Pre-fourth fun

The 4th of July was fun, fun, fun this year. (Of course it was, as always in our neighborhood, celebrated on the 3rd.) But before donning our red white and blue, Catherine and I had a critical mission – I needed a new purse and she (foolishly? bravely?) agreed to help me find it. We loaded up the portable electronics and called the girls downstairs to hop in the van. Hm, seems their idea of regular shopping clothes didn’t quite match ours.

Well you know we still had some fireworks on the 4th

We do most of our celebrating on the 3rd – it’s the day of our party and it’s also the day of our neighborhood fireworks – but we still have to squeeze in a little more fun on the 4th. Of course.

Good-friend Maggie always reserves us seats at a local parade, so the girls were front and center – dressed in their WelaWear again, with candy bags in hand, ready to wave engagingly and fill those bags to the brims.
(L to R: Hannah, S2, H2, Ro, Ree)

Well the candy was a little slow to come this year... but all of the girls still got more than they could eat (funny how they’re supremely interested in the candy during the parade and then forget about it immediately and never touch it again).

It always makes me grin when our favorite Canadian goes all out for our celebration – this year she had a U.S. shirt and visor. Go Catherine! (By the way, when I was commenting on all of our pictures to her, I said “Wow, that is a whole lot of red, white, and blue!” And Catherine replied “Oh I know, eh?!” Hee!!!)

Dinner that night was at a fave Chinese restaurant and I think the waiter was amused when we (or more specifically the five girls) ordered and ate SIX plates of dumplings. Mmmm mmmm.

We rushed home from dinner for a special Wela and BobBob fireworks display that they procured somewhere while they were on their recent month-long antique auto trip. They started with poppers (immensely popular with the seven-and-under crowd):

Then proceeded to a variety of sparking, flaming, whistling, crackling jobs. I think the girls were equal parts impressed, exhilarated, and terrified.

It was a good show. And in the end, I looked around and saw five happy, tired kids, one lone toy flag still in the backyard, and some scorched patio. I’m calling that a successful 4th of July.

The party pics

Ok, so our 3rd of July party was funfunfun. D2 graciously agreed to be our party photographer – thanks for all of these pics D2!

Before the party there was a tiny incident: I was making pineapple bacon baked beans, well actually I was starting to make them and opened a can. After getting the lid most of the way open (it’s one of those “safe” can openers that doesn’t leave any sharp edges) I saw what I thought was a teeny ribbon of label sticking out. And without thinking about it (I was talking and laughing with K2 and Catherine) I reached down to rip that piece of label off. Only it wasn’t label, it was a piece of wire the can opener had somehow sheared off and instead of pulling off, the thing sliced through my finger. !!!!! The dang thing wouldn’t stop bleeding. And I DID NOT HAVE TIME to go to Urgent Care because 60 or so people were coming to our house in a few hours and THINGS HAD TO BE DONE. So D2 ran to the drugstore and came back with supplies and K2 butterflied me together, then put a finger wrap on, then I wore what basically looked like a finger condom (did I seriously just use that word on my blog????) and kept the whole thing dry while I finished prepping for the party. Ugh. It’s ok now, although it looks kind of nasty and bled through the bandage during the fireworks. Ugh again.

Alrighty then, on to the party. Fun people came:

The kids all enjoyed the heck out of pink car and the backyard:

There was a whole lotta eating:

And then we all got festooned in glowsticks and walked outside to lie down on the grass and watch the fantastic neighborhood fireworks show:

Yay! Hope everyone had a fab Fourth of July (or even Third of July). Cheers!

Yay, the Canadians are here! Quick, dress them in some red, white, and blue!

Monday morning, the four besties got dressed in their a.m. finery and got to experience the Brave read-along cd. It was received very well. I noticed that the girls were all playing Brave later that day.

Then we left all four kiddos in the H-family’s hands and moseyed on over to the airport. Look who we sneaked up on! Catherine and Hannah. Mwah!

Ro and Ree were at the pool swimming with the H family, so we zipped directly there (didn’t even stop by the house or unload the suitcases – except to dig for bathing suits) and reunited all of our little fish. They sure do enjoy each other’s company:

They played in the pool and then continued playing back at the house. Their collective energy level is mindboggling. One of my favorite things that they do is group-doctor whoever needs it. And believe me, someone needs it at least 2-3 times a day (even me, but I’ll tell that story later). One girl gets an icepack, one gets wound cleanser, one gets the neosporin, one gets bandaids. They’re a well-oiled machine:

The next day everyone got all festived up in their WelaWear dresses and we got ready to have a few folks over to the house for our 4th of July bash (which happens every year in our neighborhood on the 3rd).
(H2, Ree, Ro, S2, Hannah)

My mom brought over a tray of fresh Apricot Dream Bars for the party and I forgot they were there for a little while. My bad. Someone else, apparently suffered no such lapses in his memory... (I just happened to be there when this very first dream bar was being taken. No pic of the last one, because I didn’t get any!):

I’ll post more about the party and the neighborhood fireworks in a separate post (because I was hopping during the party – we had something like 65 people – so I asked D1 to be the party photographer. And now I just need to go through all the photos he graciously shared with me).

After all the partying and some kick-butt fireworks on the golf course, all of the girls got to have a sleepover in the playroom wearing their new Brave nightgowns. Squeal. They were so exhausted that they all fell asleep almost immediately. (moment of stunned silence):

And in the morning they watched Doc McStuffins and the Octonauts while I made them oatmeal:

Fun, fun, fun – with cute coordinating outfits that I can take pictures of. Hard-to-beat in my book.

Happy 3rd of July!

I’m writing this post on the 4th, which has been our quietest day of the holiday so far. Funny. It’s just how things are done in our neighborhood. Catherine and I even slipped in some outlet shopping this afternoon. Wheee! Anyhow, the 3rd was a hoppin’ day, with a little party at our house, and then a nice stroll to lay out blankets and watch the fireworks.

The first excitement of the day happened when Ro (left), Ree, and Hannah all got dressed in their WelaWear from last year. They squealed, jumped, and danced, chanting “we match, we have the same clothes, we all have white leggings!!” over and over. It was hilarious. Of course I didn’t have a camera at the time, so you’ll just have to picture the cuteness. Here they are later when they came downstairs and all popped their left legs forward in a sassy little pose:

(see last year’s WelaWear pic here)

We made watermelon stars and a flag cake for the party and the kids loved both. Next year I’ll put all the fruit on sticks, because it was wayyyy more fun to grab a whole stick than to scoop fruit onto a plate with a boring old spoon:

And I decorated with the world’s most expensive jellybeans (purchased by accident). Luckily the kids all thought these decorations were cute too, plus we took all the jellybeans down to the fireworks show and ate every last over-priced morsel, thank goodness:

It was a fun party. We ate good food, got to spend lots of time with good friends, and the kids all played and played and played some more:

At one point I handed my camera to two little boys and asked them to be the party photographers and they got the CUTEST pics. I just loved looking at what they got later and will do this for every party going forward. Their perspectives were just awesome:

It was so fun to see everyone spilling out of our house on the way to the fireworks show:

And I loved watching the fireworks while our tiny army of kiddos yelled “Ooooooh and Wow!!!” and waved their glowsticks around us. This firework pic is tiny because I seemed to be unable to get one while the fireworks were huge and above our heads. I captured a whole bunch of black sky and this teeny just-starting one:

Happy 4th of July everyone. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday with your family and friends – we sure did!