friends, food, fireworks ,the fourth

some of our closest friends joel, rebecca, and baby stella came to celebrate the fourth at our house. oh and i shouldn't forget their dog hurley. luca wouldn't come outside to play because he wanted to wait at the window to watch for "hurdie doggie" to arrive. once they did, we set up camp in the backyard. of course, we needed to have a photo shoot while all of the children were cooperating. the girlies were picture perfect in their red and white striped outfits, and they were very interested in their papi's beer bottles.





it gets so much harder to see the people we love when you add kids to the mix, so we were thankful to have such a long chunk of time with them. once both of our families get more accustomed to the newest additions, i hope it won't be as difficult to hang out. giavanna and stella were born only 10 weeks apart, so we have big plans for these two to be bosom buddies.







"joel doggie dada" (luca really does call him this every time) taught luca how to make hurley do tricks for crackers.



one of the great things about celebrating the fourth at our house is that you only have to walk across the street to watch our town's fireworks display. our street becomes packed with cars about 8:30 and the sidewalks are full of others in pursuit of bright, loud, and fiery entertainment. for the past few days, luca had been hearing firecrackers and was imiatating the noises (eeeewwwwwww, boom!). he was excited to go see the fireworks ("guca ecited firewooks!"), but since it was past his bedtime, he needed his paci and blankie for the trip. we were brave bringing two babies to an obnoxiously loud event, but when luca was three months old he was mesmerized by the show, so we were willing to take the chance. well, not to worry, my super laid back baby girl not only kicked her legs in enjoyment for the first 15 minutes, but slowly drifted off to sleep as if hypnotized by the pinwheels and wheeping willows. rebecca and i had the babies sitting on our laps with our hands over the ears to deaden some of the booming. luca jumped with surprise after the first one went off and slowly backed up until he hit a chair. he then had whole body shivers and wouldn't move a muscle. we eventually persuaded him to sit on jesse's lap and he continued to be a bit unnerved by the whole thing. jesse said he had shivers 4 or 5 more times. when it ended, he said "more boom booms" so we know he did enjoy himself. he described them to me later as "real loud" and "up high." after walking back to the house, (we had added 4 to our group after seeing friends at the park) everyone packed into their cars (with luca saying "stay here" as he pointed to joel, rebecca, and stella) and we lumbered into chez hart. i was exhausted, but what a night! i love celebrating - seeing people dear to our hearts, eating yummy food (grilled sweet corn tastes sooooo good in central illinois especially with parmesan cheese sprinkled on top), an amazing pyrotechnics display, and honoring the birth (kind of, right rox?) of our nation.