Party in the U.S.A.

 

Loooots of photos today, from a great Independence Day, so let’s get into it! The girls actually slept a little late, but as soon as they were up, they put on their new special dresses, and got busy on all their activities.

We spent some time lazing about, and then we spent some time cleaning the house, and then I made up lunch for everyone – something slightly different for each person, but this was mine.

Then we got Addie down for a nap, and Emerson helped me finish up the cake. We made homemade icing, and sliced up all the strawberries, and then made our cake look so pretty!

We had to wake Addie up from her nap when she was sleeping too long for my liking, and then we packed up all of stuff and headed to Grammy’s house. Jeff put on some sort of special 4th of July playlist on YouTube music, and it was full of all the “AMERICA” songs, like this Miley classic.

We had lots of fun swimming time, and some watermelon for a pool snack.

Bo brought a delicious smoked Boston butt, mom made baked beans, corn on the cob, and pasta salad. Bo also always makes a “special” patriotic drink, which is Sprite, with ice cubes made of frozen red, white & blue Powerade flavors, shaped like stars. He’s been doing this for probably 13 or so years, but no one can actually remember how long. The 4th is his favorite holiday, so he really goes all out!

All five of these little girls ate a TON of food for dinner. Among all the “regular” servings we fixed first, Addie had two corn on the cobs, Kensley had two sandwiches, and I lost count of everything the rest of them ate…

In addition to the patriotic strawberry cake that Megan requested I make, she actually made a delicious banana pudding herself, so we had double desserts.

We let the girls swim a second time after dinner, and then got them all dried and dressed, and Meggie did all of their cute little hair-do’s.

Then we went over to Summerbrooke for the fireworks show! This was our first time going there (well, for some of us at least), and it was such a nice set-up. We got there early enough to park somewhat close, and there was plenty of space to set up all our chairs and blankets. And check out this gorgeous sunset over the lake!

We were there about an hour early, so the girls kinda just ran wild playing and cart-wheeling and seeing friends, until it was finally too dark and we made them sit down. I was so worried that Addison would be scared of the fireworks, since this was her first time seeing them. But once they started, she loved them! They were too loud for her, so she spent the whole 20 minutes holding her hands over her ears, but she still loved it! She kept walking around coming up to each of us, saying “It’s so colorful!” and “It’s all the way up high in the sky!” and “There’s no sun up there right now?” She really loved it, as did all the other little girls, and so did all of us adults!

(You can see Addie with her little hands over her ears in this photo below)

It was a quick walk back to our car afterwards, and then a little bit of a drive back home. We were all sweaty and hot and sticky and tired, but it was a great day, capped off by a great night! It was 10:30 by the time we got home and got the girls in bed. Emmie was out in  like 2 minutes flat, after just laying down in her bed. But Addie still needed her routine and wanted Daddy to hold her in the recliner for a while first, but I know she wasn’t able to fight it long before she was sound asleep too…