Mer's 31st anniversary of her 29th birthday / NC Family visiting

In this house, we're all about looking for some excuse to make some type of sweets, and thankfully, since the good Lord decided to turn down my control-freakedness a notch or two, I'm a lot more comfortable with letting kiddos be more involved in the kitchen. It's rather cute and gives them a chance to practice and apply all those good skills like following directions, math, fine motor skills, blah blah blah. Mostly it's cute.
So, I put Little Lady in charge of decorating the cupcakes. She was good at it. I'm pretty sure most of the icing was applied to the cupcake for consumption by someone other than herself.
She thought I had lost it when I told her she could put the sprinkles on all by herself. (We've had those sprinkles for what seems like forever and I was ready to finish them off.)
And I apparently put the right gal in charge of that. She's rather meticulous for a 4-year-old, but can have a heavy hand.
And for any grains that might be left, she's got a plan for those too.
So a couple of days later when we decided to have the "formal" birthday party, we celebrated on the 4th of July.
The big birthday finale was sitting on the front porch, chatting, watching the fireworks being set off around our area and listening to Nathan exclaim, "Boom, boom!" every time one went off.
We had an extra special treat this year because we got to celebrate with my mom's brother and his family. I haven't seen them in two years. It's amazing how much kids/teenagers change in two years. Nathan was in utero last time they were here, Katherine was used to being the only child and the girls were starting college and high school. They are a kid-friendly family, which is so very helpful, and are good people. Even though it's not that often, I'm glad we get to see them.