Independence Day

We love holidays around here.  And traditions as well.  One of our favorites is making our annual 4th of July shirts.  This year's might just be my favorite ones ever.  I got 20 of the baseball shirts at a garage sale for $5 (weirdly enough, they "fit" everyone from a 10 year old, down to 4 year old Sam... Brooke was a lot too tall though...)  and we cut the sleeves and tie-dyed the bottom half, then the girls got to paint the top.  

 One of my favorite pictures ever.  We call these girls the triplets...

 Bike/roller blade parade

 We had our annual 4th of July party at our house.  10 families (with an average of 4 kids each...) came over and played.  We set up the street with a bunch of rubbermaid totes and fill them with water for the water fight.  Alix turned one of them into her personal hot tub while waiting for people to come.

 Start of the water fight....  Easing the littles in...  

 Erin loading up

 No mercy for the pregnant lady...

 I LOVE this picture of Brooke and Tom.  Refilling the water cannons

 Start of the silly string fight...

 After dinner we always play bump/lightening/speed (whatever you grew up calling it...)  This year it was fun because a lot of the girls (we have mostly girls in our group...) played basketball this year and were good enough to have a chance at getting their dads out.  And a few did.  Highlight of their day, I tell you!  And I won one of the rounds.  Kind of amazing.  And fun...

 Some of the kids set up a firework viewing station in the neighbor's driveway.  We'll assume they didn't mind, since they didn't come out and yell at us...

 The annual Hobo Fire.  Another fun, weird tradition.  The kids collect all the cardboard fireworks garbage and then light it on fire in the middle of the street and then sit around it.  Like hobos apparently...

 I told the girls to take in all the blankets from the driveway at the end of the night and this is how we found Alix a few minutes later... It's a good day when you fall asleep the second you sit down...

Garden 2013

For once, we got our garden in early.  We had some really hot, sunny days and it got us (and by us - I absolutely mean Tom and the girls...) motivated.  So by the end of April, our entire garden was planted.    Tom built a raised bed on the grass level and then we continued our Aztec tradition of planting our hill...

I do love a good family project that gets everyone working together.  So far it's been really fun exposing the neighborhood kids to garden fare.  A surprising number of kids have never heard of radishes.  It's fun to watch their faces when they realize radishes are spicy.... ;)  It's still early for harvesting here, but we've had lettuce, spinach, cilantro, strawberries and radishes.   I love "shopping" from my backyard!  And hopefully we got our tomatoes in early enough to get them to ripen.  Our "hot" season isn't very hot usually and isn't very long either...  And I only garden for the tomatoes.  Oh, and because our Prophet told us too...