Lady Liberty

Look at this tasty cupcake!  This creation was one of Mommy's inventions, a cupcake for Hannah that turned out really well.  Daddy is glad he took a picture of it, because it was completely devoured shortly after this.  No mercy!  If you made something like this for Daddy, he probably wouldn't eat it out of respect for all the effort!

Here's our little Statue of Liberty.  Madison has been thinking herself a Statue of Liberty lately, especially because of two consecutive LEGO games where you can go around playing as a small LEGO Statue of Liberty.  Today Lady Liberty saw her grandparents and extended family come over for a wonderful afternoon.  Part of the "wonderful" is the presentation that Mommy was working on all yesterday (including the cupcake above).  It also included patriotic items, like these tasty red, white and blue strawberries below:

They were as tasty as they look.  In fact, I'm going to eat another in a moment.  Daddy fired the grill up and got the burgers and hot dogs going, while Mommy set up the lemonade dispenser - which looks so cool.  We had all kinds of salads, corn, and toppings ready - and soon we had ourselves a 4th of July meal outside under our new canopy.  The decorations were up, and the traditional music was playing (Daddy always plugs in Phil Driscoll's "Celebrate Freedom" and Disney's Liberty Voices).  It was a great time together, with the three f's:  fun, food and fellowship.

We got inside, afterwards and cleaned up a bit - and then went off to the pool.  Everyone jumped in for a nice afternoon at the pool, where the weather was perfect.  It wasn't too hot at all - just right for an afternoon swim.  

Coming back to the house, we had our desserts, and presents for Hannah as well.  Her birthday is actually July 2, but it works out that we're all together on this day.  She wasn't complaining either - especially when opening birthday gifts!

Like all good times together with family, the day eventually came to an end.  We handed out sparklers, and when it got dark, Madison and Daddy had our traditional adventure outside lighting sparklers.  Here's a few pictures of Madison with the sparkler, the first one showing her desire once more to be like the Statue of Liberty.

And here's another one where Daddy left the shutter of the camera open as Madison ran around the tree in the front yard.

Yes, she gave me the runaround.  The tree reminds me of the one at Pixie Hollow, doesn't it?  Anyway, we heard all kinds of fireworks in the neighborhood, so we walked down the street a little to watch some of the neighbors shooting off fireworks into the air.  These things are getting bigger and bigger each year - as technology increases, so do the amazing pyrotechnic shows of your very own neighbors!

But it was pretty late by this point, as you can imagine.  We walked back home and indoors, pretty much going straight to bed.  It was a very nice Independence Day - tomorrow we'll be back to work.  But today was simply fantastic.