Happy 4th!

We had a simple, but happy Independence Day this year.

We started out the morning with a red, white and blue breakfast: blueberry pancakes with raspberry syrup (yum!).

After breakfast and washing sticky hands and faces, we decked ourselves out in red, white and blue to show our USA pride.

We read aloud A is for America (a Patriotic ABC) to help the boys understand a little more about this wonderful country we live in.

We went to the movies at the Tempe Pollack theater with the Carpenters. Mike and my parents saw State of Play, the young adults saw 17 Again, and I took the little boys to Earth. Andrew seemed to really enjoy it, but Ben was pretty much done after an hour, which is about when the snacks ran out and he decided to poop. (So sorry to the maintenance people at the theater for the stinky garbage.) Our movie ended early, so we wandered around the theater. Luckily this particular one has a mini museum inside, full of vintage lunch pails, movie posters and life-sized figures from movies. We saw Darth Vadar, some creepy wax figures of past presidents, a Power Ranger, Disney princesses and more. They had a little arcade, so the boys sat and "raced" cars for most of the time. I love the fact that they are little and don't care that they are not actually playing, just watching replays of an old game. It's a lot cheaper, too!

After the movie, we had a BBQ at my parents' house. We had steak, BLT pasta salad, and rosemary bread. Mike took the boys outside for a squirt gun fight. Then, we watched the fireworks on TV and made homemade ice cream (we live in Arizona, it's too hot to drag little kids outside to see the real thing).

Lastly, we decided to watch a movie. Mike says we should have watched something more patriotic, like Independence Day, but we watched Emma instead. I know, I know, it sounds a little wrong to watch a British movie on the 4th of July, but I figure, Gwyneth Paltrow is an American, so we're OK... We ate our ice cream and enjoyed the simplicity of a quiet evening together with family. What do you do for the 4th?