Ponytail Momma: Gardening, Patriotism, and those darn Rosettes

This week we celebrated the birthday of a great friend of ours, you might know her, at the Hiner house we refer to her as the USA or America (can only be said in an awesome George Bush accent if reading out loud).

As always The Hiner's proudly donned their red, white, and blue and went to our yearly neighborhood parade. Well, not technically our neighborhood, but they don't know that.

I love this parade. It reminds me of a small town parade with the fire truck leading the way and the Boy Scouts following behind. Then the street is overflowing with boys and girls riding their bicycles and little motorized cars all decorated for the occassion.

They also serve watermelon, a neighborhood band plays, and sometimes they have ponies!!!

Oh the good life.

Here are a few pics from our fun day:

Daddy and Annie watching in excitement for the parade...not, that's not our car.

The Big Parade:

Afterwards, some delicious refreshment

Dancing to the music


Just a swingin'

These are some of my favorite pics from recent parade years:

We really enjoyed our morning. And with it ending on such a good note, we decided not to chance fate and see what an evening of fireworks would be like.

On the patriotism note, if decorating your yard in all sorts of red, white, and blue garb gets you the award for most patriotic, I am pretty sure our team is in the running!

Nothing says "I love America" quite like a pink flamingo and a USA flag!

I may have went a bit overboard this year, but I really like it. What you don't see is the wreath (previous post) and the red, white, and blue windsock. I am tired just typing about it all.

Oy, and there is so much more to talk about!

Patriotism - check.

Let's move on to gardening. This one is easy- I just wanted to share with you a pic from the bounty of my garden. Nevermind the orange throw away plate!

Mouthwatering homegrown tomatoes and basil. They made for a delicious Caprese salad. Except I forgot I didn't have mozzarella and had to substitute smoked Gouda, not quite the same, but still very good.

Last mention of the bumper crop rosettes I have been growing (my fingers are crossed - I almost guarantee you more will appear soon).

With the red and white flowers I made, I decided to make a few into hair bows.

One for Annie and one for the Ponytail Momma.


Annie worked so hard to remove all the flowers I had in that pretty clear container. I was going to take arty pictures of them for the blog, so much for that one!

I got brave and decided to make some from the bottom part of a pair of jeans I cut into bermuda shorts. I noticed they were seriously shredding. If you decide to make them out of denim use fray check or zig zag stitch them like I did.