Fourth of July

It's been two weeks since I wrote anything on my blog, and to be honest, I feel a little guilty about that. Granted, these last two weeks have been crazily busy--we've been moving back into the main part of our house while the contractors are still finishing up in the addition and playroom and there's still a TON of things to move, pack and unpack, not to mention, wire, sand, paint, lay, install, organize....you get the picture. But it's the longest I've gone without writing something on the blog, and I can't help but feel that I've let myself down just a little bit. See, I made a commitment to myself to write something every week on here, and even though I knew there would be times it would be hard, I've managed it more or less up until now. This is where I have to remind myself that it's okay to mess up sometimes, you're only human, nobody's perfect. Sometimes it really stinks to be a perfectionist!

Okay, pity party over. On to the fun stuff! 😜

Today's the 4th of July, people! What does that mean in your house? For us, it means time with family, maybe some backyard grilling, talking about our country's birthday and what that means, finding fireworks to watch, you know, the usual stuff. The week surrounding July 4th I like to read books to the kids about the holiday, show them cartoons/shows about U.S. history, and do fun patriotic crafts with them. (Actually, I do this with every holiday.) My children are still somewhat young, and I want to make sure they understand our country's history and the importance of  this holiday (and every other one we celebrate). 

This year has been a little bit different because of all the chaos right now in our home. We can't grill because our grills were messed up in the tornado, and we still haven't replaced them, but on a quick run to Winn-Dixie for milk and eggs this morning (breakfast cleaned us out!), I saw they were smoking ribs in the parking lot and picked up two pans for supper (Jimmy LOVES ribs!). 

We haven't been able to do any crafts this week because all of our crafting supplies are in the playroom, and, as previously mentioned, it got packed up this week for the contractors to work in there. (More on that soon!) But I did check out a few patriotic books from the library to read to the kids and we did that together this morning, so that was fun! The one on the right we had read before, and it's great--sort of a poetic, artistic muse on the American flag and our country as a whole. The one in the middle is actually our own book that focuses on the history of America and our flag, while the one on the left was a new one we hadn't read before, but I highly recommend it. It tells the story of thirteen-year-old Caroline Pickersgill, who, along with the other women in her family, made the famous flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 and inspired the writing of "The Star-Spangled Banner". It was a really interesting book, and the kids and I all enjoyed it.

We also managed to watch some patriotic cartoons this week. My favorites are the US history shorts from Schoolhouse Rock--you can find the entire collection online on Amazon--but you might be surprised to know that over the years Looney Tunes made several patriotic cartoons featuring Bugs, Daffy and the gang. A lot of them center around the war effort in WWII, but there's a really great one called "Old Glory" where Porky Pig learns the importance of the Pledge of Allegiance when Uncle Sam takes him on a short trip through US history. My kids have really liked that one and have watched it several times, and we've had a lot of good conversations from it. If you haven't seen it and would like to, there's a good version on www.dailymotion.com. 

Something else very important to me we were able to do today is make a flag cake together. This is my own personal tradition that I do every year, but this year marks the first year all three kids were able to help. Last summer I started teaching Monkey the basics of cooking, and I'm continuing those lessons this summer, so she got to help make the actual cake. She's getting really proficient at reading and following a recipe!

She read the recipe and put in everything by herself with me standing by to help with anything too difficult (like cracking eggs) and to remind her of the correct way to measure each ingredient.

 

I thought she did pretty well!

Once the cake cooled, Tater and Curly got to help spread the whipped cream and lay the strawberries and blueberries in the flag pattern.

And there you have it--our flag cake! A little messy maybe, but most definitely, delicious! 😋

If you want to try this yourself, all you need is a chocolate cake mix or recipe (you can use mine right here), a tub of whipped cream, a pint of strawberries, washed and halved, and a half pint of blueberries, washed.

And now, all that's left to do is play with sparklers and watch fireworks! Happy 4th of July, everyone!