4th of July

Our 4th was a little mellow. The girls wanted to do something fun with their hair so we tried some funky hairstyles for the 4th. Plus daddy made some of his famous strawberry ice cream.

The best part of the hairstyle was the next day's curls.

In the evening we headed over to our friends the Hunter's. 

They have a swimming pool the kids were able to have fun in. 

 A water fight of course broke out. 

 All of our kids have a special relationship with Brother Hunter and Huck is carrying on the tradition. I don't think it has anything to do with the airheads he gives them. One time Little Miss was angry and with tears streaming down her face she yelled, "I hate everyone in the whole world." She then slammed her door, only to open it a couple of seconds later and say, "except Brother Hunter I love him."

 After dinner it was time for fireworks. Some neighbors nearby had some amazing illegal fireworks. With theirs and our small batch we had quite the show. 

Leo was thrilled to be an official lighter this year. 

Huck wasn't too sure what to make of the fireworks. He liked watching them, but he thought it was too loud so he insisted on who ever was holding him had to cover his ears. 

The whole gang of kids (Hunters, Andersons, and our crew)

An Out of this World Birthday

For Leo's 8th birthday we did a Star Wars theme. Our guy is so thoughtful and gave such care to the guest list. He selected kids that he knew would play well together and he even said that we needed to invite 4 girls because 3 girls don't get along well together. I am telling you who ever marries this young man is going to be a lucky girl. We started off the party by playing Star Wars Bingo. 

Ken then showed up with the galactic pizza and yoda soda (a mixture of sprite, limeade and lime sherbert - did you know that lime sherbert is very hard to find. I ended up using rainbow sherbert which meant our drink was orange instead of green, but the kids could have cared less).

The rain clouds started coming in, so I asked the kids if they wanted cake. We were only able to light 4 out of the 8 candles, but we still got the song in before the rain drops started to fall. 

The cake was designed by Leo himself. 

He requested a vanilla and chocolate cake so I decided to make him a checkerboard cake. It is super easy to make. I didn't have cookie cutters so I just cut a template with wax paper and cut it with a knife.  

Ken got this picture of the kids huddling under the play equipment during the brief rainstorm.

 After the sugar we needed to burn off some extra energy so we broke out the homemade Jedi light sabers. We made 18 of these out of pool noodles and duct tape. I had to keep the neighborhood kids away from these for the past 2 weeks so I knew these would be a hit. The object of the game is to protect your red cup while at the same time trying to knock off the other kid's. Once your cup drops you are out of the game. 

It turns out wacking each other with pool noodles is a complete hit with 8 year olds. 

The last two standing were siblings Leo and Midge.

As should be the birthday boy was the victorious victor.

I thought this was a sweet shot of them trying to help the littler kids.

We held the party at this great park that is shaped like a bowl. Nobody knows about this park and it makes it great because we had the whole park to ourselves. 

They decided to chase after the birthday boy in order to give him his birthday spankings.

 Unfortunately they couldn't catch him.

Leo has wonderful friends and he was blessed with many wonderful gifts. When we got home he locked himself in my room. We put up a card table and he started going through his gifts and organizing them. He turned to me and my sweet boy said, "Mom I have too many toys now!"

I think the whole gang had a wonderful time.