Smores & 4th of July Fireworks - Attempt #1

Have you ever had a weekend or even just a single evening or event planned out perfectly in your mind only to have it turn out completely different in reality? Well that was our 4th of July weekend.

For the Saturday evening before the 4th I had planned chicken, steak and shrimp kabobs on the grill for dinner followed by a special and new dessert for the girls - S'mores! The kabobs ended up without shrimp but were still delicious. Even Gabrielle loved the zucchini and mushrooms (especially the mushrooms) and the chicken. I was so excited to surprise Gabrielle with the s'mores. I had the whole event planned. Ed was in charge of building the small campfire and gathering the perfect marshmallow roasting sticks while I got all the ingredients ready. We were going to roast marshmallows, enjoy the messy deliciousness and then head out for the Wake Forest fireworks show. Well our s'mores turned into "city s'mores" - in other words there was no campfire and not roasting involved.

Ed was (understandably) nervous about building even a small fire and then leaving the house. We debated whether to do a fire in the wheelbarrow (in which he could then fill up with water before leaving for fireworks) or to do the s'mores another day or to figure out some other way of making s'mores. So we went the "city" route. Our s'mores were put together, wrapped in foil then placed on our gas grill!! No, they weren't quite the same or nearly as good as the real thing but I think everyone enjoyed them anyway. And we have plenty of time to introduce our girls to the fun of roasting marshmallows over a fire.

From My Little Sunbeams

The marshmallows on most of the s'mores weren't all that melted and gooey so Samantha's s'more ended up being a chocolate covered graham cracker. She didn't seem to mind.

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

Can you imagine how messy they would have gotten with the real deal?

After cleaning up from s'mores we packed the girls up in the car and headed out for some fireworks. Wake Forest has a big all evening long event at a local high school with bands and food ending with fireworks. Not knowing how Samantha would do and not really wanting to be stuck in a crowd of people, not able to leave whenever we wanted, we decided rather than going to the high school we would park nearby and watch the fireworks from the back of the car. Our first idea of parking locations seemed to be a good one. There were quite a few people tailgating in the same parking lot all with the same idea as us. So we parked the car and all climbed in the back of our Highlander and waited for the show to begin.

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

From My Little Sunbeams

Just look at the excitement on that little face!!

Unfortunately a few minutes after 9:30, after our little girls waited patiently for the show, we heard the fireworks but couldn't see a single spark. The fireworks were just not quite high enough to reach above the trees between us and the high school. We tried to explain to Gabrielle what happened but she just couldn't understand - she wanted to see fireworks!! Fortunately for us there was another show scheduled in Franklinton on the 4th so as we buckled the girls in their seats we promised we would try again the next day.

So did our girls see fireworks? Well you'll just have to wait another day or so for the next post. It is late, I'm tired and the end of our 4th of July post is just going to have to wait until tomorrow!!

Chick-fil-A Play Dates

The Saturday before 4th of July we met some friends at Chick-fil-A for a play date. We met there early - 10:45 am - and let the kids play for a while before eating lunch. The kids had the play area to themselves and we were able to order lunch before it got too busy. We all decided it worked out perfectly and are hoping to do it again soon.

From My Little Sunbeams

The girls dressed in their 4th of July red, white & blue (and pink of course!) attire.

From My Little Sunbeams

Samantha climbing up, up, up! She is going to be my brave little girl who tries anything and everything from a very early age.

From My Little Sunbeams

Miss Avery is quite a brave one too! I love her dress - adorable! And poor Matt, Avery's daddy, is well over 6 ft tall and climbed up to help the little ones. I think he was a little squished in the tunnel behind Avery.

From My Little Sunbeams

This is Janie, a good friend from way back in high school, with Avery, me and Samantha and behind us are Will and Gabrielle.

A fun morning for all! The girls fell asleep in the car as we ran our last few errands gearing up for our little 4th of July celebration.

This Little Piggy...

Samantha's first pedicure...


My friend Janie had painted her little girl's toenails pink and I thought it was cute so when Gabrielle asked to have her nails painted the other day I thought why not! Gabrielle opted for the trendier pink and deep purple for every other nail but I kept Samantha's a little more classic. I was amazed at how well she sat there letting me paint her little piggies!

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

I can't believe it - I've been blogging for a year now. To be exact my first post was July 7, 2009. I know, I know, I've been pretty slack for the past month. I'm going to try my best to get caught up over the next few days. We have a very busy July ahead of us and if I don't catch up now it might not ever happen.

Since my last post we had Vacation Bible School at our church. Our theme was Egypt: From Prison to Palace where we learned about Joseph's story. Gabrielle LOVED it and was so sad when it was over. She still sings the songs she learned that week and talks about various activities she did. I wish I had a bunch of pictures but I was a family group assistant to a different group than Gabrielle so I wasn't really able to get any photos. But here is a photo that was taken one night at VBS to go inside a frame we made as one of our crafts:

Three members of the church who are photographers attended VBS every night taking hundreds of photos of everyone and everything going on. They put together a really neat slide show. The collar Gabrielle is wearing in the photo was another craft. The blue sash was part of her family group. I had planned on taking a picture of her photo inside the frame she made but the frame fell off her dresser and broke into 4 pieces. Gabrielle was terribly upset but it's nothing a little wood glue won't fix. Her family leader told me Gabrielle informed them the first night of VBS that she "loved crafts" and that was her favorite thing to do. And it showed - she had more jewels and gems and bling (and glue) than probably anyone else.

I think I mentioned in a previous post about our air condition not working. This is what we were using just trying to cope with the heat until we could get someone to come out and look at our system:
And this is where Gabrielle and I slept one night:
I put a floor fan in Samantha's room to try to keep her somewhat cool. It really was absolutely miserable. A couple of days after this photo was taken I packed myself and the girls up and we headed to Meemaw's for a few days. We had to get away from the heat. I felt bad about leaving Ed but we actually had a temporary fix done to the air condition the day I left so I didn't have to leave him in the heat after all. And I spent the night before and morning of leaving cooking enough meals for him. So far the temporary fix (filling up the freon even though there is a leak) is still holding strong. We're keeping our fingers crossed it will last through the summer and hopefully early fall we can replace the unit.

For four days at my mom's we did a whole lot of nothing - it was awesome!!


Samantha and Gabrielle enjoyed Meemaw's chocolate chip cookies (and I had a few as well - ok so maybe I had a lot!!!).

And Gabrielle and Meemaw played a little Connect Four. Gabrielle definitely didn't understand the rules. I tried to help but she wanted to play by her own rules of course.

Samantha is napping right now and Gabrielle is eagerly yet patiently waiting for me to come play a My Little Pony game with her. I better not keep her or the ponies waiting any longer. :)