The 4th

I love the 4th of July.  For me, it's Christmas, and then the 4th of July.  I LOVE it.  And when we moved to this neighborhood, the morning of the 4th got a whole lot more fun because they do a parade.  A BIG one - so big, it was featured on national news as one of the top ten "small town" (even though our neighborhood isn't really a town) parades in the nation.  It's pretty fun, if I do say so!

We have people over for breakfast and then we sit and watch the parade from our front lawn.  Last year, I made a bunch of different things for breakfast.  This year, I decided to make pancakes and CRAFTS.

I am not a craft person, and there's a reason for that.  I like the way they look, but I hate the time they take and I hate actually doing them.  But last year I made this wreath:

And I figured this was the year for some crafty stuff since it's summer and I have plenty of time!  So I started looking around on Pinterest (which I generally don't like) and found a few cheap ideas.  One was this:

It's a wind blower thing made out of strips cut from plastic table cloths.  It was fun and I got enough materials to be able to make with the kids.  The second undertaking was:

Being someone who hates to craft and hates to use fine motor skills, I immediately went to my mom for help on these.  So she gets credit for, like, 90% of this.  I did paint a few and did the stars on a few.  But Charlie gets credit for the "fireworks" that went inside:

You paint a coffee filter, cut slits all around it, poke a pipe cleaner through it, secure, and voila! Cheap, cute, decorations!

I called that good.  I decided to make only pancakes this year...until my dad brought over some old bananas and I found raspberries and blackberries in the freezer.  So I made pancakes and "Star Spangled Banana Bread."

We had a lovely array of food, including Patriotic Puppy Chow, Old Glory Cinnamon Rolls, and Red, White, and Blue cake.  It was fun. :)

And then, there was the parade!

This is the view from our lawn in both directions down the street.  I've got to say, I'm sure glad I live on the park and don't have to worry about parking and getting to it.

And can we have a moment for this woman playing in the band with her baby strapped to her chest?  That's dedication.

Lucy and I had a great time on the lawn watching the parade.  I managed to catch these two pictures nearly back to back before the parade started:

Funny girl.  And isn't that the cutest dress ever?  Love it.

The parade is always full of military vehicles, kids on bikes and in wagons, and emergency vehicles like fire trucks, and politicians.  One liberal politician stopped to give a sucker to Lucy.  My uber-conservative father-in-law had a thing or two to say about that. :)  But my FAVORITE display was this one:

That's my niece pulling my son and nephew.  They ran out of candy so they just waved a lot.  It was adorable.

As always, it was a great time! Thanks to all who came!