Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July from the Potter House.

We live in a great neighborhood with an awesome HOA.  This year on the 4th of July they had a chalk drawing contest for kids/adults to draw a 4th of July related picture.  All 3 girls entered the contest & did a fantastic job.  They all spent a good hour drawing fantastic pictures.

Cadence's finished picture.
She drew a beautiful flag with fireworks.  She has gorgeous
handwriting doesn't she?

Taya's finished picture.
(It's a unicorn, flag, & flower in case you couldn't tell)

Lorien spent an hour & a half on her picture.  She even drew
a rough draft on a piece of paper before she started so it
would look "just right."  I was proud of her for taking
the time to think about what she wanted to do before she
even started.

Lorien's finished picture.  A parade led by her Daddy holding
the flag in his USAF uniform, followed by two members of
the army.  I also loved the fireworks.

Lorien won 3rd place in the contest.  Not bad for an 8 year old going up against teenagers & adults (who won 1st & 2nd place).  So technically she won 1st place out of the kids.  We were proud of her.  She won a large package of glitter & rainbow sidewalk chalk.  She was pretty excited. 

After the chalk drawing contest we hung around the pool until it was time for the big BBQ potluck.  The HOA provides the main dish & drinks & everyone else brings side dishes.  It's great.  While we were waiting for our turn to get lunch, we happened upon a little tree frog.

Of course Lorien wanted to hold it & set it free in it's natural habitat.

 

After spending the entire afternoon in the sun having BBQ & playing at the lake, we came home & got everything together for the big BBQ at our house for the 4th of July.  I like to have a lot of people over for the 4th because it makes me less homesick for my family.  We had 65 people from the neighborhood/church show up for our BBQ & we had a BLAST. 

After eating, we had all the kids line up for a water balloon toss.  They loved that.

So cute!  Even the little ones were playing.

After they got bored of tossing balloons with their hands, we gave them all towels for some water balloon volleyball.  They REALLY enjoyed that.

And finally, for the grand finale, we just gave them 100 water balloons to throw at each other.  Poor Craiger got trampled in the process, but he was alright.  I think this was the kid's & the teenager's favorite part of the whole night.  We had SO MUCH FUN.

We had a great day.  I hope all of you had a wonderful 4th of July as well.