fourth of july ... new zealand style

happy fourth of july :)  i used the hot milk cake recipe from here :)

it's the winter school holidays here at the moment and the days have been stunning.  bright blue skies, warm(ish) sun, and lots of happy peeps wondering around the place ... almost like summer, almost ;)  the peeps and i have been studying countries in preparation for the olympics, which being a sports mad family, we LOVE.  as a small country, we send a good number of athletes and a few even have the prospect of winning a medal.   however, we have nowhere near as many as other countries and not in the diversity of sports as in other countries.  


to make up for our lack of numbers for all major sporting occasions i give everyone in the family a 'second' country to support. everyone gets a goodies bag with their country's map, team info, flag to colour, other printables relevant to the country, foods from the country, and some recipes they have to cook during the event for the family.  it's a great way for the peeps to learn about a different culture and all that a country has to offer!  as with all hands on learning, it seems to stick more ... during the last summer olympics polly was three years old and had jamaica as her second team.  she doesn't remember the names of the athletes but she does remember they had really fast runners and what their flag looks like! 


anyway to cut a really long story, slightly shorter, ben's 'second' team for the olympics is USA!  he is delighted and i decided the best time for him to cook his american meal was not during the olympics but on the 4th of July.  because i like to make things more work than they need to be i also decided we would have a fourth of july crafting day, have hotdogs for lunch, and then finish off the day with an all american burgers feast and fireworks ... why go small when you can go bigger!

we did a LOT of crafting!

all the peeps made these canvases, first painting the strips on and then making the paper 3D star to attach on top ... instructions for the star are available here from happy life, crafty wife :) and the inspiration for this craft came from here at bee in our bonnet

the peeps also made firecrackers with pringles cans ... such a cool idea and a great take home gift given all the containers were full of pringles! printables for this craft came from here and they were all FREE :)

some of the happy crafters, the boys weren't into making flax flowers!

... but they all came back when we started to put this stuff on the table!

dinner, with the make your own burger bar, curly fries, potatoe salad and plenty of red, white, and blue ... 

this guy had the biggest burger i have ever seen!

this was it ... honestly, what was he thinking!

then we headed outside for some fireworks and a warm up around the brazier :)

ben and the fireworks ... that boy and fire, it's a worry ;)

we had a great day and night!

we had a great day, awesome friends, fantastic family, brilliant food, happy peeps, and pretty fireworks, not to mention bags of crafting ... definitely a great way to celebrate america's independence, kiwi style (we had beetroot in our burgers ;))  and where did all this inspiration come from?  PINTEREST of course, and you can find it all on my fourth of july board!