4th of July Celebration

When you are fortunate enough to live in the best country on Earth, you have to celebrate big time!! We had a fun 4th of July, I loved seeing everyone's patriotic pictures of food, decor, flags and fireworks. Living in America is a true blessing, here are some pictures of how we celebrated!

I used the dresses I got the girls on Memorial Day from Walmart again, they are so cute!! Say USA!!!

A yummy lunch before we headed to the pool. My husband picked up some Publix friend chicken, pasta salad and a juicy watermelon! Complete with an ice cold peach tea!

It was a hot one for sure so we headed to the pool to stay cool!

Nicole didn't want to have anything to do with her float so goes who got to hold her the entire time?!

After the pool and some naps, Daddy grilled out a huge steak and made me some fish. Taylor had a yummy hot dog. We are loving our patio cover and had some big fans going to help keep it cool.

I got this dress for Taylor last year from Etsy and it is one of my favorite's. I love the stars and stripes skirt! She wanted to push her Elsa doll in the swing XOXO

Bless his heart, Hubby spent over an hour filling up these tiny water balloons, Taylor and the neighbor's loved them!

Along with some water balloons, Daddy picked up some silly string, Taylor was getting him in this pic! Hands up!

Then she came after me! Watch the phone I said!

Here are our neighbor's Emily and Cameron coming over to have some fun too!

Daddy showing Taylor the sparklers!

The girls are too young for fireworks right now, in fact they scare Taylor, but maybe in a couple of years we will start going to a fireworks show. But having a day at home playing and eating yummy food was just what I wanted after all the busy things we have been involved in.

We picked up this yummy Publix mint chocolate chip ice cream cake and we are STILL enjoying it today. It is SO good, if you go to Publix stop by the bakery and pick one up!! I am grateful for all I enjoy as an American!!

World of Coke

If you live in Atlanta and love Coke, then you must visit The Word of Coke Museum, it is a blast! Maybe not on a Saturday, especially on a long weekend, but some day! We went and it was really crowded, but still enjoyed ourselves. I took the girls for the first time back in December and loved all the Christmas decorations, I really wanted my husband to see it. I think he had a blast to!

The line to get in was really long, and it was hot. But it moved along pretty good and they had some great big fans to keep you as cool as possible.

Daddy and Taylor waiting to get in, I had Nicole in the stroller with me. Both girls did great!

As soon as we walked in we were greeted with an ice cold Coke, it was perfect and refreshing!

The wall behind the front desk was full of TV screens with the Coke logo

Give me that Coke Mommy!! Who can say no to this face?!

See Coco in the middle? She is looking for her cola!

Taylor is not a soda drinker yet so she let us have hers :-)

The first stop is into a big room full of Coke history. They have old coke machines, signs, and clothing. Its really neat! We were some of the few that were actually from Atlanta, the rest were from all over the world!

After a little history lesson on Coke you watch a cute, fuzzy feeling 6 minute movie, I did get a little misty eyed! After that you are free to tour the museum. There is so much there like the secret formula vault to how Coke is bottled.

This was taken in the pop culture part of the museum, perfect for The 4th of July!

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is seeing the Coke Santa on the bottles, a signal the holiday season in here!

At the end of the tour you get to try all different flavored Coke's from around the world!

Hubby fixed me up a peach flavored Sprite, it was delish!

I always love a good picture of what real life is like!

Leaving the museum everyone gets another Coke!! I just love the bottles!

After our trip we hit another Atlanta must, The Varsity!! This is the original off North Ave, boy is it good! I got some cheese dogs, Taylor got a naked dog, and Hubby got chili dog and hamburger, it was fantastic and fun as always!!

We really enjoyed our downtown trip, Atlanta is so much fun and there are tons of great things to enjoy with the family! We love the Peach State!

 

Omma's dress, a bubble blower and yummy pulled pork

I've been fortunate to have women on both sides of my family who know how to sew. And not just a pocket, I am talking about beautiful curtains and dresses. I wish this was something I can do, hopefully one day I will learn! I would love a monogramming machine, I would go nuts making cute dresses for the girls. But until then I want to show you the beautiful dress Omma made for the 4th of July 3 years ago!

