Our 4th of July Fun!!

4th of July is one of my fave holidays.  It use to be because it just meant swimming and cook outs but now it means so much more.  We are such a blessed nation in all that we have.  If you don't think so, go visit a 3rd world country.  You will stop feeling entitled real quick.

So I wanted to make it a big deal to my kids too.  But they were already in the spirit before me!  Bubba  has taken to making pancakes for everyone in the mornings and the kids decided to add blue food coloring to them yesterday and then put some star sprinkles on them to honor our country.  Here they are:

They were disappointed that they were a bit brown from the griddle

Then we did some crafts to decorate our front porch.  We started with these super easy lanterns in red, white and blue.

*Click HERE to learn how to do the lanterns*

We also did wind socks

Click HERE for windsock craft

And here is our porch with all the decorations

We grilled out when Hubby got home and swam some more.  Temps have been 100 or above so the pool feels great even when the water is at 92 degrees.   I made these great burgers with my usual flavorings( steak sauce, worcestershire-i know, it's hard to say, salt & pepper) but added in crumbled bacon and topped it with cheese sauce instead of slices.  OH MY GOODNESS!!  Those were soooo good!!!  I also found a new way to do corn on the cob.  Microwave them! Just leave them in the husks and they steam to perfection and all the silks just slide right off.  Click HERE to learn how to do them.

Then we played some glow bowling when it got dark.  I just filled 20 oz bottles with water( to make them heavier) and broke a glow stick so it was glowing and put 1 in each of the bottles and put the lid on.  We got our basketball and set the 'pins' up in our drive with a hockey net behind( to catch the ball theoretically) and started bowling!  Here is a pic of our pins:

They were really bright and the kids took them in and used them as lanterns when they went to bed.

I have also read that you can break the glow sticks open and poor then glow stuff into the bottles.  That seemed too messy and time consuming to me so we went this route.

I of course couldn't pass up the opportunity to quiz the kids about why we celebrate the 4th of July since we did go over the American Revolution this past school year.  They had no trouble with the answers.

( which was that America declared their independence from England with the Declaration of Independence.  The 4th actually did mark when the US became free but rather when we officially declared that we would  fight for that freedom)

Hope you had  great 4th and remember- Freedom isn't Free!

Blessings from The Mama