Let the Celebrations Begin!

I love, love, love Independence Day!

Next to Christmas it's my favorite holiday.

I love all the parades and BBQs and melon and fireworks!

We have been busy little bees this week getting ready for the big day.

We made each of the kids a fun hat out of newspaper and paint and glitter. We also made fun star wavers so they can wave them at the floats as they pass.

For those we used empty cracker boxes that we cut into a star shape and painted and added glitter designs. Then we added cute ribbon and glued it all to sticks we found in our yard. Sometimes it really helps to have a willow tree. We get some pretty cool sticks for the kids to play with and for me to craft with!

If you have not made any 4th of July crafts with your kids, it's not too late. Grab some old newspaper and cereal boxes and get to work! There's still time left before the big day!
Every year our kids love to ride in the bike parade. Since Baby Cakes is still a bit too little to ride, we dressed the wagon for the occasion. Just imagine it with a cute baby waving, dressed from head to toe in red, white and blue. Oh, I just can't wait!

The kids had so much fun decorating their bikes, it took us 2 days to get all the bikes and the wagon in tip top shape.
I can't wait to post pictures of the final product on the day!

Before the bike parade Mr. Bird is running in our city's 5K. I want to run too, but I have 4 heathens to look after. I thought about doing the 5K walk with them all, but we did a practice walk this week and it did not go so well.

After the 5K the kids will start off our city's parade with the bike parade. Hundreds of kids show up with sparkly bikes and wagons and scooters and ride the parade route. It is the highlight of the day for our kids. They talk about it all year long! After the bike parade we stay for our city's parade and oooh and aaaah over all the colorful floats. Since we live so close to the air force base we usually get an F-15 buzz the parade. Although, they are always taking off and landing practically on top of our house, so we usually don't even notice the huge F-15 just feet above our heads. After the parade we head home to get our picnic items ready to have our family BBQ.

This week it will be at dead Aunt Lisa's house.

Yup, you guessed it, after dark we gather at the park with about a million other people to watch the spectacular fireworks display!

The fireworks are my favorite part. I wish they would go on forever!

Let the Parades begin!