4th of July July 5, 2011 – Posted in: Family, Sewing

I’ve always loved the 4th of July. Growing up an Army brat, I take great pride in celebrating all things related to the independence of our nation, and honoring those that came before us who fought so hard to allow us to be free.

We gathered and ate and enjoyed spending the day together as a family. It’s hard to celebrate yet another holiday without Grandpa, especially one that was so special to him, too.

I lacked original inspiration this holiday, and spent lots of time looking around blogs for good 4th of July ideas. A friend of mine bought the Little Lizard King Sunsuit pattern for me to make for her daughter, and I thought it would be perfect for my sweet Chloe and those chunky little legs!

 

It took me quite awhile to figure out something for Sofie. I found this adorable fabric at Hancock and had another friend show me this post for an apron top. With a little math (and her awesome idea to add the rick rack), I turned it into this dress.

                          

I’m really glad I went with the rick rack! It totally put it over the top.

                          

The girls had fun lighting sparklers. Well, everyone except Sofie. She’s nervous about things like that.

Chloe tried and tried to catch the smoke.

While we were outside lighting sparklers The Hubs recalled I recently said I’m never in pictures because I’m always behind the camera, and he managed to capture this amazingly sweet photo of me and my little Mama’s Girl.

Then we headed in for dessert, which was my contribution to the meal. I’m no baker, as I’ve recently admitted repeatedly, but I tried my hand at this AMAZING looking flag cake.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was delicious!

And I followed a brilliant suggestion someone left in the comments on that blog and made cake pops with the leftover cake!

As always, we stayed late into the evening and had 2 wiped out little girls by the time we got home. But it was a perfect day with an amazing group of people!

**Thank you for the overwhelming response to my request for pattern testers! I’m going to have to make tons of patterns to get all of you to help! Now that the holiday weekend is over, I’ll be getting the pattern together to send to a few of you, hopefully by the end of the week.