Fourth Of July Fireworks

No real desire to go the Bangor Fireworks this year, so Husband went down to the fireworks shop and picked some up for us to do at home: 

100+ morning glories, some roman candles, and the 10-balls thing.  Amazingly, I got some pictures. 


Two-fer morning glories for Atrus.


The start of the roman candles. 


More roman candles.


I think this was some of the 10-balls thing.


More pretties.


I love the alternating colors.


Coming up to the end.


A little bit more.


Oooh!!


Yay finale!  Love how it ended. 


So how was your Fourth Of July? 

Homemade Rock Candy

I follow quite a few different blogs.  Some of them are parenting blogs, others medical, some just for fun because I like the writing.  One of the blogs I follow did their own rock candy and they said it came out well.  I tucked it in the back of my mind as a just in case, that would be neat to do type thing. A couple of days later, after coming home from D&D, husband remarked that a fellow player mentioned that rock candy was his favorite thing ever.  On that note, I brought the post up to him, and he set his mind to make it.

First thing to do is "seed" the rock candy sticks (bamboo skewers for us).  Seeding the sticks helps facilitate the formation of the crystals.


Since this was Dad's project, he enlisted Atrus's help.  He opted to color the sugar solution.


The sugar solution.  You put sugar in a pot and add a bit of water; for us, we used 10 cups of sugar and 4 cups of water, and stir as you warm it up.   Eventually, it becomes clear.


The colors with the sticks in them.  Two sticks per jar.


He held them up with clothespins.


After a week, the cure time it would seem, each of them looked like this one, to varying degrees.  If there's a next time for this, we'll have the bottoms of the sticks further off the bottom of the jar to facilitate more crystallization on the sticks as opposed to the bottom of the jar.


The remaining jars that hadn't been opened.  I wanted the "rainbow" shot because we ended up having rainbow colors.  Alas, it didn't happen, but I got these instead.  Just look at those sugar crystals!


Notice how little coloring is actually in the sugar.  Next time, WAY more food coloring.


The ones he took to the next D&D session.  They were as tasty as pure sugar can be.  I believe they went over well.


I hope you liked this post.  If you wish to make your own rock candy, it's pretty easy, just takes a lot of sugar and some time to cure.

Next up:  Our Fourth of July fireworks.

Monsters University Build and Grow and Park Fun

The last Build and Grow I opted not to take the boys to.  But I wanted to do this one, the Monsters University Chest.  Essentially, a box to put stuff in.  Chance usually likes these, but he was hard to keep nearby and on task. 



Chance initially liked this.  He does well at hammering, but he was impatient with letting me stabilize it before letting him "go wild."


Dad helped Atrus with some while I kept Chance at the table. 
 

Once Chance got back to the table, I let him have fun with the stickers. 


Dad helped Atrus with the last bits of his.
 

Then Atrus had fun with the stickers.  He put his M and U on entirely upside down, but it's kind of cool anyway.


Mom and Chance!
 

Atrus's box.


After the clinic, we took the boys to the park on the corner of Broadway and Stillwater.  They got to have fun exploring.
 

I like the look.  Chance was so cautious with it at first. 


But then he had fun.
 
This was a wobbly bridge of sorts.  


Chance was so very careful with this.  I thought having Atrus show him would be good, but Chance didn't care.
 

The curly-Q slide.


Chance does know how to have fun.
 
Chance was so happy to recognize "X." 


Atrus had quite a bit of fun at this, acting out some sort of scenario here.
 

Atrus actually made it across the monkey bars.  He intermittently gave up before reaching the end.


Chance noticed this little girl.  He ran over to her a few times.
 
Then he ran away as she got curious.   It was adorable.


Atrus loved this tire swing.  He kept asking to go faster and faster. 
 

Dad got in on it as well, thankfully.


We decided it was time for cake and presents.   Daddy made this cake, a 6" cake surrounded by 9 cupcakes.   We also got an Elmo candle. 
 
We sang happy birthday to Chance, and he got to blow out the candle.


Presents!
 

A book!  Chance loves books.


Another present. 
 

What is this?  Pajamas and a couple of Elmo shirts!


Ooh, this looks like fun.
 
Gears. 


This looks cool!
 
Grandma and Chance reading his birthday card. 


A fairly fine birthday overall.  No idea what's in store next, but I'm looking forward to taking more pictures.  Hope you like what's here, and I'll be back soon with more.