Celebrating

According to Daphne, yesterday was Captain America's birthday, so of course we had to have a party to celebrate. 






















A few months ago I bought these fabulous lids to fit mason jars with straws.  Cute, right?  I need to buy a few more because our collection of 18 just isn't quite enough.

I got this brownie recipe from Pinterest.  Vegan and gluten free and you can't even tell.  Once you get into the groove of cooking without wheat flour, eggs and dairy it's really not so bad! 

We had these chicken strips minus the Parmesan, baked beans from the Fairview Favorites cookbook (church cookbooks have some of the best recipes) and fruit kabobs of banana and watermelon.  Red and white stripes!  So clever.

Wouldn't you know it, you can have a limited diet and still eat well enough that when you serve it to people who eat regular food they won't even complain.  At least not to your face.

Last year Daphne was a little afraid of the fireworks, but this year...

...not so much fear as pure happiness.  She kept telling the big girls (who would scream at each loud noise) "it's not scary, just watch!" and then she would try to run into the street to help the men with the lighting.  Christian missed the fireworks, but I do not believe he would have enjoyed them nearly as much as his sister did.

It would have been fun to drive around to watch some big fireworks.  Fortunately (I guess) our neighborhood is full of people who like to do the big illegal ones and we ended up with a pretty good show from our front yard.  And it's possible some bottle rockets were sent up from our very own driveway, although I can't say for sure. 

David built Brynner a very sturdy 'Brynner Box' in the garage where he was locked into for the night.  He's been locked into it every evening for the past several weeks.  For once we haven't been chasing him around the neighborhood or having him trying to claw his way onto our heads. 

It's been a good time celebrating Captain America's birthday.