4th of July - Good times

M to the Izz-A had last Thursday and Friday off, so we started our holiday weekend early and spent both days at the beach.

The first two pics for this post are probably my favorite.

I remember going fishing with my dad as a little girl and eating the mess out of some Vienna sausages. They make me gag just thinking about them now, but back then, I thought they were the best part of the fishing trip.

Whose mama is obsessed with SPF???

On Friday, we were happy to have Kasey, Brandon, Hayley and Leighton join us. The girls played so hard and had a great time watching Matt and Brandon try their hardest to make sandcastles. Sorry to report that they never quite succeeded.

The rest of the weekend is a fun-filled blur of sweat, diet coke, ribs, desserts, citronella candles, fireworks, and more sweat. I am so exhausted today from all of the festivities that I actually prayed that it would rain this afternoon so that I could stay inside in my pj's all day long without feeling guilty!

The best weekends always leave you the most tired. And I love it.

Of course I took plenty of pics of Saturday and Sunday,too. Seriously ya'll, did you expect anything different?

The 4th of July has always been a big deal with my family. My grandfather was the mayor of our town for many years, so he was the one who put the town's July 4th celebrations together. And now my uncle, Ben's dad, is the mayor. So it's like a no-brainer that we'll all be celebrating and watching fireworks together in our small town, instead of heading into nearby cities to watch theirs. There's just something about being from a small town...it makes me smile.

If I could add a song to this post it'd be John Mellencamp's 'Small Town'. I absolutely adore that song.

My cousin Ben's birthday is on July 4th, so we always celebrate our country's independence - and his weirdness.

I baked the cake with a little help from my friend Duncan Hines, and since we didn't have any birthday candles, we just plopped a tea light on top.

If you don't have time to make your cake homemade, or if you have all the time in the world and just don't feel like it, I've found that if you add a little more vegetable oil than the box directions say, along with a drop or two of vanilla extract, it makes it tastes very close to homemade. It's a trick I learned simply by hanging out with people smarter than myself. Go ahead, add it into your mix of tricks.

Thanks to Kristin for emailing me this pic. At this point the fireworks were in full swing, I was over the whole taking pictures thing and super sweaty. But Kate managed to put a smile on my face by singing Barney's "I love you" song and giving us a 'great big hug'. I'm not a big fan of Barney or that song, but when I hear it sung in her sweet little voice, it becomes an automatic fave. She sang it throughout most of the fireworks show.

The only thing that made me smile bigger than that was when the Elvis impersonator finally got off stage and stopped his gyrating.

And what's a Fourth of July without some sparklers?