Our 4th of July mornings always start with the balloon festival in Provo. It’s crazy early, and kinda cold–but oh, my how we LOVE it!
Such a cute smile so early in the morning!
Fruit pizza. Our favorite 4th of July breakfast for the last 15 years!
Good morning Lyndi!
It’s so peaceful and quiet when we first get here.
The first balloon going up!
These cute kids.
Our personal George Washington!
The founder of the feast and Magoo.
Little C is helping pass out Uncle Dane’s fliers. Honestly, how could you say no to that smile?
We even had a Ghostbuster in the crowd. Hmmm.
Good morning Jillian!
Hey Jacob!
T is still waking up.
Our star spangled ladybug.
K and Hazel having breakfast.
Here to help pass out the fliers for Uncle Dane.
The official flier from Dane.
Those cute kids again.
One of my FAVORITE placees!
The balloons are all going up now.
C practicing her lines.
Hey Nate!
Up!
We’re surrounded!
Good morning April!
Such a cool crowd.
I brought an America 250 pin for everyone.
Lift off!
So sweet.
There they go!!
It’s all so magical!
Good morning Miss K!
And just like that–they’re gone.
Patriotic through and through!
The cool kids.
Sweet cousins.
At last the sun is up!
It’s been a long morning.
Many times we all go back home and take a nap in order to be ready for the rest of the upcoming fun stuff. We did miss Rhen and Jessica who found that starting the day a little later was just what they needed. It’s a tradition that has become one of our favorite things about the 4th.
“All of us, single or married, are eternally part of some family—someway, somewhere, somehow—and much of our joy in life comes as we correctly recognize and properly develop those family relationships. We come to this earth charged with a mission: to learn to love and serve one another. To best help us accomplish this, God has placed us in families, for he knows that is where we can best learn to overcome selfishness and pride and to sacrifice for others and to make happiness and helpfulness and humility and love the very essence of our character.”
This lovely little cheesy, potato-y egg bake has always been one of my favorite things to make for the family. Fast, easy, full of protein. In fact, it’s also one that my family chooses to make for their families a lot. I’m pretty confident when I say, that when you make this dish, it’s guaranteed to be gone in a flash.
Unless…
you live by yourself now and are cooking for one.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. My cute kids are all exactly where they belong, doing exactly what they should be doing.
I’m just saying that it does change the dynamics of dinnertime around here when you don’t have five bear cubs or even one woolly mammoth to feed.
I am learning–slowly but surely…to adjust.
It used to make sense to have double batches of cookies and triple batches of Chex candy and ten-person servings of rice, around–at all times.
Yeaaah…not anymore. It’s taken me waaay too long to figure out that what I make now, I have to be prepared to eat entirely or it’s getting thrown out–or worse, applied directly to my hips. Not to mention that when you eat the same meal for three days in a row–in order not to waste it– that meal loses it’s ummm…charm–shall we say? Blaugh.
Incredibly not awesome.
What to do?
I have discovered that if I want to have nice meals I have to cook in much smaller batches or know that the dish can be easily frozen.
For instance, this breakfast bake can be cut up into single portions and frozen for a week or so. Turns out, it is particularly good being reheated in the air fryer. Yum!
I’ll figure it out. Just takes a bit of tweaking the recipe or finding more room in the freezer. I can always thaw out 3 or 4 portions at a time if the need arises.
I mean…I may just get a visit from a woolly mammoth or some bear cubs.
