The Fourth of July!!

Usually on the fourth of July the girls ( Mom, Kirstin, Payton, Erin and I ) load up and go shopping. That had been the tradition for a couple years now. Shopping is really not the same when you have a little one. Payton has never been the calm, quite, sit still kind of shopper, she is more of the touch and see type. So shopping with her is a rarity with her! I keep hoping that one day she will be the calm quite layed back type of shopper but I have to realize she is just two and I'm sure one day her love for shopping with come through! So needless to say our traditional shopping has been postponed. I always thought retail therapy was my therapy of choice but there is no better therapy for relaxation than poolside therapy so we decided to spend our fourth of July at the pool with the family.

So you can imagine that when I woke up Monday to see the dark rain clouds filling the sky I was so let down!  We kept watching the weather channel to find some ray of hope that it would turn out to be a pool day! So instead of wasting our entire morning pouting over the rain drops we decided to do some crafts to keep our mind off the delayed swim. My mom had a flower arrangement project she had been wanting to do so I thought I would share how we spent the first half of our gloomy 4th of July Morning.

You will need: 1 bag of lemons, Fresh cut flowers, glass pitcher and a vase to fit inside the pitcher.

Cut the lemons, not too thin that you can see through the lemon but not too thick.

Two bouquet bundles of flowers.



Place the lemons around the outer part of the pitcher in between the pitcher and glass



Fill up the lemons to the top of the pitcher then arrange the flowers. Pour water over the flowers and the lemons. Ta-da you have a pretty arrangement that will brighten up any area.

After studying the weather pattern once again,  we knew the rain would be lingering for a couple more hours so on to our next project....baking sugar cookies. Kirstin got Payton involved in this one, Payton loves to help out in the kitchen, especially when there is icing involved.






Looks like I may have a cake decorating helper in the future.

We were very proud of our patriotic sugar cookies!



The cookies were done...the sun was shining and it was POOL TIME! HOORAY!

We enjoyed the pool for most of the afternoon. Payton played with Pops most of the time jumping in the pool constantly. Then she took a little time to relax with Mimma.

She kept us entertained, she is quite the comedian.

The afternoon turned out to be fun filled and pretty, nothing like I thought it would be after seeing the gloomy clouds earlier that morning. Then it was on to food, family time and fireworks.

We ended the night laying poolside watching an amazing display of fireworks!

I can hardly wait for next year's fourth of July events already.

  Hope you had a Happy 4th of July too!