Memorial Day

First of all, I wanted to send out a truly grateful THANK YOU to all the men and women who have served, or are still serving, to keep our country safe and free.

The temperature was a bit warm yesterday (85*) with humidity of around 75% so that it was a stiffling, sticky, hot day, but we still had a lot of fun.

Since we have a visitor on our back porch, we decided that we would moved the table down into the driveway so that we didnt keep scaring her away.

Then, since it was supposed to be SO hot, we borrowed my moms EZ UP canopy to cover the table and keep us from getting burned to a crisp. It's still very new, so although it wasnt very EZ to put up, it WAS very EZ to decorate :)

I purchased these lanterns in red and blue at our local Michael's for just $1.00 each. Then my son and I decorated them with silver stars for added fun. It was really easy, but I have pictures of our project to share as a walk through DIY tutorial later in the week.

I also purchased these really fun pom-poms at the same time, also for just $1.00 each. They were really easy to just stick up underneath the canopy and let the pressure of the canopy hold them in place. They added a lot of fun sparkle, and were easy enough to just pull out for the kiddos when it was time to go to the parade.

(I also got the tablecloth on sale, 50% off!)

I also made this wreath for our door using fabric scraps. It's not perfect...I actually ran out of the blue when I was doing the final row in the back, so you'll notice that some spots have more red and white (for example, the right hand side looks really un-evenly red in this picture because of the angle I took it at.) It still looks cute and was really simple to make.

So, my family came over around noon and we sat around for a bit chatting and munching on some festive snacks I made:

Chocolate Covered Oreos

Chocolate Dipped Pretzel Rods

Little B really liked the chocolate and sprinkles on the pretzels, but not the pretzels themselves so much...

Photo Courtesy of: Donna Riley Photography

We are near the end of the parade route, so although the parade started at 1:30 (and we got to where we were going to sit around 1:30) they didnt actually get TO us until around 1:50-1:55 or so. It was a long wait for the kids; some of them were cranky, some of them were sleepy, but they held out and enjoyed it once it actually got to us...

I loved this car:

And I thought that this was a particularly fun demonstration by the local Tai-Kwon Do group:

There were also lots and lots and lots...and lots...of firetrucks. Which the boys loved, especially this one which had a fun spinning thing-a-ma-jig on the front. It made a cool spiral-type of pattern as it spun.

And of course, a visit from Uncle Sam himself!

By the end of the parade we were all hot, hungry and on the edge of getting sunburn, but all still in good spirits. We headed back for some barbeque, splashing in the kids whale pool, and a yummy yummy cake I made in red, white, and blue for dessert:

We were stuffed, and everyone was ready for a nap after, but it was a good time :)

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You probably (or maybe not?) noticed some of the pictures were marked courtesy of Donna Riley Photography.

No, I didn't have a professional photographer "come in" to do pictures of our barbeque.

Although she IS a professional photgrapher, she's also my sister :)

And she does awesome work.

She has an Etsy shop too: Photography By Donna

Thanks for some great pictures Donna!