On the Fourth of July

My Mom and I love some Fourth of July. Always have. It's like a party planning dream come true... the colors, the traditions, the food, the excitement, the chance to remember our nation for what it was founded on. Another happy byproduct of B and A's wedding is that my parents could be in town to celebrate with us this year.

Alysse's first Independence Day had all the right ingredients for an easy, at home, recovering from the hoopla time. Judging by the number of morning meltdowns, boy did we need to recover. :) By evening, though, grilled avocado burgers, fried squash from the garden,red potato salad, melons, patriotic punch with blue twirly straws, and a basket of dollar aisle excitement had us all back in good spirits. Except those almost seven year-old sparklers, that is. Those would be from mine and Joe's wedding day.
I believe we got to it all except the water balloons, but our 97 degree days of late shouldn't make those too hard to experiment with soon enough. The biggest hit was the little popper ma-jigs... oh, how the girls giggled at their pop-popping sounds and our cheering them on.
Especially as they threw them in Daddy's jumping-out-of-his-skin direction.
Our driveway became the perfect grandstand for seeing fireworks off in the distance as they lit up the night sky. The raspberry on top was a bit of my Mom's leftover, homemade rehearsal dinner poundcake with a flickering blue candle... an early celebration of Maddie's upcoming second birthday since the grandparents won't be able to make it back in. The dress up gift case was nothing short of right up this almost two year-olds alley!

Our family so appreciates the men and women who serve us, who keep us safe so that days like this are possible. For memories like this to be made.

I hope we can love many more Fourth of July's in the years to come!
~Katrina

ps... The leftover, we danced till midnight and were still too tired to take it down the next day, hair-do on Hope... simply a holiday bonus! :)