Happy Fourth of July

Today was a fun-filled Fourth of July for us. It didn't start out that way though. This picture pretty much says it all. A few weeks ago I made G a great fourth of July skirt doesn't do it --it's pretty loud but fun. I had the grand idea of making J a pair of shorts to go with it. I knew H would never wear any of it in a million years so I didn't bother, just bought her a t-shirt from Target. Soooo....I sewed together a bunch of patches to make about a yard of fabric and a friend made J some wonderful shorts. At least she and I thought they were wonderful. H thought they were hideous, Dad thought they were hideous and more importantly J thought they were hideous. I was still not discouraged though. I was going to "make a deal" to get J to wear them just to the parade. I offered him a pack of gum to wear the shorts to the parade. Poor guy, he wanted the gum so bad but just couldn't handle the thought of wearing them to the parade. He said he was worried that people would stare at him and say something to him and on top of it all he doesn't wear "sabric" clothes (he can't say his f's). I realized that even if I could get him to wear the shorts he would be completely miserable and self-conscious and would have no fun at all. I couldn't just give him a pack of gum for no reason though (could I?) so I decided he could get the pack of gum if he just posed for a picture. Well, even that turned out to be an ordeal. He was so embarrassed (his words) that he couldn't even look at the camera much less smile. Finally we got the picture at the beginning of this blog. When will I learn to live with understanding with my son? If I had taken a few minutes to think about it I could've guessed he would feel the way he felt. He is very introverted and absolutely wants nothing to do with people seeing him. He'd prefer to be invisible. Sorry J! I took the shorts to our church function and hopefully one of his little friends got a chance to wear them and I'm sure she looked great. She loves being looked at!
We went on to enjoy our day. We walked downtown for the annual parade. We made it through the whole parade with no rain! We've been here for 11 years now (as of today) and seen probably 11 Fourth of July parades and never has it been rained out. That's amazing for summer in Florida. After that we walked to the park for the festivities. That was a lot of fun, a little muggy but overcast so not so hot. We walked home and the kids spent all afternoon watching "Liberty's Kids" shows. Later we watched the fireworks and everybody came home and crashed. It was a great day!