Our 10th Annual* Fourth of July Celebration was as fun as ever! Todd got the backyard all set up and ready for some partying!!
Sam and Bobbis with Baby Cayman, from our small group, watching closely behind them!
The brothers got right to the business of swimming.
Sharky Laney!
Baby Charlie came to play and he brought LynnAnn with him!!
Tessie Doodle being as cute as she can be!
With our annual* party comes the highly competitive dessert and side dish contest! Jess and her girls made these tie-dyed sugar cookies. Jessica makes the best sugar cookies EVER, so these actually tasted even better than they looked, which doesn't even seem possible!
Janelle made chocolate dipped and sprinkled strawberries!
Firecracker cookies from Rach and her boys!
Chocolate dipped and sprinkled pretzels and homemade ice cream (not pictured) from Colt and Jenn.
WINNER: BEST TASTING
A baseball field cake from G and Jack.
WINNER: BEST PRESENTATION
"Corn on the cob" cupcakes made by my mom.
WINNER: MOST CREATIVE
A second entry from the Good girls. Wait til you see the inside of this cake.
WINNER: MOST PATRIOTIC!!
Cream Cheese Balls made by Grommy.
Red Pepper Hummus from Cait and Johnny. (such foodies!)
My friend Elise came and was all decked out making me wish that we had prizes for patriotic attire!
The whole Ernette family was dressed to impress!
The Lews may not have been in red, white and blue, but they are pretty celebratory in their own right!
Laney was so so happy to get to play with Ella all night. They took a break from playing to chow down for a little.
Back to swimming and sliding!
Too bad they never have any fun together!
Sam has such a captive audience here. Isn't he a lucky boy that he has a family that loves him so much and makes him feel so special and important!
Cute Charlie being cute!
Both Miles and Johnny evidently needed to take a stand against conformity!
This is definitely not the first time Claire has pushed a brother around our yard in one of their cars. She is such a sweet friend and always puts others before herself!
Prizes!!!!!
Doug and Holly won BEST SIDE DISH for a black bean/ corn relish. I am so glad that they won since otherwise it would have been a family sweep. My family have some serious competitve streaks!!!
After all the prizes had been handed out, we moved on to the confetti poppers and sparklers portion of the evening! Uncle Colt gave Miles a hand with his popper.
Sam was throwing the little snappers down on the ground with great enthusiasm!!
Todd is crazy!
Sam got a little sparkler and loved it!
*fine print - 10th annual is not totally accurate. This is our tenth party out of the last eleven years. We skipped one year when I was in Taiwan teaching English. Full disclosure!
