According to Victoria, yesterday was July 40. "When are we going to July?" , she asked all week. Finally, the day arrived! I love the Fourth of July. I think it might be my favorite holiday. Partly because of the heat and partly because, well, let me tell you about our day and you'll see!
Breakfast! We are in the midst of a bit of a struggle to help Isaac gain weight, so we thought we would make breakfast a big deal. I wanted something Red, White and Blue and he needed something fattening. 
So... homemade whipped cream with homemade strawberry sauce and blueberries! I emphasize the homemade of these items because the pancakes are Bisquick. (I can't do everything, I tell you!) I kinda think my homemade wheat ones might have more calories, but who knows?
After breakfast, it was a mad dash to get ready in time for the parade. Thankfully, last year my friend Tiffany tipped me off to the idea of saving seats the day before. Matt and I weren't sure about it at first. But after trying it last year and this year, I can tell you that everyone who has a seat right behind the yellow tape saved a spot the day before. There is no way to come the day of and get a good seat. So, at midnight, I hauled our blanket and chairs out to find a spot. All the shade was taken, but we found a nice grassy place anyway!
It was definitely good to go the night before because breakfast took so long that we barely arrived before the start time. Matt dropped us off as close as possible and parked several blocks away.
The night before, we had cousins Abbie, Lydia and Savannah over and we painted our fingernails and toenails red, white and blue! The girls loved it!
I'll have to be more careful next time because I found blue nail polish on my carpet the next morning. :( But we sure looked cute!
Waiting for the parade to reach our spot!
Here's my favorite part of the Independence Day Parade: Whenever an American Flag goes by, we stand up and put our hands over our hearts. It doesn't matter it is "THE" flag for the parade or if it is attached to the back of a motorcycle, that is what we do. And you know what? My eyes water thinking of this country. Thinking of those who have given their lives so that we have the freedom to speak our minds, worship as we choose, go to a parade. I saw floats representing multiple different churches and I love it. I love that they can all ride in the parade with pride, with the freedom to share their beliefs and to worship as they please. We live in the Promised Land.
The past week has been full of political drama, controversial Supreme Court Decisions and much frustration between Americans with opinions on how to best govern this free land. But I'll share with you this quote:
"On other days of the year, we may be party men, indulging in controversies more
or less important to the common good. We may have likes and dislikes, and we may
maintain our political differences, often with warm and sometimes with angry
feelings. But today we are Americans all; nothing but Americans.” - Daniel
Webster, 1851"
By the time the parade was over and we had walked the 25 million blocks to our van, we were all very hot and very sweaty! We settled in and took a rest before we started our next adventure of the day. I'm relatively new to Pinterest and have been pretty excited by a lot of the cool ideas I have seen. One was a 4th of July Science experiment/punch! Basically, you use three drinks, one red, one white and one blue and the drinks layer in order of sugar content. Here's the link where I got the idea: Patriotic Mocktail. Well... turns out it wasn't as easy as it looked. Here are a few of the failed attempts:
After my first two failed attempts, I persuaded Matt to come help me, and... finally, on our FIFTH try...
VOILA! Success. The red layer was a little small because the top two push it down. So... here are the tips I have to offer if you try this:
Once we mastered the technique, we packed up all our mountains of Fireworks (wish I had a pic) and tried it at Raegan's house with all the cousins. Special thanks to Raegan for letting me soak her counter with blue gatorade in the name of fun and science!
So... here are the tips I have to offer if you try this:
Use more Hawaiian Punch than the others.
Fill the cup all the way to the top with ice before you begin.
Pour in your Red Hawaiian Punch.
Now, I had to add blue food coloring to the gatorade to get it to stay blue and not create a purple. Then we very slowly poured the gatorade onto an ice cube. Make sure that you pour onto the ice cube and not onto the liquid or they will swirl together. Then, very slowly pour the Diet 7 Up onto an ice cube and voila!
I actually put a little too much blue food coloring in at Raegan's , so their is a dark purpley blue. Plus, they wrote their names with blue marker, which is showing through. Here's Corbin:
Zach- A -Muffin:
And Luke:
Raegan's little girl, Penny, has inherited the 4th of July shirt that Tori wore a few years ago. Remember when I bought cute shirts for all three girls to wear and never got a picture of us together? Well, I do. It's hard to believe it was two whole years ago that my baby was 2! (That was a rough day at the parade for us.)
Well, Penelope is the two year old now, and she was so excited! She ran around saying, "Us Match!!" Too cute. And sweet little Miss Savannah wanted to be in the picture too! I'm impressed we got all of us smiling.
I actually got Matt to wait for two seconds before starting his fireworks extravaganza to take a picture with me. I keep trying to get one where you can't tell how deformed my eye is, and I kinda did:
Don't ask me where my lips are, though. I have no idea! :(
Tori and Abbie getting ready for the fireworks to begin!
Ummmm, oh, yeah. So, fire works are kind of a big deal in our family. Like, the 4th of July is Matt's favorite holiday. And he spends at least two hours taking apart all the hundreds of fire works he purchased in order to rig them up to be more explosive. Yeah, like that kind of big deal. Raegan's husband, David, is quite the Fireworks lover as well. In fact, he is one of eight brothers and one of their family traditions is to make ginger bread houses every year at Christmas and then they get together on New Year's Eve to blow them up! Pretty awesome. Even Jude, the mature one, got in on the festivities this year. He stopped to pick up a package of fireworks for Matt because clearly, we did not have enough.
The guys were awesome this year! They were really sweet to let each of the kid decorate, excuse me, "outfit" a tank to explode later. We have tank battles. It's pretty awesome.
Sparklers!!
Tori got to have her first experience with Sparklers ( I think?) this year. At first she was really tentative:
Daffodil:
But after they lit it, her cousins (and siblings) started shouting, "Now run around!"
So she started running...
And spinning in circles until she got dizzy and bumped into the van, causing a spark to fall onto her arm and shock the heck out of her! Poor baby!
Once nightfall came, Matt and David started lighting up all the goods! Here they are watching one of the aerial fire works brighten up the sky!
Matt's Mom and Dad stopped by to watch the Amazing Fire Works show! Look at those faces!
There is a lot of discussion about whether to go to a big City Fireworks show or whether to have you own show, with your own fire works at home. Honestly, I am not a huge fan of fireworks. At least I wasn't. It's a little loud and kind of nerve-wracking to wonder if we are going to start a fire. (We did start a teeny one right next to the fire hydrant. I freaked out.) But honestly, the reason I love fire works is because I love watching Matt love fireworks. He is so happy. No big city show can replace that kind of joy. See for yourself:
Did you see that smile? Some people's husbands like snow mobiling, some like sports, whatever. My husband likes to blow things up. And we love to watch him!
Hope Y'all Had a Blessed Fourth! God Bless the USA!!!
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