4th of July

We spent most of the day driving to Glen Carbon.  The girls did very well on the car this trip; I had bought them each a special activity from Dollar Tree, and they both chose a Disney scene and sticker sheet, Amelia chose fairies and Megan chose Mickey.  I also got Amelia a small coloring canvas of a fairy with a few small markers.  These activities along with other sticker sheets kept the girls busy for quite a while.  I'm glad, because coloring books and stickers take up a lot less room than the toys I've been keeping in the car for trips.  I also had taken them to Goodwill to let them each pick out a book; Amelia chose a Stage 4 Reader Tinkerbell book, and Megan chose a Stage 1 Thomas the Train book.  They are really into characters now, but they happily read their new books in the car, so I can't complain.  Oh, and Megan played for ages with the little zoo animals and zoo cups from Dollar Tree that I had bought years ago for Amelia.  Hope these notes help some of you who are taking car trips with your kids.

When we got to Jeff and Jane's, Amelia and I made our traditional 4th of July cake.  Amelia did not want to pose with her cake this year:

We went to the fireworks in Troy, Illinois on the 4th.  The girls had fun playing on the playground before it got dark.  Megan liked doing the monkey bars (with some help, of course) and Amelia liked going down the great big slide.

Grandma and Grandpa had bought some glow sticks, and the girls had a lot of fun with them.  Grandpa Jeff had fun, too:

Megan tried to copy him:

Troy had a really nice fireworks show; it lasted a long time and had a lot of interesting fireworks.  Amelia liked the fireworks a lot, although she didn't like the ones that were just a flash of light and a loud boom, and she also didn't like the finale when a lot of fireworks were being shot off at once, because it was too loud for her.  Megan fell asleep in my arms a few minutes into the fireworks, and slept until it was time to get back in the van to drive home, and then she was wide awake again.  I don't know how you can sleep through fireworks!