Family Fun on the Fourth

We started our tradition of heading to our neighborhood pool early on the 4th. Normally this is a blast. However, Campbell recently went through a pretty traumatic experience at a friend's house where I had to jump in after him with my coverup and shoes on (I somehow managed to save my margarita). Last year, he was a fish. Jumping off diving boards, swimming under water with no floaties. I guess he got a little rusty so that understandably really shook him up.

He acts like he's never been swimming in his life and is quite ok with never swimming again in water over 6". So pool time has been pretty torturous this summer until last week. It seemed like with Nolan we always had to start over every year but Cam was pretty fearless. We tried not pushing him but he would just cling to my neck like I was sticking a cat in water.

Finally after about 6 trips to the pool, we're back to at least wearing floaties. Hallelujah. Baby steps....baby steps. I didn't get too many photos of our pool time because he was so terrified and all hands needed to be on deck.

What do I love most about the pool? That it wears my kids out!

I've been eyeing this skirt on Pinterest since Landry was a baby but I knew it was well above my skill level. My friend Kristen is way more talented than me and decided she was ready to tackle it. So we did a crafty swap. She made the skirts and I made the shirts and bows. I got the way better end of the deal. But I do vote them as the cutest patriotic outfits ever. I'm glad Landry's is a little big on her because that means she can wear it again next year!

 

I mean...seriously? 

 

My mom made the cookie patriotic pops and they were a bonus cute photo opp. The kids were eating them faster than I could take pictures though.

Grandma always comes with cute pinwheels and decor to make it feel festive.

  

My brother moved to town and lives less than 10 minutes away. I've seen him more in the past month than I have in 3 years. It's been great!

  

I love that you can just smell the grill throughout the day on the 4th of July. Burgers, dogs, corn on the cob, potato salad...it all just feels American. 

I'm so thankful for this country, for our freedom...I do take it for granted way too easily.

And it's not the 4th without loading up the kids to watch fireworks. We have definitely had our mishaps over the years trying to watch them but we've finally found a great place that has a 360 degree view of all of them across town.

Glow sticks, pinwheels, and patriotic colors blazin'.

 

Landry really couldn't have cared less about the fireworks. She was completely content with her blowin' pinwheel and glow sticks. 

While the fireworks weren't as close as they normally are, the kids loved being up so high that they could see about 10-12 firework shows going on a once. There's something so American seeing all these mini celebrations going on all around us.

And I think we have a little pyromaniac on our hands. Should I be scared?

Happy 4th of July from our family to yours!

Fabulous Fourth

Happy 4th of July from the TexasMacks! Justin is out of dress code for our picture but when you have three kids willing to pose, I'll take it :)

We had fun getting all decked out in red, white and blue. Landry pretty much resembled a human firecracker.

We started the day out at our neighborhood pool and surprisingly it wasn't busy at all!

Every year Nolan learns how to swim without floaties and every year without fail, he completely forgets the next summer and we have to start all over. But we made a huge step and we're without floaties again! WOOHOO!

I'm wondering if he'll still be in floaties when he's a senior in high school at this rate.

Campbell wasn't liking all this attention that Nolan was getting so he shed his floaties fast and did an awesome job guzzling water swimming without floaties too! We were really proud of the boys for doing so well at the pool.

And somebody else was loving the pool too. She is such a good sport and can hang in the pool for a good hour before she just gets completely wiped.

My parents came over for some good ol' American grub of burgers, potato salad, watermelon and corn on the cob.

My mom made some yummy patriotic cupcakes. It took every fiber of Nolan to keep from licking them. 

Now if you've been following the blog for quite some time you'll know that the 4th of July just isn't our best holiday. We have the WORST luck (no really) with going to watch fireworks. Either our kids are screaming BLOODY murder because they're terrified or we cannot find them anywhere.

But the 4th of July gods were in our favor this year because this was by far the best 4th of July we've ever had. We packed up the car preparing ourselves for the forced family fun beatdown that is an annual tradition. At the last minute we decided to stop at a place right by our house and it just happens to be the highest point of our whole town.

