and change.

We're grateful that we get to start learning and healing and acclimating now even before the case has been decided and definitely appreciate your continued prayers for each member of our family, the ongoing legal process, and the healing of our larger family.  Thanks so much for all of the love and grace and encouragement and help you've lavished on our family over the past 6 months.  We are so grateful for the Body of Christ that has cared for us each day.  Don't let up, this journey is far from completed!

WanYing's First Fourth

The Fourth of July was a total success for our newest U.S. citizen!

I admit that I get a little misty on patriotic holidays now, but there's something about celebrating with these girls who we are so grateful to have home and citizens that gets me every time.  I love their Chineseness and their Kazakhstaniness and their Americanness and I love how it all blends into the wacky cultural mixing bowl that is our Morningstarness.  Plus both Sasha and WanYing look totally adorable in red, white, and blue.

The day started with the ceremonial decorating of the flag cake. The cake was delicious and particularly festive - but I make no promises about its hygenicness.  For the record, I did try to ensure that the girls didn't stick the licked-clean utensils back into the frosting bowl.

Sasha did a particularly fine job with the application of strawberry stripes on the cake. Please ignore the other little girl in the background who is licking her fingers between the placement of each blueberry star.

After naps, we headed over to the Kyte home for a low-key Independence Day shindig. Here Daddy demonstrates Ben's prized possession - the Nintendo 3DS that he received from his grandparents for his birthday. No, I have no idea why 1. Daddy is playing it or, 2. Daddy is playing it in the middle of a party. Oh well.

Good thing it's a sturdy hammock!

My sweet firecrackers show off their piggies and bunnies and festive outfits from Grammy

WanYing embraced the Fourth of July festivities with gusto and, unlike Sasha's first Fourth, spent nary a moment huddled under a blanket for "safety." This girl couldn't get enough of the poppers, booms, and sparkles!

She clutched her hard-earned and well-protected bags of poppers in her little fist, chanting, "more poppers, more poppers" as she merrily stomped every last one. 

Oh, and make sure you check out the new squeakers purchased in China that WanYing grew into just in time for the holiday! So festive, and so dang cute - it was super-fun to hear her happily stomp-squeak-popping along the driveway. I'm glad I bought a pair in every size!

Be afraid, be very afraid

The kids do their annual monkey dance around the strobes, this time bringing Kylee in on the action.

The box-top of strobes and fountains was really fun... until it became the Box of Fire and had to be moved farther from the garage with the Rake of Safety

Oh, and aerials were legalized in Utah this year - woo hoo!

A fantastic finale.  Boy do I love the Fourth.

We emerged from the festivities tired and happy and mostly unscathed (it wouldn't be Independence Day without a few little burns, right?). And a good time was had by all.

Happy Third of July!

by Sam

Yes, we did do our fireworks on the third of July because if we did them on the fourth of July we'd have to do them in a drive-in parking lot. [since the Fourth was on a Sunday, most folks in the Valley celebrated on the third. We joined in the neighborhood celebration on the 3rd and headed to the drive in on the Fourth for a double feature on Sunday]

You wouldn't believe the casualties the soldiers suffered. The pictures only show a tiny fraction of the injuries, in my opinion. I must say, of the many I tested, I'm guessing probably the Stars and Stripes did the most damage, however the upper body of a soldier did get melted off because of a Ground Bloom Flower.

I must say, I think the Countdown is my favorite. My all time favorite. I must say, I think the funnest is truly the Crazy Eyeballs and the one-and-a-half inches. If the cops came by, we would be in so much trouble. I wonder where Mark got those? [the inch-and-a-halves were left by some fabulous friends when they moved out of state. Sam was fascinated by the idea of using semi-legal incendiaries]

Sasha hated the noise and we ended up giving her headphones. They were completely noise-canceling. She was a lot happier then.

I know you'll see pictures of this, but the monkey dance I think is awesome. The inspiration was from Kudos Kiddos, our church Sunday School singing group. They do a dance like that for a short, maybe 5 seconds. It's my favorite part of the song. We were using strobes and they turned to ash - there wasn't anything left from the strobes!

Happy Third of July!

Balloon Fest

A cool July morning in quiet Provo, Utah. Dawn breaks. A giant piggy bank soars majestically above the high school ballfields. A child shrieks, "Goo nuh noyse. No wike noyse! No wike dis! Go way, go way! Me want go home." Boys trudge along in an early-morning stupor. The Morningstars must be at the Freedom Festival Balloon Fest.


Sasha says of this photo, "Scawy. I cry. I no yike dat Coke."
Sasha was thrilled, however, whenever we ran up and whacked a balloon and ran away. She was happy with the balloons as long as she could swat at them and they didn't look like giant looming pigs or Coke bottles and weren't too loud. Or they could be in the air, they were fine if they were in the air.

The Kiwanis pancake breakfast, however, met with her resounding approval.

Sasha's First Fourth

Sasha's first Independence Day as a US citizen was a total success! She hasn't quite embraced fireworks as the intensely spiritual experience that the rest of us know them to be, but we'll give her time. On the up-side, she didn't cry all of the way through the fireworks like she did at Summerfest so we are very optimistic about her future fireworks acclimatization.

This year we attended the vaulted Stadium of Fire rather than orchestrating our own show. Speaking as an overwhelmed Mommy, it was kind of nice to have someone else plan my fireworks display for me, although I did miss the thrill of my children narrowly missing third degree burns at every turn. Plus they had light-up cups for purchase at the Stadium, and I've never seen those at our home concession stand.

Plus this year's Stadium of Fire featured the one and only Jonas Brothers. Before Saturday my exposure to the Jonas Brothers consisted solely of Camp Rock music videos aired on TV in Kazakhstan between Hannah Montana episodes. I greedily devoured this daily hour of mind-numbing tween-TV because it was in English, sweet sweet English. Trust me, if you spent days on end talking to your Russian-speaking toddler daughter and watching Soviet claymation, you would weep with joy at discovering the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana on TV, too.

As you can see, Sasha was enamored with the Jonas Brothers show. The rest of us may have been a little less enthused, but it was a genuinely enjoyable show as long as the girls behind and next to us managed to keep their ear-piercing squealing to a minimum. I know, I know, this is my probable future, but man were those girls loud!

And then came the fireworks! Sasha was satisfied with merely hiding her eyes and occasionally peaking through the cracks for the first part of the show, but eventually it all got to be too much for her and even the safety of her peek-a-boo hands wasn't enough. Fortunately Mom and Dad were thinking and brought a blanket to swaddle Sasha (it didn't go to our heads, though, since we also lost Ben for about half an hour in the 40,000-person crowd, thus negating any parent points we had scored by bringing a blanket for Sasha). As long as that blanket was over her head, she was totally calm and fine - no tears, no fear! I peaked in on her a couple of times throughout the show and as soon as I cracked that blanket her chubby little fist shot up and yanked it back over her head, so that was as much confirmation as I needed that she wanted the blanket right where it was. And as soon as the fireworks were over, she popped right out of her covering and cheered along with the other 40,000 of us, just like she actually enjoyed the show. She's a quick recoverer, this daughter of ours!

As always, it was a wonderful fireworks display and a great way to celebrate our Independence Day. We're so proud of our newest citizen and thrilled to share another new holiday with our baby girl. Happy first Fourth, Sasha!