Neighborhood parade

The tradition goes on....

Kaboom Town at Shops at Willow Bend

Waiting for the show to start....

Patriotic tailgate :)

Fourth of July Festivities

AKA Picture Dump...

The morning of the fourth we had our neighborhood bike parade.

 

Dinner at my parents' house

 

We had the McGlamerys over to our house on Friday night.  Those pics are on the other computer.  I'll upload them to the blog later. :)

Happy Fourth of July!

Strawberry Shortcake Cake

Well I was on The Pioneer Woman's website... AGAIN.. getting some ideas for 4th of July food and ran across this recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Cake.

As I read through the recipe, I knew it was going to give me fits! I'm not great at layered cakes in general, but I'm especially horrible at them when you only make one layer and are instructed to cut that layer EVENLY in half with a serrated knife.

I don't do anything straight across. 

Look at any picture I've hung in my home.

Ever wonder why all of my bulletin boards had slanted letters at varying heights?  Because nothing I do is ever straight.

I blame my scoliosis and the fact that one leg is longer than the other.  I think I see the world slightly slanted.  Are you buying that?

Nevertheless, I decided to make the dang cake.  Why?  Because it's red and white... and the 4th of July is rapidly approaching.  I knew I could throw on a few blueberries and--- VOILA!--  a patriotic dessert.

It's a holiday after all, and holidays demand festivities.  You don't have to have fun... but you better be festive!

You don't like scooping out pumpkin guts?  Well suck it up! It's Halloween and we're carving a pumpkin!

The tedious nature of making gingerbread houses gives you anxiety?  Too bad. Take a strong shot of egg nog, slap a smile on your face, and get busy.  It's Christmas!

What do you mean you don't like pecan pie?  Be thankful and eat it! Happy Thanksgiving!

Fourth of July??

Well that's bike parades in the 100+ heat.  Illegal fireworks on the driveway that scare the children and make me worried that the neighbors might call the police.  And desserts that are red, white, and blue.

True, I could've made sugar cookies and topped them with red and blue sprinkles, but I was determined to go the extra mile.  Thankfully I had enough foresight to realize this was gonna be a disaster so I made it today...just so this cake wouldn't ruin my day on the actual 4th of July. :)

I should've taken pics all along the way for you to really understand how bad this was.

Everything went fine until I had to cut it in half.  Then the cake fell apart. 

The middle of the cake was underdone so I took a spoon and scooped out the raw batter.  It is not an exaggeration when I tell you that there is no center to my cake anymore.  I plugged the gaping hole with icing, but just understand--underneath all that goo, this cake is  actually shaped like a donut.

I made the icing in a bowl that was WAY too small for all the sifted powder sugar.  I ended up with a thick giant ring of sugar on my counter.

It was like a chalk outline of a dead bowl.

I did my best and my best was so sad.

 This picture doesn't do it justice.  As bad as this icing job is, it's covering a MULTITUDE of sins.  I'm kicking myself for not documenting all along the way.  You'd have been yelling at your screen, "Give up, Julie!  This isn't your thing!" 

But I'm stupid tenacious and persevered.

Happy [upcoming] 4th of July, everyone!  I hope your patriotic dessert turns out better than mine.

What if I stick a flag in the middle of it? Do you think it'd look better?

Annual Neighborhood Parade

It's that time of year again. The parade. The hot walk around our neighborhood. The one that I tell myself, "We don't need to do this again next year," as I'm sweating. But then on July 3rd I always find myself buying ribbon and stickers so the kids can decorate their bikes.

The reality is they have fun and look forward to it. In fact, Sarah said, "I love that we do this every year." It made me smile that she's starting to pick up on traditions.

This year they decorated visors and we painted stars on their faces. Please don't be intimidated by my fancy artistic skills; it took a lot of practice to learn to draw stars that well. ;)

Then they all wanted to practice riding their bikes to make sure that none of their streamers and stickers fell off.

The fire truck came and we all lined up behind it.

The firemen that led the parade this year were really fond of using the siren and lights. It made it a lot of fun. And lots of neighbors sat in their front yards to watch the kids ride past.

I'd say there were at least 25 kids in the parade. A huge turnout.

The snow cone lady was waiting on everyone at the end. Such a great morning with our neighbors.

Kaboom!

Last night was Kaboomtown in Addison. It's from 5:00 til Midnight. But Jason worked til 6:30 and we ate dinner at the house. So we didn't get down there til 8:00.

We parked just north of the Addison Airport and watched part of the air show.

(We were closer than this picture makes it seem.)

The kids played with a little girl who parked next to us.

Caroline had fun putting rocks in Jason's cup holder.

"I'm gonna pile them THIS high, Daddy."

Then they had popsicles.

And couldn't decide if they wanted to watch the fireworks from the ground...

Or the bed of the truck. Decisions, decisions.

They changed their mind countless times until we told them to PICK A SPOT AND STAY THERE.

Even though we weren't up close, front and center, the night was fun. It reminded me of the good ol' days sitting on the top of the station wagon in the Walmart parking lot watching the fireworks from Tiger Field. :)

Everyone (except Jack) was worn out!

Kaboom town

Tonight we're going to watch the fireworks in Addison. It will be the first time the kids have ever seen fireworks... that they can remember.

We haven't been out to any of the shows the last few years. Three years ago I was about-to-pop pregnant. Sitting outside on a muggy July 4th night in a lawn chair was not something I really wanted to do. Besides, I'm not really sure I could've gotten myself out of a lawn chair at that point in the pregnancy. I was huge.

And for the last two years Caroline has been a baby/toddler. Young enough that it's very important that she go to sleep at her bedtime. Old enough that she's out of an infant carrier so I don't want her to fall asleep just anywhere.

And maybe it's only me, but it doesn't sound fun at all to keep a one year old up until 10:00 and then drive home with your fingers crossed that she doesn't fall asleep in the car because you know if she does, she won't transfer from her car seat to her bed very well and she'll be up til midnight because she had a nap on the way home... all because you thought it'd be a good idea to take her out to see the fireworks; no thank you.

That ridiculous run-on sentence made sense to someone. I know it. ;)

And like I said, the efforts that we made when Sarah and Jack were young have gone unremembered. So I don't feel like I've deprived them from some magical experience.

They're 6, 5 and 2 yrs old this year. I feel confident that at least 2 out of 3 of them will remember tonight. :)