Happy Independence Day!

I hope all my American friends are enjoying our nation's birthday.  We live in an area where we can still do our own fireworks, so yesterday Carl and Elliott went a little crazy with buying them.  It's been a while since Carl was so excited to buy them, though, so we bought whatever he wanted, within reason.  They've already been doing a few daytime things.  We'll have a lot to do late tonight, though.

Carl is grilling hamburgers right now for lunch, and will be grilling brats, hotdogs, and ribs tonight.  Nothing like grilled food all day. :)  My sister is actually off work tonight, so she will be joining us later.  We're excited.  She's had to work every 4th since she moved up here, so it will be nice having her here!

This is just part of our stuff.  It's missing one big thing, plus most of Elliott's stuff he can do himself (smoke bombs, sparklers, snakes, etc)

Teenagers in Training

Elliott is eight years old now and is convinced he is old enough for a cell phone.  My husband and I disagree, and luckily so do the parents of  his friends.  The only one of his friends who has a cell phone is a diabetic and needs it to contact his parents immediately if his numbers are off or he just feels like they might be.  I'm glad Elliott realizes that while B NEEDS one, Elliott only wants one, so he doesn't use that comparison.  The main reason he wants a cell phone is to text his friends.  That isn't really a valid point when none of them have cell phones, though.