Look at that pretty face!! She is such a cutie! What is even better is Omma originally made the dress for Taylor, here is a side by side!

Our All American Girls XOXO

Thank you Omma for the beautiful outfit!

I found this awesome bubble blower on Walmart.com and Taylor has loved it! So much that she used the entire solution of bubbles in one day! Its light weight and makes tons of bubbles, it just needs 3 AA batteries and then fun begins!

A bubble blower, YEAH!!

Look at that face, she is loving this thing!

 I'm not the world's best cook, a lot of nights during the week its all I can do to put a microwave meal on the table. But since we had some extra time this weekend I wanted to try a pulled pork recipe from one of my favorite blogs Dixie Delight! It's called a BBQ Sundae and it was so good! Here is what you will need to enjoy:

 

-2 cans of bakes beans

-Cole slaw

-Hands down never had better crock pot BBQ (recipe below)

-Jar of bread and butter pickles

 

I picked up all the ingredients at Walmart. This is a 4 LB piece of pork, we pot in in the crock-pot with some water and salt and pepper for 6 hours on low.

The last hour we prepared the sauce which was:

-1 can tomato sauce

-12 oz bottle of chili sauce

-sweet onion

-1/2 cup of vinegar

-1/4 cup of brown sugar

-1/4 butter

-1/4 cup lemon juice

-2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

-1/2 tsp dry mustard

-1/2 tsp chili powder

-1/2 tsp paprika

This is what the pork looked like after it had been in the crock pot for several hours, then we added the sauce and let it simmer for an hour

Once it was ready I pulled out my Mason Jars and started layering up!

I put the baked beans on the bottom, then a layer of coleslaw, then the pulled pork. Don't forget to top with pickles if you like them!!

I paired it with some yummy corn on the cob and an ice cold bottle of Coke, perfect meal!

For a little extra flavor we added some delicious Johnny Harris BBQ Sauce direct from Savannah, GA!

At this point I was defiantly thinking I needed to put my maternity pants on. I picked up this ready made Mrs. Smith's Apple Pie for dessert. What is the 4th of July without apple pie?!

Yup, its for sure, I need those stretchy pants!! I love making new meals when they come out good!

 

 

 

 

First Dentist Appointment & Movie Night

I hope everyone had a happy & safe 4th of July weekend. It was so wonderful having an extra day at home, it was much needed for me! We did a lot of fun things this weekend I look forward to sharing all week. So lets start with a visit to the dentist...fun, right?! Daddy to Taylor to her first dentist visit and boy she excited! She has been talking about it and watched the Peppa Pig episode where Peppa visit's the dentist. I could see she had a cavity so I was holding my breath it wouldn't be too bad. The perks of being married to a teacher is hubby gets to take the kids to their appointments during the summer months!

Check out that happy smile during the X-rays! Hubby said the office was great for kids, they had a fish tank and a jungle theme with big trees.

Look at our big girls up in the dentist chair, she is so brave!

Still hanging on before the tears during her check up! Then she did a cleaning and Taylor DID NOT like it at all. Hubby said she was crying and screaming :-( She said it tasted disgusting!

So that was not as much fun as the Peppa Pig episode said it would be! But lets be real, who ever likes going to the dentist?! Every time I go it hurts my mouth and wallet! Since Taylor does have a cavity she has to go to a special dentist to get it filled while they knock her out, poor baby!

To try to make her bad dentist experience better we had movie night!

We loved Despicable Me! It was really funny and had a sweet message! I picked up some decorations and Minion glasses at Walmart, super easy and cheap!

I picked up some chips and salsa for El Macho's Salsa, simple and good!

A box of Twinkie's made some edible Minion's!

These Minion glasses were my favorite, I love these 2 faces!! I tried putting some on Nicole but that didn't go over too well!

A cute little Minion ribbon was just what my super star daughter deserved after her first dentist appointment!!