America! and Some New Vocab

When America and Sarah have birthdays in the same week, it's a big deal.  Of course, it depends on who you ask around here whose birthday celebration is more important. 

Our 4th of July festivities were pretty low-key.

We did a little swimming:

And mermaiding (I just made that word up.  All the 4-year-old mermaid-unicorn-superhero-princesses can thank me later.):

By the way, why are daddies automatically so much more fun at the pool?  My kids much prefer their own daddy, but they will go hang all over somebody else's too, if theirs is not around.  I, apparently, am the last resort for fun.

I digress.

I made this fun garland (original found here) out of red ticking stripe and scraps from an old pair of mom jeans while watching Ironman.  And, since the Olympics are just around the corner, I'm going to keep it up indefinitely. 

I gathered our arsenal for the evening's fireworks-watching enjoyment:

And set the peeps to work grillin'.

Daddy's grill.

Baby grills.

Mmm... Pizza with turkey and corn.  Try grilling up a gourmet pizza that can top this felt and plastic one, Uncle Tom.

Unfinished felt T-Bone

Is it wrong that I'd much rather make felt food than the real stuff?

Y'all, I've had these grills in the works since the Bush administration.  The plan was to get my little guys grilling for Memorial Day, buuuuuut...  Let's just say, I'd rather sew it, glue it, or hammer it.  I will admit that sometimes it just feels good to drill something.

Anyway, the littles got a kick out of grilling stuff alongside daddy.  Now they want fire.

FINALLY, it was time to head out to watch the downtown fireworks from a hill behind a parking garage at a local university.  I'm not kidding.  We've done it two years in a row now, and it works pretty well. 

Sarah towel-gating before the show.

Will-bill

You'll just have to use your imaginations about the time between dusk and when the fireworks started.  It's not hard.  Just think of any longish car trip with kids and replace, "Are we there yet?" with, "Are they going to start yet?"  Fortunately, I packed bubbles, glow sticks, flags, and cookies.

FYI, the whole breaking a glow stick into bubble solution to make glow-in-the-dark bubbles is a Pinterest hoax.  The solution glows for a little bit, but the glow stick guts make the bubbles un-blowable. 

"It's like glitter, Mommy."

I didn't get a picture of my favorite sight of the night: both kids fast-asleep in their beds, faces lit by the yellow light of the glow sticks still clutched in their chubby fists.