For DIY Fireworks You Need Hamburgers and a Grill!

Hey ya'll! How was your 4th of July celebration????

We were blessed with a day at home to relax, giggle, bake, grill, and almost call the fire department...fun times and memories!

Our day started off fantastic. We slept in a little (you know you are getting older when you can't sleep past 8 am; I can remember sleeping in until at least 10 when I was a teenager) and we had a wonderful coffee cake (a Paula Deen recipe...yum!) and then the girls and I started baking.

We made 2 delicious homemade apple pies (except for the crust because how can you go wrong with Pillsbury...we rolled it out ok?!) and homemade ice cream. I enjoyed using my new kitchen aide mixer so much that we actually made 2 freezers full of homemade ice cream. One was vanilla, for the pie, and the other was peach from all of the peaches we put in the freezer last summer.

We watched Serena beat her sister in tennis and I wondered how their mother could possibly cheer for either child. I would have made myself dizzy clapping after every point for each one of my daughters. After that, I took a little nap because it was raining and taking a little nap during a delightful rain just seemed appropriate.

After my little siesta it was time for the games to begin. Mr. Incredible lit the grill, I formed the hamburger patties and then made Pioneer Woman's pico de gallo w/ guacamole...oh my goodness it was awesome!

Hannah and I were giggling about all of the smoke coming from the back porch...there was so much smoke that Mr. Incredible decided to lift the lid to see what was going on with the burgers...and that's when I saw it....a flame almost as tall as my man!

I though he had probably caught a burger on fire (which is way out of the norm for him) and had Hannah grab my camera. We always joke about men "fighting fire" for their families when they are grilling because it's macho and manly and he is good at the grilling.

Hannah jokingly asked her daddy if he needed the fire extinguisher and he just scowled.

So, being the excellent wife that I am (I'm smiling here) I grabbed my camera and took a picture of the flame:

I only got part of it because my man said in the sweetest voice ever, "Sweetheart, the grill is on fire, we have a grease fire and I need you to pretty please grab the fire extinguisher before we burn the house down!" (If you believe that is how he really sounded, I have some lakeside property for you on the moon!) It was more of a growl and why am I taking pictures...blah blah blah!

I snapped back into reality and realized it wasn't a simple little patty on fire, it was the real deal...closing the lid to the grill and turning off the gas didn't help, flames shot out the top. So, I pulled the little red thingy on the fire extinguisher, that I bought in 2000, and prayed that it would do the trick. Just in time, my quick thinking husband pulled the burgers off the grill and saved our dinner...wasn't that brilliant?

He threw me the burgers and extinguished the flames. Whew! I would have hated to have called out the volunteer fire department on the 4th of July to extinguish our homemade fireworks display because....well because we would never have heard the end of it and Mr. Incredible would have been banned from grilling forever and I like it when he fights fire for our dinner!

So, what do you do with 1/2 cooked hamburgers? You light the grill again, after cleaning off all the fire extinguisher stuff. Can you believe that? I offered to pan fry the charred burgers that were crispy on the outside and raw on the inside, but he wouldn't hear of it.

He lit the grill only to hear a loud "Boom!" "We are going to die," I said...I wish you could have seen the lovely look he flashed my way....all was fine, it was just the grill asking for us to please just give it up for the day....did we? No way, Mr. Incredible finished grilling the now Cajun burgers and we had a delightful meal.

We worried that the fire exinguisher stuff might somehow poison our burgers....so Mr. Incredible ate his first...what a man!

I have other photos too! Here is my version of the pico de gallo:

And here is my burger:

It wasn't too bad with jalapeno cheese and a lot of pico de gallo!
I made armadillo eggs too (jalapenos, cream cheese, & cheddar cheese, wrapped in pepper bacon and then baked in the oven). They were amazing....

...until Hannah ate a hot one and the tears streamed down her precious little face. She downed 2 glasses of milk like it was nothing and still felt a little burn. But, it was kind of fitting....our 4th of July was anything but boring...it was burning hot! How was yours?

Joyfully,

Kristi