4th of July recap

In the past, I've not gotten too excited about the 4th of July. I had a wonderful 4th of July tradition growing up--the annual block party--so much fun! But as an adult, and especially here in Phoenix where it's Too Darn Hot to do anything, we haven't really celebrated Independence Day.

Then when I was in Walmart recently, I thought about buying 4th of July shirts for the kids. Usually, I've been against this because hey, they've already got red and blue clothes. I think this year was different for 2 reasons. 1) With L's tonsil surgery, I needed to look forward to something coming up after the whole ordeal would be over. And 2) my parents live here now and I knew we'd be going over to their place to watch fireworks on July 3rd.

As I was looking at the kids' shirts, I saw they had matching adult shirts. And CHEAP! The kids' sizes were $3 and the adults' were $3.50. And of course Hubby and I can wear our shirts in future years. I was sold! Here are our 4 matching shirts (girls in red, boys in blue) we wore to the "party" on July 3rd: On an earlier whim, I bought 2 4th of July hats from the dollar area of Target. I was only going to get one but remembered my kids don't share, and bought 2. Then the day before the celebration I went back to Target for the flags (3 for $1).

I was "in charge" of desserts for party night. There were tons of ideas around the web for fun patriotic desserts, but L wanted cupcakes, so that's what we did. These are gluten free yellow cupcakes (Betty Crocker) with cream cheese frosting (also Betty Crocker), with blue and red sprinkles (applied by L) and I bought the package of cupcake wrappers and festive pics from Walmart for $1.88 (for 24). Easy peasy.

The celebration at my parents' was lots of fun. My sister was also in town for a visit so the more the merrier. We did typical picnic foods (burgers and brats) but indoors. We had bubbles and glow sticks and planned to go on their patio when the sun went down, but there was a lightning storm! We were afraid the fireworks show would be canceled. Anyway, we played inside with the glow sticks and the kids had a great time and finally, the fireworks began. It was a great show and a super easy (and cool!) place to watch it. We ventured to the patio for just a minute when we thought the lightning had died down, but both kids thought it was too loud, so inside was athe best place to watch from. This is a picture of the kids watching the fireworks through the window (if you click to enlarge, you should see their silhouettes):

We celebrated on the 3rd because that's when the fireworks were scheduled, but I thought that worked super well. On Monday the 4th, we relaxed and got things ready for the week ahead.

As long as my parents live in this house and the church keeps putting on the fireworks show, this should make a great tradition.

Oh and I should mention I was worried about the kids being up late. Turns out T is a night owl like me, she had tons of energy late into the night (relatively speaking--the fireworks started at 8:45). We left right after the fireworks ended and I made it my goal to have the kids in bed by 10:00. I came pretty close. Staying up late is another reason I'm glad we celebrated on Sunday night and not Monday.

How was your 4th of July?