more than 9 to 5...my life as "Mom": Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day from the Seeley family!!

Yep, that was one of the big ones Josh set off for us last night! :) The threat of rain kept us away from the local fireworks display at the lake, but Josh had purchased some fireworks of his own to set off, so we celebrated here at the house! At first I was bummed we wouldn't be going to see the show, but it ended up being even more fun having them right here, up close and personal! :) Ethan LOVED them this year and kept saying, "More! More!" for Daddy to set off more! haha! Here he is watching the sky light up. I love the look of pure joy and excitement on his face! :)

He was skeptical at first about playing with the sparklers, but once he saw Mommy and Daddy both with one, he decided he wanted to hold one too. :)

Those were actually leftover sparklers from our wedding almost 6 years ago!! Good to know they still work fine. :)

Time to rewind. We started the day on a patriotic note by making star-shaped pancakes. My original plan was to color them naturally with fruit purees (blueberry and raspberry), but my raspberries had gone bad too quickly, so I scrapped that plan and decided to make a blueberry syrup with the fresh blueberries, some sugar and a little water. I heated it all up on the stovetop, then pureed it in the food processor to get a nice consistency. Topped with a little whipped cream too and they were delicious! :)

I also wanted to make a flag cake for dessert that evening because I make one every year. I kept it to a small round cake this year since it was just the three of us who would be eating it. To make my flag cake, I bake a boxed white cake mix (Betty Crocker Super Moist) according to the package directions, then let it cool. I turn it into a Jell-O cake by poking holes in the cake and pouring the Jell-O mixture (heat 1 cup of water to boiling, add a red or blue 4 oz Jell-O packet and mix until it is dissolved, then add 1/2 cup cold water) over the cake. Then you just refrigerate it for at least four hours to set-up and "frost" it with Cool Whip and garnish with fresh fruit! :) Yum yum!

I found another patriotic treat on a blog that I wanted to test out too for dinner. The recipe was for a patriotic mocktail, suitable for both Ethan and I this year! ;) The recipe called for 3 oz each of fruit punch, blue gatorade and diet Sprite or 7-Up. Going by their guidelines that sugar content would keep the three liquids separated, I bought Hawaiian fruit punch (26 g sugar), Glacier Freeze blue gatorade (5 g sugar) and Sprite Zero (0 g sugar)...

Unfortunately, I was not impressed with the results. :( The gatorade was not showing up at all like the picture posted on the blog! Major disappointment. Oh well, it was a novel idea and worth a shot!