Fourth of July 2018

*This post may contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through or make a purchase.

Happy Monday, y’all!  We reeeeally packed it in this past week!  I had every intention of recapping our entire week in today’s post, but I ended up recapping just our 4th of July.  I did this for two reasons – a) the post would have been crazy long so I decided it might be better to split it up, and b) honestly?  Because we were enjoying our Sunday too much and I just didn’t feel like sitting at the computer for hours trying to get the whole thing done.  So, that means today you’ll get a little peek at our Fourth of July and then tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll recap the rest of last week.  Sound good?  Okay!

Our Fourth started out with homemade red, white, and blue confetti waffles!  The kids request homemade waffles pretty much every single morning, but I try to limit us to eating them only on weekends and special holidays.  They were soooo excited to get to have some extra festive ones that morning!  And if you would like my festive recipe, you can find it here. 

After breakfast I worked on getting the dishes done and the house tidied up because we were going to have lots of company over that evening.  Once all of the boring house chores were over, we had a quick, light lunch, and then I finally got around to planting my herbs.  Now, if you’ve hung around my blog for quite sometime then you know that I have a self-proclaimed “black thumb.”  However, since I finally learned how to keep ferns alive, and I have kept my grandmother’s 50+ year old plant alive for more than a year, I thought I might try my hand at something a little more complicated.  I decided to grow all six herbs from seeds, and I have never ever done that before, so, y’all, I will be positively shocked if something actually sprouts.  I won’t know what to do with myself.  Haha. 

I planted six herbs – mint, rosemary, and chives in pots on the back porch, and then basil, oregano, and sage inside.  I have no flipping clue what sage smells like or what you even use it for, but since my little pot says “sage” on it, I thought I might as well give it a try!  I will keep y’all posted on how these turn out!

For the rest of the afternoon I laid out in the back yard.  One of the things on my summer bucket list is to get a tan (and try to keep it all summer) and so far I’m rolling right along!  I was itching to finish my book Still Me, so it was the perfect day for it.  I did finish it, and I loved it so much!

After I finished my book it was time to head inside and get ready.  I dressed in my red, white, and blue best and then it was time to get the house staged for our guests.  The house was already decorated for The 4th so I went around turning on all of the lamps, lighting candles, turning on twinkle lights, and filling up the pool, and then I started shuffling our favorite summer party play list.  It’s mostly recent country music with a few other party songs from our favorites thrown in there – Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Ed Sheeran, Dave Matthews Band… you know, the usual crew.  :o)

Once the house was staged it was time to start cooking.  My Momma brought over her famous hamburgers and mac n cheese, and I was in charge of baked beans, watermelon, and dessert.  B and the kids had baked our favorite homemade chocolate chip cookies earlier in the day, and we had also bought some the festive red, white, and blue frosting cookies from Publix that we love so much.

Everyone started arriving around 4:30 and by the end we had a house full!  My parents, my father-in-law, my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, my grandmother, my uncle, and his girlfriend, plus the four of us were all in attendance.  Unfortunately my littlest brother had to work, so he wasn’t able to join.  :o( 

B fired up the grill and grilled my Momma’s burgers plus some hot dogs, and we mixed up Moscow Mules and Lemon Drops.  Everyone stuffed their faces and it was all so delicious.  Once dinner was over, we all headed outside to watch the kiddos play in the pool.  The evening was perfect – it was sunny, but by some miracle it wasn’t sweltering hot!!  That’s a huge deal when we’re talking about weather in the south in July!! 

The kiddos splashed around in the pool until dusk and then it was time for dessert and fireworks.  We had bought a bunch of fireworks and so did my brother and SIL, so we had quite the show in our own back yard.  The craziest part, though, was how many fireworks our neighbors did!!  Our house is smack in the middle of our neighborhood, and we were literally surrounded on all sides by my neighbors doing their fireworks.  Our neighbors in the culdesac must have spent a bajillion dollars because they put on a HUGE show for probably two whole hours.  It was crazy.  Everyone loved it… well, except for Olivia.  Bless her little heart, she is still terrified of them.  She told us she was “going to be brave of the fireworks” but as soon as they started popping, she took her little self inside.  My Daddy stayed inside with her all evening watching cartoons at an obscenely high volume to try to drown out the fireworks noise.  He’s such a great Pop.  <3

During the neighbors’ fireworks, we pulled the benches and chairs off the porch and out into the yard so we could see all of them, and my sister-in-law snapped this picture of my nephew and me.  Y’all, is it not the sweetest picture you ever did see??  Since they lived so far away for the first two years of his life, he only got to see us a couple of times, so he still hasn’t totally warmed to me yet.  So any time he is willing to sit with me, I just eat it right up!  And I love that my SIL captured this sweet moment.

The fireworks finally wound down a little after 10 and then it was time to say goodbye to everyone.  A few fireworks were still popping in the distance so Olivia was still a bit apprehensive about going to bed alone, so we let her and Jacob have another slumber party in his room together.  They finally passed out in their sleeping bags a little after 11, but it wasn’t a big deal for once, because they didn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn the next day because I DON’T WORK ANYMORE!!!! 

I will never ever stop being grateful for that!! 

Happy Monday, y’all!

Don't forget to link up with Heather, Johannah, and myself... just grab our new graphic and link up below!

*Linking up with B Loved Boston for Weekending and HoHo Runs for Weekly Wrap.

An InLinkz Link-up