It's A Bloggerful Life: Happy Birthday America

Yesterday was Independance Day (well 2 minutes ago). This was by far one of the best July Fourth's that we have celebrated as a family. Since being married Kevin and I have always celebrated July 4th with his parents and my parents and usually it is at my in laws house.

To start the day off, I went grocery shopping to get all the fixins for the dishes I was going to bring to dinner. I brought mac and cheese and a dessert. My mom brought my famous baked beans and the booze. My in laws provided the main dish which was grilled chicken and hot dogs for the kiddos. After my Publix trip I came home and set up a fourth of July craft project for Kevin to do with the kids while I cooked. They made little hand flags to give to each of the grandparents. Kaden is used to doing arts and crafts from being in school. He did very well holding out his hand and letting daddy paint each of his fingers red and white and his whole hand blue. When it came time to press his hand on the paper, he did it nice and slow and held his hand there for a couple of seconds and lifted it up without smuging the paint. Karsyn wasn't quite sure how it worked. Her hand print ended up being a little bit more messy and the colors kind of blended together. I think it tickled her and she would close her little fist together. The picture still turned out really cute. We made one for our fridge as well.

Like I said before I made mac and cheese which was a Paula Dean recipe. For dessert I made a no bake oreo cookie pudding pie thingy. Not sure what you would actually call it but it was delish. I got both recipes from Pinterest. I will blog the recipes tomorrow. I love to cook and try new recipes and our family get togethers are always the best place to show off the foods I make. They are usually big hits!

After dinner we took some sparklers outside. Kaden was a little afraid at first. For little hands you can use a red solo cup and punch a hole in the bottom and stick the sparkler with the part that you hold into the cup. The cup protects little hands from any sparks getting on them. Kevin and I each did a sparkler and Kaden finally got the nerve to try also. He stood there so still with his arm stretched as far away from his body as he could but he did manage to wave it around. After the first time he got the hang of it and actually graduated holding the sparkler without the cup. I was so proud of him! As soon as the sun went down we went outside to shoot off some fireworks. We had just a few that shot up into the air, most of them were just pretty lights to look at with a little bit of noise. Kaden and Karsyn both were in awe of the colors and the noise. Kaden did tell us to stay back when we would get close to the fireworks. When my step dad would go light them Kaden would say "No Papa, you need to get away from the fire" It was so cute how concerned for his safety he was. We invited my in laws neighbors over to watch us shoot off the fireworks. They have two little girls. I think all the kids really enjoyed seeing the fireworks and mainly the sparklers. I also think they got a big kick out of putting the sparklers in the bucket of water after they went out. Kaden was even putting the trash in there.

It was about 10 by the time we were all done and loaded up in the car. Both kids were still wide awake and seemed like on their second wind. On the way home we got to see the BIG fireworks from Tom Brown Park. Kaden thought they were so cool. We live behind the park and you could still here the boom from them. Kaden kept asking if we were going to go to Tom Brown to see more. I felt bad telling him it was bedtime. We got both kids in the pajamas and Karsyn was out like a light as soon as her little head hit her crib mattress. Kevin and I read a couple of Dr Suess books to Kaden. (he is going through a Dr Suess phase) We said our prayers and brushed our teeth and he laid down and went to sleep. We left his gate open and didn't have to put him back in bed several times. He was so tired.

God Bless America!