Wednesday, July 4, 2012

God Bless The USA

I appreciate what the men and women in the armed services have and are still doing to fight to keep the freedom in the United States of America. I am a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) which is an elite organization comprised of women (18 and older) who can trace their lineage back to a Revolutionary War soldier. I also appreciate that it is a time that I can spend with my family and just enjoy each other's company! Today was a good day. God bless the USA!!! I don't say that mockingly. I really do mean it! It was a full day nonetheless. I am very sleepy as I write this.

We started the day out like any other day. We had breakfast and Emmitt had a short nap. Then the kids and I hopped on over to Babies R Us to find a few things (one of which I never found). After that, we picked Daddy up for a lunch at McDonald's. Then it was home for a nap for the kiddos. Followed by a trip to my mom's house for some time with family and friends. Then it was home to put Emmitt to bed, shoot fireworks off with Jesstine and then put her to bed. So here is our day in pictures (and video).

We all dressed in the good old red, white and blue!

 I was asked to bring some brownies to my mom's shindig. I decided to do my classic "Princess Brownies" (cream cheese brownies)....with a twist! I seprated out the cream cheese mixture into three equal parts. I added blue food coloring to one and red to another and left one alone. Then I drizzled it and did my swirly thing with a knife after adding some reserved batter to the top.

Tasted pretty good and didn't look half bad!

(In case you can't hear it, she puts one on the ground and it doesn't make a pop when she steps on it. She says, "That's a DEAD!!" When they didn't pop, we kept saying, "That's a dud!" She thought we were saying, "Dead!")

This was the first year we allowed Jesstine to do fireworks. I was a bit worried about how she would react because she is NOT fond of loud noises. She did GREAT! Oh, and at the end of this video, we are dumbfounded at what my brother is doing in the background! He paid $65 for a roll of Black Cats that would have stretched half of the block. It said it was supposed to take 30 minutes to go off. Because of how they set it up, it took MAYBE half that! It was quite comical. Stephen gave my brother $5 because he felt bad that he got to see Greg's money go up in smoke!


We didn't spend much on fireworks. It was still more than we had in the past few years (with a small child, it didn't seem important). So here was our meager supply which consisted of a few snap pops for Jesstine, some Reflection fountains, some ground blooms (my favorite), a tank (for Jesstine) and a few princess sparklers (which Jesstine was afraid to hold!).


 Ground bloom.




 Then we pretty much watched the neighbors shoot off a bunch of illegal fireworks.








Oh, and I also found these today! Each vacation we go on, we buy either a cheap magnet or a pressed penny....sometimes both. So here is what we came home with:
The flip flop on the far right is one that I painted at the Great Wolf Lodge. I wrote "Great Wolf Lodge, KC July 2012" along the side. Jesstine liked it so much, she had to do one too (which I of course helped her with) and the one in the middle is from the aquarium. We also got a pressed penny with a seahorse on it.

Happy 4th of July!

In Him,
The Hutchins Family

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