july 4 traditions

Hello, July 4 Fruit Pizza! How I love you so! Growing up it was a tradition for my BFF Jessie and I to make fruit pizza for July 4, and it's stuck with both of us through all the years! Our girls had a blast decorating the cookie! Now, if Jessie would just move home from Texas we could make it together again! (Hint, hint!)

Here is Cooper (Jessie's son) making his fruit pizza a thousand miles from us!

We started off July 4 weekend by attending the Primrose 4th of July parade! Natalie and I were guests of Sammi, as Natalie was still recovering from being sick so she did not participate. :( Sammi's class walked out dressed in their flag bags and sand a patriotic song. So cute!!!!


The rest of the weekend was filled with lots of outdoor play and family fun together!

Daddy and Sammi played baseball with Daddy's 2010 Father's Day gift (baseball, bat, and glove - in pink of course, just like daddy likes... hee hee...)

We did lots and lots (and lots!!) of bubbles! And Steve and Krystal came over for a cookout!!!

We all shared the fruit pizza...YUM!

And more bubbles...

We took a walk together to the neighborhood park!



Daddy picked up just a few silly fireworks for the girls... parachute men and snakes!

Sammi pretty much walked around the entire afternoon plugging her ears! It was pretty funny. We were tracking down the parachute man in this photo...

The girls were interested in the snakes but we were having trouble lighting them so we didn't do too many.

...But we did cool off with some watermelon!

...And more bubbles!!!

And of course, we watched the fireworks. Awesome.

Natalie didn't stay up for the big fireworks but Sam did. We all sat on the patio along with many other spectators in our neighborhood and enjoyed the show right in our own back yard. We have about 3-4 neighbors that do dueling fireworks and one of them owns a fireworks shop, so needless to say, they're pretty amazing.

We did have several idiots (probably the same people who burned half of our clubhouse to the ground last year - okay I'm exaggerating, but only a little) who lit fireworks toward homes or had MAJOR goof-ups. Within 10 minutes of each other we had TWO neighbors have HUGE fireworks (the REALLY BIG kind) explode on their patios where they were standing. After that, we went inside. Aside from the absolute terror of people running around on fire screaming and missing arms (okay - exaggerating again, but only a little bit), it was an amazing show!!! :)

And truly, no exaggerating.... it was a perfect weekend of spending time with my family!!!

Happy Independence Day!!!