And from our viewpoint, we saw literally 20-30 fireworks displays all of varying distances and some that were almost on top of us. No one cried. Can you believe it? Not even Landry. I thought the day would never come! The boys were just amazed and oohing and aahing over every firework and sweet Campbell just kept saying over and over again how it was the "super best night ever" and neither one of them wanted to go home.

Landry was such a trooper for being out so late and even slept in until 10:15 the next morning. I'd say that was a 100% improvement over any of the last 10 years. Who knows maybe our track record with fireworks is looking up! We just needed our little firecracker as our good luck charm!

All-American 4th

I don't know what it is but when I see holiday items in the store I get this excitement in me like a kid in a candy store. I'm a sucker for holidays. I think it's because I love color so much and seeing all that color just gets me all warm and fuzzy. Fall could be months away but seeing that orange, brown, and yellow just makes me yearn for cooler weather, football games, and yellow and orange trees.

It's doesn't matter what holiday it is, but I have to refrain myself from buying ridiculous amounts of decorations that I probably won't ever use.

Don't even get me started on Christmas.

So once I settle my hyper-hypo holiday self down, I allow myself to buy a few staples. Then I get my little holiday fix and Justin isn't annoyed by all the holiday "junk". This year? I kept it simple with some 4th of July shirts. 

 This is why God gave me boys because I might just have to be put on Ritalin if I had a girl with all the holiday attire.

And the 4th just wouldn't feel like the 4th without some pool time and grilling out.  It felt like a rain cloud literally followed us around on our 8 state road trip but I had a pretty stern talk with Mr. Weather and told him to give us a break...and it looks like he did even if for just a little bit.

There were some major calories being burned in that pool.

And plenty of boo boos kissed.

Let's say that those kids crashed hard during nap time. It gave me that extra time to prepare the cupcakes. Energy was quickly revived and there was plenty of time to be silly…

You know you've stuffed in as much fun as you possibly can in one day when the kids can't even stay up to watch fireworks. But I would say that's a good thing with the our recent firework encounters. So the grown ups just watched them off the deck of the lake house. Beats last year and waiting in a parking lot way too late and never seeing them after a baseball game went into extra innings.

And once again, this is why I love holidays. Looks like my obsession with them won't stop anytime soon.

Patriotic Cupcakes

I'm not a huge cook or anything. I can hold my own though and I have a few staples that will knock your socks off. But there's something about holidays that has me itching to make fun cupcakes. I play it safe and don't do anything that involves decorating with icing. The number one reason being that I have as steady of a hand as a kindergartner. No really, I do. I prefer to place things on top of the frosting. I think it's just a lot easier.

This year I actually did something with the inside of the cupcake and made layered cupcakes from Taste of Home. My niece, Dory, helped me with the batter and is my kind of girl licking up the leftovers. They didn't turn out as vivid as I wanted, but I heard the trick is to use the gel coloring instead of regular food coloring. Lesson learned.

Ingredients

• 1 package (18-1/4 ounces) white cake mix
• 1/2 teaspoon blue food coloring
• 1/2 teaspoon red food coloring
• 1 can (16 ounces) vanilla frosting
• Red, white and blue sprinkles

Directions

• Prepare cake batter according to package directions.
• In a small bowl, combine 1-1/3 cups batter and blue food coloring. In another bowl, combine 1-1/3 cups batter and red food coloring. Leave remaining batter plain.
• Fill paper-lined muffin cups with 2 tablespoons red batter, 2 tablespoons plain batter and 2 tablespoons blue batter. Bake at 350° for 20-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely. Frost with vanilla frosting; decorate with sprinkles. Yield: 1-1/2 dozen.

Obviously, I used blueberries for my stars and I used Twizzlers pull and peel strips for the red stripes. It was a little tedious to cut the stripes but well worth it to see how cute they turned out. The kids were eyeing them asking when they could have them. By the way, if you ever need to get a kid to pose for a picture, put a cupcake in front of their face and dangle it like a carrot. These cupcakes were magic for getting smiles for the camera! I just need to start carrying spare cupcakes with me to get those shots when my boys are sick and tired of smiling for the camera.

The best part for all my labor? My taste-tester faces, of course!