July 4th Weekend

Well, I know it has been a very long time since I have posted and I still have 1st birthday to post, but I was feeling especially motivated this evening and figured I would end the weekend with some cute pictures of our weekend escapades.

On Thursday, our cousins from Austin came to visit.  Taylor was very excited to see them as they are near her age and play together wonderfully.  With the weather being rainy and not much to do outside, we opted for an afternoon at Kid's Station.  My sister came and brought baby R with her since they had not seen him yet.  Everyone had a great time and baby K was thrilled to be able to climb without restriction.

Everyone posed for a picture.  Boy, is it hard to get 4 kiddos and 2 babies to all sit still and smile for 1 picture.  I think this is the best one of the lot.

We were sorry to see them leave on Saturday, but look forward to seeing them for holidays later this year.  God has truly blessed us with wonderful family.  Saturday evening, we packed up the car with a light picnic dinner and headed downtown for the Longview fireworks display.  Thankfully, the rain was not bad and we had the back of the Explorer as an escape, just in case.  It was hot and muggy and I did something I never thought I would do: let my baby be in public with only a diaper on!  The show was shorter than we thought, but she still fell asleep in the middle.  We all enjoyed it and are reminded of our wonderful freedom in America.

Sunday morning we attended church and dressed in patriotic colors.  Of course, cousin R was appropriately dressed also and who are we to let a photo op pass by.

Aren't they too cute?  Don't really know what baby K is doing, but we found it very funny when we saw the picture and just had to share that one.

Finally, Taylor wanted to make a holiday treat for us and decided on Firework Cupcakes.  So, off to the store we go for necessary ingredients.  She made them start to finish by herself and they tasted awesome.  I was impressed that the stars on the top were so well done.  I can't free hand a star on paper, much less with icing on a cupcake!

So, if you are interested in making your own:

Ingredients:
   24 cupcakes
   white icing
   coconut, dyed red
   pull & peel licorice
   blue decorating gel
   red decorator sugar
   toothpicks
Directions:
Bake the cupcakes according to directions and let them cool.  Attach 2 cupcakes, bottoms together, with icing and secure with toothpicks.  Coat entire tower with white icing.  Roll sides in red coconut.  Use gel to draw star on top and sprinkle with sugar.  Insert 1 string of licorice for the fuse.

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July.