the cutest show in Michigan.

The Fourth of July is pretty much my favorite holiday.

My mom said she doesn't get why all her kids love the 4th so much.

 I told her that means she always made it fun.

My childhood 4ths involved family BBQs with cousins, lighting off little fireworks, and walking down to the fairgrounds with dad to watch the Biggest Show in Idaho.

Since moving away, a Fourth has not gone by where my heart didn't hurt a little, longing to be at that Show.

All this is why I want my kids to love the Fourth too.

The tricky part is that the duo is . . . here. And they just recently got on a real solid night sleeping schedule. And they make everything complicated. And it was 100 degrees outside and the duo just don't do heat and humidity. So we kept things low-key, but had a fun festive day.

We started the day off with a paint project, though it turned out we were out of blue and had to settle for red, white, and green. The cutest patriotic toast you've ever seen was for breakfast, and then we packed up the crazy train and walked to our local pool.

It turns out our pool was closed.

And poor Carly stood there in her swimsuit in the suffocating heat, crying that she wanted to go swimming. I texted a friend who also has a nearby pool, and before we knew it we were having a little pool party.

1) John loved the pool.

2) Q slept pretty much the whole time, and then wasn't sure about the pool.

3) The baby float totally supported Carly and she was a big fan.

After our swim fest we headed home to lunch and naps.

Even this mama got a nap, the best Independence Day present a woman can ask for.

Having spent a while out in the heat and humidity, and knowing it had only gotten worse, we decided to forego our ward picnic, and instead decorated our air conditioned apartment with red and blue streamers and had our very own "American party" complete with chicken nuggets, fruit, and chocolate milk. We are classy like that.

We also decided to forego fireworks in favor of sparklers and bedtime. This was a hard decision for me, but in the end I was glad we did! There is always next year, right?

Turns out the sparklers were a huge hit, and we burned through (literally) 9 boxes.

Bedtime came and the kids went down.

The upstairs is extra hot, since the AC here is old.

Our room was sweltering, and Q was not about to sleep peacefully.

Its a good thing she is cute.

We finally got her down (in the pack n' play in the cool basement), and Chris and I enjoyed red, white, and blue milkshakes and Grey's Anatomy until way too late.

Then he slept in the basement with Q and I slept in our living room, because it was seriously hot upstairs (I'm such a good mom, right?).

And that was our night.

As Chris said, "Its not the Biggest Show in Idaho, but it sure was the Cutest Show in Michigan."

He couldn't have been more right.