Happy Birthday to Ann, Brett, and the USA

Happy Fourth of July!  Today we had a cook out with good friends to celebrate the birth of Ann, Brett, and the USA! Ann and the USA's real birthday is today but we thought we'd do Brett's too since his is next week.  For us, the 4th always conjures up memories of childhood family cook outs with country music, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, fruit and desserts...so that's just what we did!  We love a low key celebration around here.  What more do you need besides good food, good friends and three wonderful reasons to get together?!?!?!  Cute little baby boys always help I guess.

Max showed up like this.  LOVE IT.

It has been a hot hot hot last few days here in Nor Cal.  So hot in fact our little house has been getting pretty toasty and even toastier today with so many people crammd in it.  Max had to shed a layer of clothes and Hank's hair started curling up they were both so hot.  Once everyone had their fill of good food we all opted to take a cruise around the neighborhood so we could:
1.  Cool off.
2.  Get the boys into the wagon.
3.  Cause some trouble with our little sidewalk snappers and confetti fireworks.  You gotta love a parade of adults walking down the sidewalks with roadies and popping each other with snappers.
4.  Check out the neighborhood block party (which we abandoned for the park so everyone - kids and adults alike - could get their ya-yas out for a few minutes.)

We were cruising too slow for Max as we strolled through the neighborhood block party so he abandoned ship for a little while.  This allowed Hank to have the wagon to himself so he decided to lay out and soak in the scenery. 

At the park, Max was nuts for the slide.

We have been letting Hank go down the big spiral slide by himself...and he loves it!

Time to head home.

Best attempt at a another group shot.  Hank wasn't feeling it.  Or Brett.

I had so much fun pulling together a little bit of patriotic flair for the party.  My favorites were the three buntings I made from fabric.  I love that I can reuse them (so everyone be forewarned that if a future party of ours has a hint of any kind of red white and blue theme these will make an appearance.)  I also LOVE LOVE the "Happy 4th of July" banner (hard to see in this pic) that I printed from Cake Likes a Party (the blog of my friend Annika - the most amazingly creative person I know)!

But I have to say my most favorite were the tres leches cupcakes I made for myself Brett's birthday.  (Ann's birthday "cake" was fudgecicles...because they are her favorite and she's not a big fan of sweets.)  It was my first time to make tres leches cake and I am so happy they actually turned out!

We hope you were able to celebrate this wonderful holiday with friends and family as well!  We have so much to be thankful for just by being born here in the USA!

-a