4th of July

It was a good holiday today. A good family day.

We had American Flag toast for breakfast (Alice's idea) using our own homegrown blueberries:

Here Alice is pouring milk for a sibling. This kind of help is SO refreshing!

It's frosting, not butter.

Then I worked outside to prepare for our dinner BBQ while Alice and Robert frantically did extra chores for some pocket money. Why would a kid need pocket money on the 4th of July? Well, for the food trucks at the parade, of course! They did dishes, exercised, sorted screws, picked up half-chewed peaches in the orchard (curse you squirrels!), and read to their siblings. Among other things. Bobby managed them while the two littlest were outside with me.

Soon it was time to leave for the parade. We biked to our usual spot. I hauled James and Matthew in the trailer, but forgot to put up the stroller wheels, so it was a very difficult, jerky kind of ride for the three of us. James and Matthew were having fun, though.

At the parade, the kids got some candy, purchased their own snow cones, and didn't complain once about the heat or the sun or the bike ride home. AWESOME!

After some quiet time, we finished prepping for the BBQ. This was our first outdoor party of the year. Quite a clean up! The bigger kids ended up in a water fight. The littler kids ended up sweaty and covered in dust. Then our guests arrived :)

Good party. Laid back. Good food. Fun guests. Kids had fun, adults had fun. I should have taken at least one picture. We had the Shaw family and part of the Hoki family over. We ate and played croquet and Bobby ended up giving the kids wagon rides. I'm home tonight with a sleeping Matthew while Alice, Robert, and James are with Bobby viewing fireworks. This is the first year they've wanted to go...thundering noises and fire raining from the sky hasn't appealed to them in the past. And we haven't exactly pressed the issue, either. The fireworks start at 9:15! Too late for my old lady blood.