4th of July a few days early

 Since the 4th is during the middle of the week this year, we decided to celebrate early and had a cookout with friends this weekend. To get in the spirit, the kiddos and I actually did some crafts and made 2 different wreathes.  I helped the kids with this foam star wreath:

And I asked them not to help me with this wrapped yarn wreath:

I found both crafts on Pinterest, you can find the foam star one here and the wrapped yarn wreath here.

I'm pretty pleased with myself that a) I actually did a craft and b) it came out pretty decent looking!

Saturday we had a cookout and Scott broke out the smoker. Seriously, this has been the best gift I've ever given him. It's like the gift that keeps on giving. He decided to smoke some pork butts and injected them with Cherry Dr. Pepper. The meat was a little tougher to pull, but was super tender and really juicy. 

I also tried out a new dip recipe that I found on, you guessed it, Pinterest. It's a loaded baked potato dip and is seriously out of this world. The group of us ate all of it, I'm surprised we didn't like the bowl.

You can find the recipe for this dip here. I'm warning you though, it's super delicious and highly addictive. 

The cookout itself was great. All of the kids played and seemed to have a great time. Aaron actually slept until 9:30 Sunday morning. Clearly, he had a good time. 

Hope you had an equally awesome weekend!

Our weekend

Yesterday we went by Mimi and Paw Paw's for a cookout. The kids love playing on their patio and sitting on the glider. Plus, since it's screened in, it has more shade than our backyard and we can stay outside longer, which is a bonus all around.

It had been raining on and off all afternoon (welcome to summer in Florida) so we didn't get to go swimming, but when we got home we took the kids outside to burn off some energy. It was sprinkling but nothing that made us need to go inside. I also gave the kids some homemade creamsicles as dessert which they loved! They were covered in them by the time we went inside, but that's ok. That's what washing machines are for, right? At one point though it really started to rain, but we just stayed outside. I cannot tell you how much fun it is to play with your kids in the rain. Aaron hid underneath the clubhouse of the swingset and Jill was finding every forming mud puddle that she could.

Our garden is doing really well, most of it anyway. The zucchini plants are much larger than we anticipated and are growing over our strawberry plants, so we are going to have to get another planter and transplant either the strawberry or zucchini plants. We have our first red tomato, first zucchini and first green pepper.

Does the tomato look ripe enough to pick? Scott and I can't figure that out.

Be sure to stop by my review blog (it's hoping this week!) to read about I love you-now hush and to get your coupon for Neutrogena's UltraSheer Liquid Sunblock!