It felt a bit complicated to celebrate Independence Day in the midst of both a pandemic and racial injustice happening in the US. And if we lived in the US, I’m not sure I would have participated. But since we live in Singapore, we try to ‘do up’ the American holidays, to give a sense of what is means to be American. And interestingly, focusing on the good parts of the American ideals was heartening; thinking about being the mother of democracy, welcoming all people, and people can have any dream and work hard to achieve it. Unfortunately that’s not really the case for all people, which is not fighting for the fairness the US was built on. But it felt good to be reminded of what we Americans are fighting for, and what we expect have to expect from each other.

I made this cute banner, that’s actually quite easier than it looks! Instead of wrapping the paper around a toilet paper, like she suggests, I just used card stock, painted them, and stapled them into tubes. The whole thing took about an hour– not too bad. (And I did most of it while chatting on the phone to my bestie.)

Our Saturday started with the kids outside, while Mama worked out and showers and Papa worked on a special lunch. The kids came back from the store with thier nanny and brought back watermelon for snack.

Shortly after they started work on thier afternoon snack of popsicles. I wanted to do the striped ones (like in the banner) and we didn’t want it to be too sugary. We blended strawberries for the bottom layer, coconut for the white layer and lemonade died blue for the top, freezing in between layers. We let them freeze over nap and took them out to eat by the pool.

In between freezing layers, we did a craft of q-tip firework art. I still have cut q-tips from the Under the Sea weekend’s sea aeonomes, so I pulled out some black cardstock and paint and we were good to go.

By then the kids were tired and ready for a video before lunch. We found the Pups of Liberty on Amazon, which was nice, but still maybe a bit over their heads. Papa made an amazing American lunch of fried chicken (gluten free for me), mac and cheese, greens, and cornbread (gluten free). The kids are learning to love mac and cheese and happily gobbled it up.

After nap we headed to the pool with our popsicles!

We were at the pool for an hour and a half, and when we came back, we did an American Scavenger hunt. I found this list, and cut out the cute little pictures and hide them around the living room. The kids loved it and made me do it twice.

We then played a couple of classic American games, bowling and cornhole. We made bowling pins out of toliet paper rolls, cardstock and washi tape. And for the toss we used paper plates and balls we had on hand. Funny enough Rush was good at bowling, and East was good at the toss game.

The kids watched last years DC fireworks on TV, while I shared a drink with a friend. Papa made burgers and whoopie pies, to continue our American menu.

That night Papa did a bit of a sparkler show for us on our balcony. The kids loved it, even though they were a bit scared too.

On Sunday, after a special breakfast, the kids started with a variety of American related books we have, along with family pictures that live in the US. It’s a Small World was being read while I took the picture.

Then we headed to the pool again, because it’s a holiday weekend!

When we got back, we made these patriotic blowers, which didn’t work as well as promised. But the kids like putting the stars on.

Finally it was time for a video. We watched the new Seseame Street on the 4th of July, which was cute. Then a lunch of fried chicken again, leftovers from yesterday. Honestly, it was supposed to be lobster rolls, but we couldn’t find lobsters or any of our back up ideas. And honetly, the left overs were delicious.

After nap, we made pinwheels, based on this link. I will admit, it was a bit complicated, so we did most of it. The kids love them though, as we still have the Independence Day pinwheels from last year!

Same goes for this Lady Liberty— but they were so cute it was worth it. It wasn’t too hard, just a lot of little pieces.

Tell me they aren’t the cutest? The kids then couldn’t agree on yoga or dance, so we did 10 minutes of each. Although mostly Mama and Papa. (The video of Papa doing the dance is in my instagram highlights.)

We decided the movie this week would be Annie, because of the 4th of July scene (the last scene, apparently). This was my favorite movie when I was a little girl, and I was so excited to share it. We watched the original, although the kids were a bit confused by the story. We ate popcorn while watching– which I just recently learned was American! Before long it was time for pizza for dinner.

I think we showed the kids a good time, and a bit about being American. We have one more themed weekend in us– stay tuned!