4th of Ju-Ly

Okay so I'll start this with the story of the farm since many of you are interesado… My husband's grandparents bought the property (50 acre pecan farm) many years ago and moved their house (the house my mother-in-law grew up in) here… So yes, Jackson's room was his grandmother's room when she was a little girl, kind of sweet :) Anyway, it made its way through the family and now Thomas and his 3 sisters share ownership of it and we are living here taking care of it for now. It is a pecan farm but there are animals (cows and horses) on the property but we don't take care of them…someone else does. We really love it here and we are having so much fun fixing it up and "playing house", but we are also looking forward to buying our own home in a nice community sometime next year! It's nice being secluded and having privacy, but I want my boy to be able to play with the neighborhood kids too. BUT, here is one big plus of the farm---parties!
We had a 4th of July party and it was so much fun! 4th of July's have always been both mine and Thomas's favorite holidays. When I was little we would always go to my grandparents house and have a big party, eat lots of good food, and then at night we would walk over to the lake and watch the fireworks and play games and then we would all lay out a million blankets on the floor and everyone slept in the living room. It is still one of my favorite memories of my grandparents and I hope that one day we can make these lasting impressions and memories for JJ. For Thomas, he always had…welll…farm parties! His dad used to do it big, as in BIG big…well, we are just getting started and trying to carry on tradition! This was our 2nd annual 4th of July party, and I would say it was a big success! Last year I was 37 weeks pregnant and although it was fun…. it was pretty stressful for me and having to clean with a giant belly is impossible enough as it is much less cleaning after a big party! So, this year I was determined! I planned everything way ahead of time, cleaned the whole house before, and on the invitation I made sure everyone knew to bring something…aka, no cooking for me wohoo!!! So, needless to say, this year was much easier! I would say we had about 30 or 40 people here between family friends and coworkers.

The meat smokin!

setting up the volleyball net

just some of the cars parked out front

pool 

flying the flag by what used to be the lake, it has since dried up…oh drought

having fun

thomas and lee

my little Jackie Bear, his shirt says, "Mommy's little firecracker" He is so precious

These are some of the decorations I made, the banner and the tablescape

I thought this was pretty cute for some paper and puffy paint and about 2 minutes! Surrounded by twizzlers and gumballs! I wanted redvines but I couldn't find them, what is that Texas!?

So, the day started…well…the night before! At midnight Thomas started the brisket and woke up every couple hours to check the temperature in the smoker. Around 11, Thomas's grandmother came over and it was great to see her, she was in great spirits and she and my mother in law and her sister all had matching shirts on--so cute! Jackson was having the time of his life pushing her wheelchair around and she even took him for a ride! He much preferred pushing the wheels himself, but he appreciated the ride! We also set up his baby pool and he had a blast getting in and out and filling the pool with grass and drinking the water (EW!) Friends started arriving and the fun began! We had a pool full of ladies, including the very pregnant Christi (cousin) who thought it would be cool to copy me and be 9 months pregnant for the 4th of July party… We had 2 washer pits set up and the guys were pretty occupied with that! Later in the afternoon we started in on volleyball! One of T's coworkers brought the net and what a great idea! SO fun! We must have played 10 games…and let me just tell you, a certain little lady happened to serve 10 consecutive points during one game…ahem, thank you verrrry much..haha.  I really only played a couple games because I hate that nasty rash you get from the ball. Yuck.. So when it got dark the party moved back into the pool for some pool basketball and then after being attacked by killer mosquitoes for an hour, it moved inside and the games of pool began.. Side note, mama was not happy about this! Hello, my baby is sleeping 15 feet away can we NOT hit balls with sticks right now?! Okay thaaaanks. We couldn't have fireworks because of the drought, there was a ban, so that was sad. But, there is always new years! Mark your calendars for fireworks people!! Everyone left and someone broke the gate on the way out and that was about the only bad thing that happened the whole time! No other damage and no huge mess! Success!!! There wasn't too much to clean up, I kept on top of everything all day and we just vacuumed and swept and mopped after everyone left and we were good! It was so much fun and I had such a great time planning it and spending time with friends and family and playing outside! Can't wait for next year!