Happy 4th of July!

On the 4th of July, we gathered for "dinner and a show", in my mom's neighborhood park.

We hovered in the bits of shade from the little trees and the big red umbrella we brought.

For dinner we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, chips, watermelon, fruit salad, Candice's delicious potato salad and dessert--cupcakes, flag cake and red, white & blue Rice Crispy treats (with Fruit Loops) made by Amber.

Tyrel brought a friend, Deidra, to celebrate with us.

After dinner, I cut into the cake to reveal the flag inside.

Yay, it worked.. mostly. :)

When there was the slight hint that the sun might start setting, Dean ran and grabbed the fireworks from the car.

The kids enjoyed popping the SNAPS on the pavement.

Dean organized the firework stash and couldn't resist doing "just a few" before sunset.

Notice the big, black spot, to the left of the snake.

There's a story behind it...

I had a job. I was designated the "Sparkler Lady". Dean put me in charge of distributing the sparklers to the anxious kids all around me. I had a handful of sparklers in my left and the lighter in my right. As I was trying to keep up with the demand of lighting and distributing sparklers, something happened. I didn't actually see it happen and can't recall the details, but somehow a spark from a lit sparkler jumped over to my handful of sparklers and lit the whole bunch on fire!

At first, I thought "Oh good, there's only a few that got lit." But just as I though that, the flames got bigger and engulfed the rest. It got so hot and bright that I had to drop it, to avoid getting burned. It excited the kids (and possibly a few of the adults). As the heap of sparklers burned on the ground, some of the kids cried, while others got crazy and excited.

Our handful of sparklers, now equaled a big, black spot on the ground.

Sorry kids.

No more sparklers.

I think I worked myself out of a job.

I don't know that I'll ever be trusted again to be "Sparkler Lady".

Oh darn.

Dean put on an entertaining show (only trying to burn up the whole lot twice, by getting a lit firework too close to the stash) that lasted several minutes.

We had a great view of all the neighborhood fireworks too.

We ooo-ed and ahh-ed at our fountains, as well as all the BIG airborne displays around us.

We decided that we liked the "fish fountains" the best... bright colors and cool sparks and flames.

Happy 4th of July!

Surprise Cake

I found instructions on the internet, on how to make a "flag cake". It looked so cool I decided I had to try it for our 4th of July celebration.

It required 2 boxes of white cake mix, divided and colored.
With the EXTRA batter, I made cupcakes.

As I started to assemble the cake, I read and re-read the instructions, but something wasn't turning out right. My blue layer was too tall, making a hole in the middle of the cake. My kids kept saying, "Mom, just fill the hole in with frosting and you wont' be able to tell the difference." I like frosting, but that didn't seem like the best solution to me. I finally decided I would cut the blue layer down, making it even with the inside layers. That's not what the instructions said, but I wasn't going with the "frosting solution".

Don't know if I messed up somewhere or if the instructions had some fault. I crossed my fingers and hoped that it would turn out.

On second thought, maybe there wasn't supposed to be EXTRA batter. Maybe I was supposed to have baked another layer to fill in my "hole". Oops.

I finished it off with vanilla frosting and made a cute little red, white and blue banner for the top.

I brought it to our 4th of July celebration and waited to reveal the surprise inside... please work out, please work out, please work out. :)

Nature Hunt

To swap the cousins back, we met at the park for "free lunch in the park".

Amber, Daisylyn and Sterling joined us too.

Plan A- A hike (not stroller friendly).

Plan B- A nature hunt on the Boise River Greenbelt (stroller friendly).

After lunch, we gathered the kids and I explained our activity. I gave them a list of items to find along the way; bottle cap, soda can, moss, wild flower, bug, heart-shaped rock, 3 leaf clover, pine needle, gum wrapper, etc. Any trash/garbage picked up was "bonus points" (we weren't really tracking points, but wanted to help make the Greenbelt more beautiful). Then I partnered up the kids (readers with non-readers) and handed them a bag for their treasures/trash.

And they we're off!

Lizzy took having Treyson as a partner very seriously. She wouldn't let him out of her sight and they worked side-by-side beautifully. So cute!

Her bag was for their "treasures" and his was for the "trash".

Half way through, we took a little break in the shade.

Daisylyn liked to pick the bark off the tree.

Finally, we made it back to the park. We didn't find EVERYTHING on our list, but did find some interesting things; flashing light thingy, jar of fishing bait, plastic caps, all sorts of cans, heart-shaped rocks, and more. The kids picked out their favorite thing to show me, while everything else was thrown away. :)

It was a fun way to take a walk and enjoy nature.

PS-I feel compelled to say that on Wednesday, we went to a movie with cousins too ("Soul Surfer")and then met Karen, Audrey, Katelyn and Sydney at the park for lunch. Didn't have the camera with me that day. :)

Hodgepodge

We did an overnight cousin-swap.

Jackson and Micaela came to our house and Abree went to theirs.

It was getting close to that time... the time where I should figure out what's for dinner. I hadn't made a plan and truthfully really hadn't cooked dinner consistently, since the kids have been out of school. Then I has this idea... Why don't we have a "Hodgepodge Dinner"?

I wish I could say that this was my original idea, but it wasn't. I saw it on TLC's t.v. show "Kate Plus 8".

What's a Hodgepodge Dinner?.. you might ask. I guess it could be done at home with the things you already have on hand, but I went with Kate's idea of going to the grocery store.

First we drew categories; Main dish-Taylee, main side dish-Rylee, Fruit-Jackson, Veggie-Treyson and Dessert-Micaela.

Jackson knew what he wanted to get, even before we got to the store... PEACHES!

Even with other suggestions from the kids and me telling him he could choose anything, he still wanted... PEACHES! (always said in a raised excited voice).

Treyson had no problem picking out his "veggie". He quickly decided on olives. Even though I technically think olives may be a fruit, we went with it. I tried to keep my opinion to myself and not influence their choices (totally not my usual way of doing things). :)

The girls took longer to decide. We went up and down the isles of Winco weighing options, while the boys goofed off with each other and had a great time.

Taylee finally chose fresh/frozen cheese ravioli with Alfredo sauce.

Micaela finally decided on Chocolate Dream Pie.

And Rylee was excited to have fried mozzarella sticks.

Quite an interesting combo, but the kids (and Jason) raved that this was the BEST dinner ever!!!

One thing we didn't do, that I would consider for next time is what Kate called, "Gross Factor". One of the categories her kids chose was "gross factor". They got to pick something they deemed "gross" to try and eat. I think I would change the name to "Try Something New" or "Something I've Never Eaten Before"... taking the gross out of it, because I would want my kids to actually try it, if I spent money on it. :)

This was fun and may become an occasional tradition in our home.

Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime?

"Do you swim in a pool, to keep yourself cool?"

Jason-Levi

Lizzy-Abree-Jason

Levi

Taylee-Micaela

Jackson

Lizzy

"Is that what you do?.....

So do I!"

With Tuesday forecasted to be the warmest day of the week, we took advantage of our neighborhood pool and invited some cousins to join us.

Annual Family Yard Sale 2011

It was time once again, for our Annual Family Yard sale... a.k.a. Family Junk Swap.

Although we held it the 4th weekend in June, it was cool weather (not too cool) and S-L-O-W!

I didn't have much to sell (or didn't want to make time to find/organize/price after our trip), but the kids sold lemonade at their stand.

We had a great time hanging out and talking...with the occasional customer interruption that reminded us that we were actually having a yard sale. :)

PS- I scored a whoppin' $6. I think Tim and Amber were the biggest money makers, making around $180-200 each.