I Love the 4th of July!

July 4th is my absolute favorite holiday and my favorite day of the year. I love EVERY SINGLE THING about it!

We began the day with our traditional neighborhood pancake breakfast and flag raising ceremony. It's always a fun event! We LOVE our neighbors and our 'hood!

 The kids made new tie-dye shirts this year. I REALLY like it when they get into wearing red, white, and blue!

I didn't have any face paint and the girls wanted "tattoos" so we just used our Sharpie markers instead. Inventive, huh? I love love love Miss Abbey's freckles!

After breakfast, we headed down to the Monument 4th of July parade. It's the best little slice of Americana that I know of and one of my favorite traditions!!! There are floats and horses and marching bands and politicians and sports teams and cheerleaders! Oh, and elephants!  Lots of local businesses and churches have floats and they always throw candy (and other fun treats) to the kids. It's such a great parade with lots of local flavor. Emily and her family joined us and sadly I don't have one picture of her cute little family!

It was REALLY hot at the parade this year. We came home afterwards and grilled brats for lunch and then just chilled! We made some homemade ice cream and grilled chicken kebabs for dinner. YUMMY!

Our community has a really great fireworks show but it is sooooooo crowded. We usually stay home and watch them from our cul de sac with our neighbors. The great thing is that we can actually see TWO fireworks shows from our street and when it's over we can just walk inside and hit the hay instead of sitting in a gridlocked traffic for an hour! Our kids love hanging with all their neighborhood friends and SO DO WE! It's always a lot of fun and a great way to end a great day!

It is SO dry here so we weren't allowed to shoot any of our own fireworks or even light sparklers...and  we had to keep explaining to all the kids who are so used to doing that every year why we couldn't this time...I'm not sure they ever totally understood why none of their parents wanted a $600 ticket!

I always feel so blessed at the end of this day--blessed to live in the USA and have all sorts of freedoms and blessed to have amazing friends and family to celebrate with! I hope your 4th of July was fantastic!

A Fun-Filled Fourth!

A better title would be a fun-filled 3rd, 4th, and 5th since we celebrated ALL weekend long!

Saturday:
Small-town parade with dear friends | sun | more sun | candy | not enough sunscreen | red-white-and-blue EVERYWHERE | lunch on the patio at La Casa Fiesta | more friends | ice cream at the Rock House | playing with neighbors | rest | burgers | dinner with Deena | bedtime collapse.

This guy was dancing to the Village People's Y-MCA!

Sunday:

SUPER DUPER fun 4th of July block party | crafts for kids | slip 'n slide | water balloons | perfect weather | grills everywhere | so much food! | laughing kiddos | laughing adults | birthday candles, singing, and cake | adult water fight | NO PHOTOS!!! | love our neighbors | they've become dear friends | exhaustion | attempt(s) to nap | failure to nap | a trip to fireworks stand | excited kids | rain | thunder | lightning | hail | more rain | waiting | more rain | waiting | tornado warnings | crazy lightning | rain, rain, rain | hail, hail, hail | fireworks viewing plans cancelled | but fireworks shows NOT cancelled | one shocked mama | fireworks viewed from patio door while it poured | pretty much a bust | disappointed kids | disappointed mama | sparklers in the rain | not much fun | tucked sun-kissed kiddos in bed | everyone asleep within minutes | including parents.

Monday: 

Fun continues | John home from work | blueberry scones for breakfast | lazy morning | soaked up some (more) sun | rested a bit | drove to Castle Rock | Toy Story 3 | (tears) | (more tears) | Chick-Fil-A | home | visited outside with neighbors | impromptu street fireworks | happy kids | exhausted parents. 

Perfect holiday weekend!!!

Camping, CPQ, Rainbow Eggs, & Crafts

I'm super excited! We're loading up our cooler and a tent and some chairs and some marshmallows, Hershey bars, and graham crackers (and a whole lot more) and heading to the mountains to camp with two other families. Do you know how much I love camping? I love it. The more rustic it is, the better!

I wasn't always this way. I was in Girl Scouts for ages, and every summer we sent my sister off to camp while I stayed home. Why? Because there was no place to plug my hot rollers in. And I would rather have stayed home than have had bad hair at camp. Thankfully, I've matured a bit since then. And thankfully Life is Good makes ballcaps.

Camping in Colorado makes a huge difference. Arkansas is muggy and buggy and that detracts from the whole experience for me. I remember doing some camping as a kid but mostly I just remember mosquitos. There are very few mosquitos here, but we do have to worry about bears! Yikes.

