Cycle of Life & Fireworks

July 4th week is always fun in our neighborhood. We live outside of the city limits so people are constantly popping fireworks. The kids just loved watching them every night! 

We invited our friends over for dinner and to do some kid friendly (not so loud) fireworks like smoke bombs, pop-its, and sparklers. But before they arrived the boys were outside catching bugs in their bug catcher vacuums. I was in the kitchen cleaning dishes and Josiah yelled from the deck, "Do roly polies lay eggs?" That's a weird question, I thought. "No I don't think so!" I answered back.  

A few minutes later Josiah ran in to tell me he caught a mommy roly poly. I asked, "How do you know it's a mommy?"  He replied, "Well, because she is having babies!" I thought for sure it was going to be a dead roly poly covered in maggots or something, but I turn around to look at it and as I looked closer, I realized, this roly poly was indeed giving birth. 

Josiah, Paul and I sat and watched 50 babies come out of her belly, little baby ones rolling around everywhere. They were mesmerized. 

Josiah was so proud and exclaimed, "I can't wait to show Emily when she gets here! It will be my present to her, she will love the mommy roly poly and all of her babies!" Oh yes Josiah, that's what every girl wants. hahaha! 

Unfortunately, as quickly as the miracle of life began, the tragedy of death occurred.

20 minutes after this poor mommy gave birth, Josiah, in all of his excitement, ran inside when Justin came home, with his bug catcher that was carrying the babies and mom, and tripped and fell and the bug catcher went flying and the top popped off. We had baby roly poly's all over the kitchen floor. We desperately tried putting them all back in, but they were just so little! Josiah was horrified. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.  I think the gravity of what happened made sense in his little mind. He said, "Mom, I think I just killed all of her babies."

"Yes Josiah, some of them didn't make it."

"Oh. That's really sad."

He just witnessed the cycle of life.

On a good note, Emily was excited to see the mom roly poly and her babies. I guess he does know what will win a girl's heart!

The kids were so cute giggling and laughing while we ate dinner outside. Leah loves Emily and Tegan. She can even say their names. She calls Tegan, Teetee and Emily, emly. 

Josiah and Emily are our highly sensitive children. They were so fearful the smoke bombs would make a loud noise!

Paul had no fear of the fire. Scary, I know. Here they are trying to light a sparkler.

Smoke bomb show

Leah loves my friend Jennifer. 

When I say loves, I mean she runs to her and wants her immediately when she sees her! She cries when they leave and even got in their van and was ready to go home with them, she was telling me, goodbye! I had to peel her out kicking and screaming! It is really nice to have someone else that I trust that I can leave her with and know she will be perfectly happy. We are blessed to have friends who love your kids and you love theirs. 

We had a great evening of fun! We had to wait until really late to enjoy everyone's fireworks. It doesn't get dark here until about 8:45, and the fun doesn't get going until after 9. We sat on the back porch in our pi's and watched until 10. Paul was crazy excited about the fireworks. I have never seen him act so funny and silly. He did this dance every time the fireworks would go off. He was running and jumping all over the place! Watch for yourself, Paul's firework dancing...