We had my friend April over earlier in the week. It was so nice to catch up with her and wee little baby Garrison! I hadn't seen them for almost a month and he'd grown so much. After letting the big kids play for awhile, we headed to King Charleys (yum) for lunch and let the kids run some more in the big field.
Jason stayed home on Friday and so this weekend has seemed very long. It was quite warm and I had to start my chili for the 4th, so I set up my turkey fryer burner out in the yard and did all my sauteing out there. It worked really good, and that burner is powerful so it took no time to brown my meat and all the other things that take so long using indoor stove. Jason said I looked rather strange, cooking out there in the grass with my accouterments spread all around, but I thought it worked great to keep the house cool!
Saturday, the kids were stoked from minute one. They woke up ready to go! After lunch we headed out there and when we arrived, found a good number of people already at my parents house! A lot of people had been playing Airsoft for hours (even though the heat was quite bad) and so the party had started early for my Mom :)
The blinds on the hill that my brother Michael and a couple of his friends spent much time constructing for the games. They wanted them to look natural so they can leave them there and not have it be an eyesore. There is actually a game going on so if you look closely you can see some guys. Most the time they play back in the woods, but sometimes they play on the hill so we can watch.
The kids had never been on a slip 'n slide before and they really really enjoyed it! I have to say I was temped to try it myself. It was so hot out!
Elsy baby's first pigtails!
View of the crowd from the driveway
The kids setting off a few fireworks
Gwen was just thrilled that there were two girls there. She doesn't have many girl friends in our circle!
Sparklers (Gwen was afraid it would burn all the way to her fingers... but it didn't).
You can really see how smoky it was getting from all the fireworks, and it wasn't even dark yet!
Me and my friend Jen doing roman candles
My two filthy little children roasting marshmallows at the fire pit
I think Independence Day is becoming my favorite holiday (ok, second favorite after Thanksgiving). Its full of visiting, catching up with old friends, games, fire, water, food, how can you go wrong? We got home around 11pm or so and we took a backstreet to get to our house. We'd never done that before on the 4th. We could barely get through because people were setting off fireworks right in the street! The trash was unbelievable! No sign of it today though, so that is good. It was VERY loud here. I think because we are surrounded by 3 cul-de-sacs that people congregate at its like in stereo. They were still going strong at 11pm. And 12pm. And 1am. At 2am I was still hearing a few but most were done. I was up because I had too much caffeine and even though I was so tired I couldn't get to sleep! I fell asleep around 2:30 and then the baby was up at 5:30. Ouch!
On Friday, I decided on a whim to make Gwen a sundress. She'd been asking me to make her a new dress, but I had a self-imposed hiatus on sewing anything but the quilt for my sister and her husband. However, I weakened and whipped out this dress in a Tinkerbell fabric I'd been saving for awhile. Its a little big, but the good thing about kids is that they grow :)
Earlier in the week I went through my mess of a fabric stash (stuffed into my coat closet and overflowing) and sorted it, tossed some, and made neat stacks in an armoire we were given. Its in the garage and gave me a good sense of order and accessibility to my things. I'm quite happy. The drawer is my patterns. There are two more drawers that hold things like my notions and interfacing and such.
Last week, I went into Ethan's room to put him to bed and found this... he loves to play imaginative games. All these things were his "friends" and wanted to sleep around him. We did eventually have to create an opening so he could get out without knocking any of them off, but he was oh so proud of this setup.
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