free lemonade {it only costs $1}

the boys have been dreaming of setting up a free lemonade/freeze pop stand. and when i say dreaming, i mean asking and asking and asking. my brain could not withstand any more talk of lemonade stands.


so i set out to create the most fantastic lemonade stand of all time (no thanks to the awesomeness found on pinterest).
and, true to form, my brain often creates what my abilities cannot afford.
apparently, "free" lemonade stands can get pretty awesome...and pricey.
i give you exhibit a...seriously, have you ever seen anything cuter??

(source and source)

so, determined to use only what i have on hand (at 11:30pm), i revamped my pvc pipe photoshoot backdrop and voila...lemonade stand with 4th of july flair.

{and yes, i'm posting about 4th of july. that's how far behind i am in life: 4th of july. sorry world. i can't catch up.}

when the kids awoke and saw it...you'd think i bought them a toy store. it was the coolest thing they had ever seen. and it cost $0.

after looking through the photos, i realized that in nearly every one, one of us was eating or drinking our surplus...namely emery, who recently learned how to drink out of a cup and was sure to drink her weight in pink lemonade.

(emery and great granny are such soul mates :)

we may or may not have eaten more freeze pops than we gave away :)

we were clearly our best customers :)

the word spread and kids and adults alike came by in droves. it was awesome.

the most interesting part??
we noticed early on that the general public was uncomfortable taking anything for free.
we ended up adding a tip jar because so many people refused to take lemonade without being able to pay for it.
most people paid $1 for the smallest cup of lemonade ever!! crazy i tell ya!


i'm not sure what it is about our culture that feels uncomfortable accepting a free gift...but i was surprised to find how skeptical many people were of our intentions. i found myself convincing passerbyers that we weren't selling anything.
we ended up meeting so many sweet people and it was really fun to be out and about in our new neighborhood. it might just become our new 4th of july tradition.

in the end, our "free" lemonade/cookies/freeze pop stand profited $45!

i asked the boys how they wanted to give away their profits. foster wants his $22.50 to give at church, and rowan wants to use his $22.50 to buy a goat (for samaratins purse). they were so excited to have such a large sum of money to give away.

and this little American girl?

she charmed the hoards of lemonade drinkers with her flag antics. i think very large consumptions of lemonade may have contributed to her extra pounds of silliness :)


we are 4 days away from her 1 year gotcha day anniversary.
i can hardly believe it! although it feels like she's been here all along, it feels strange to say one year. after all that time waiting, she's been with us almost as long as we were apart. praise the Lord...she's ours.