Happy 4th of July - 185/365

Happy 4th of July!

We were having a little gathering today, so when I opened my peepers and saw the gray sky, I was a bit sad. I kept checking the hour by hour, every hour, looking to see if it would clear. Every time I checked, it looked better! The little "0%" starting spreading to later in the day! YAY!

It was a pretty busy morning getting everything set up, but a fun busy!

Everyone started arriving right around two. It did rain for just a few minutes or so at the start of the party, but it was so muggy it was almost refreshing!

We had a crew of 27! My mom and dad, Jim's mom and dad, Raymond, Jennifer, Ed, Pam, Frank, Judy, Adrienne, Jake, Nikki, Karen, Dolly, Mabel, Papa, Ron, Rachel, and of course, all the kids! Brinkley, Dexter and Sadie even made the party! What a fun group!

We just cooked the traditional burgers and hot dogs and everyone else, contributed yummy sides and desserts! It was perfect!

The kids just had a ball playing on the playset! We had some bubbles going, two little pools, and tons of other toys scattered around! They all played so nice together, with no bickering.

The pools were the big hit. I had Reagan's baby slide going into one and we also had a bigger pool, with just some toys. Ally jumped right in and swam the length of the big pool! LOL! They eventually got a system going where they would go down the slide into the small pool, jump up, then jump into the big pool, splash around and then repeat the process. It was too funny! They were like little lemmings.

I made a big bucket of water balloons for them, too! They LOVED those and annihilated them in about 30 seconds. They asked for more, so Nikki and I headed in and filled up another bucket. They were also gone in about 30 seconds. My mom and Jim filled up one more bucket for them. Again, 30 seconds...LOL!

After that, they had their firecracker popsicles and started on their craft before getting dry. Reagan had made a cute stained glass window craft at a recent birthday party, so I made a 4th of July themed one for this party. I found clear square plastic plates, flag ribbon and glitter stars. I hot glued them to the plate as a hanger. I printed out a star coloring page from the internet, that fit perfectly on the plate. I traced the stars with a blue sharpie. I also printed their names and the date, on computer paper and traced them on the plate, too! They got to "paint" in the stars with red, white & blue glitter glue. They loved it! They finished up the day just running around.

Everyone hit the road around 6:30. I was happy everyone hung around!

Ed, Pam and my mom and dad hung around a little bit longer after that and helped clean up a little more. Then we just sat around having one last drink. Reagan had a good time passing out "icebergs" to us from the coolers. It was too funny! All in all, it was a fabulous day with great company! I think everyone had a great time, at least I hope so!

The photo of the day is the kids in their patriotic gear!

The next is our little family in our 4th of July photo frame....

And finally, Reagan's version of the craft....