Fireworks photos

Chris and Doug held their third annual 4th of July barbecue, and Lukas was quite excited in anticipating it. The first year (he was not quite 2.5), he watched from inside the house and then we had to leave early because the noise was way too much for him. Last year, Tom brought his range hearing protection, and Lukas loved wearing that and requested it again this year. He had fun running around with Matthew and Russell, and then sitting with Russell, who had his dad's range hearing protection too!

So we knew Lukas would be fine this year, but were unsure how Natalie and Konrad would do with all the noise...but they both did great! Natalie was walking and crawling up to everyone, scrounging potato chips, until I set her in a chair with a book and a chocolate chip cookie, and she was fine for a long time. She watched some of the activity from the chair, and then wanted to get involved in the action and sat at the curb for a long time with some of the other kids. Some kids with RTS don't like loud noises or large crowds of people, so Tom and I are pleasantly surprised that neither of those things bother Natalie (yet...it's always a possibility that this could change and start to bother her). Going to an Angels baseball game will be an ultimate test!

I put Konrad in the stroller in case I had to grab Natalie while Tom was lighting fireworks and Konrad amused himself with chewing on the flap that covers the buckle (his favorite thing to chew while sitting in the stroller...yuck!...I can't get him to play with toys in the stroller since he discovered the flap). But when I saw how well Natalie was doing, sitting still on the curb, I could get Konrad out and socialize with others at the party. Konrad watched the fireworks (with me covering his ears) and wasn't bothered by them at all!

The big neighborhood fireworks started about 8:45 p.m. (when it got darker), and we were able to stay until about 9:15 before the tiredness of our kids took over. We hope you had a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July too!