We're not camping long. Because VBS starts bright and early Monday morning, and also because I want to hang out with the one and only CarpoolQueen while her family is in town taking in the glory of Pikes Peak.

I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. Of camping AND of CarpoolQueen.

Here are some pics I can share now though. My friend, Jen, brought us some rainbow eggs yesterday. They're going to taste really good cooked over a campfire! I tweeted about it [Aside: I like Twitter so much more than Facebook. If you want to follow me, I'm @lifeat7000feet] and my friend Lisa asked me what rainbow eggs were. They're multi-colored eggs that come from special chickens. I tried to google rainbow chickens and got funny results. I'm not sure that's what the chickens are called but the eggs look like this:

Pretty! And tasty too. John made us some for breakfast.

Also wanted to share a fun 4th of July craft that the girls and I made yesterday. 

Sarah came home from camp with this cute necklace from the camp store. 

The pendant part is a guitar pick! I decided these would be super easy to make for the 4th of July using red/blue bandanas! Fender makes a speckled pick that is red/white/blue/black which is PERFECT. I ordered mine here. They are 3.99/dozen with free shipping! I ordered a lot because we're going to make these as a craft at our 4th of July block party.

I think they turned out really cute! I like the beads better on the one that Sarah bought but I couldn't find any of that shape at Michael's the other day. I've got to keep looking. And if anyone knows where I can find navy blue bandanas PLEASE let me know. I've tried Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Walmart and they only have royal and cornflower blue. I'm going to try Jo-Ann and Hancocks and DollarTree next week but if any of you have seen them somewhere please let me know! The black looks okay, but I think I would like navy better. It's definitely more patriotic.

So...directions? You simply punch a hole in the pick with a regular ole hole punch. Thread a 1-inch strip of bandana through the hole and tie a knot. I'd either wash/dry your bandana first or dampen it before you start, otherwise it will look stiff and wide. Add a bead on either side of the knot and tie around your neck. I think you'll need the "thin" guage picks. They're very sturdy and I'm afraid you won't be able to punch through the medium ones. Depending on how many picks we have leftover, I want to make some matching earrings. How cute are these?!!

Alright. I think I'll be unplugged until Monday. Peace out, peeps. Y'all enJOY the weekend.

My Most Favorite Day of the Year

I love the 4th of July.

It is my all-time favorite holiday and my favorite day of the year. 

Why, you ask? Well let me give you a few reasons:

1. It's in the summer, and I LOVE summer!

2. It's usually a pretty laid back day and doesn't bring the stress that other major holidays do!

3. We usually celebrate outside, and that's my most favorite place to be.

4. It's filled with all of my favorite "f" words--friends, family, fun, food, freedom, and FIREWORKS!

Moving to Colorado has only increased my love of July 4th. 

Why, you ask? Well, let me give you a few reasons:

1. It's not usually hot. Our high for the day was 75 degrees, and it was in the 50s when we watched fireworks--jacket weather!

2. We don't have mosquitos.

3. Our town has a *fabulous* 4th of July parade!

4. Our neighbors have a flag raising/pancake breakfast to kick off the day's events--complete with one neighbor playing "Reveille" on the trumpet. (If that won't rouse you from your slumber, I don't know what will!)

It is just a super fun day all the way around. Here are some of my favorite pictures!

Will snapped this pic...pretty good, eh?

Waiting for the parade to start!

Our parade has a little of everything--kids on bicycles, floats, horses, beauty queens, marching bands, protestors (see the TEA party pics), Shriners in small cars, clowns, firetrucks and SO much more. It's the best small town slice of life you'll find anywhere. It lasts about two hours and has been dubbed the Best Small Town Parade in America! We truly love it!

Click on this picture to enlarge it. My kiddos LOVED these little doggies pulling the wagon!

92.9 is a radio station in Co Springs. They drove this SUV in the parade and played Michael Jackson music the entire time. It was awesome. People everywhere were dancing. Thriller was playing when it cruised past us. Lots of people doing the Thriller dance--so funny!

I took this pic especially for my friend, Lisa. Sorry I was on the wrong side of the street and it's backwards.

We watched fireworks from the cul-de-sac at the end of our street. It rained all afternoon and was still raining when we walked outside so we just drove down there and sat in the van while waiting for them to start! We could see the US Air Force Academy & Palmer Lake fireworks shows. Definitely not the same as being there, but we had thunderstorms ALL afternoon so it was worth it to not be sitting on the soggy ground.

(I love making fun of John and his Harry Potter toboggan. He has a matching Gryffindor scarf too.)

Hope you had a fabulous 4th of July too!