It was a busy morning at our house before the Parade. It started off with breakfast for 23. What I had hoped to be a peaceful start to our thrilling day was instead chaotic and in reality had us all eating in shifts while intense work on our cannons was being done. Did you hear that? Cannons. Yes, we made air cannons that shot the candy out into the crowd. We had a few problems getting the generator to power all of the cannons, so things were a little tense for awhile. After a trip to Home Depot we had things under control.

The cannons were made from PVC pipe. Once they were made we (okay I had VERY LITTLE to do with the cannons ----but a huge shout out to Blake, Mark and George!) inserted them each into a carpet tube. The guys built a wooden stand to set the cannon on and then we (again I am using 'we' very loosely) nailed huge cardboard wheels to each side. We painted them and we had a Revolutionary War cannon---that worked!

We have had so much fun with the cannons. There was tons of "testing" going on around here. For the parade the cannons only needed about 15lbs. of pressure but my boys (I will include my husband in "boys") quickly figured out that at about 100 lbs of pressure a potato could be launched OVER our neighbor's house! If you would like to build your own cannon I wil be posting complete instructions later.

We used cardboard carpet tubes to construct the fort. The walls are supported by a brace that was screwed to the tubes. All cutting was done with a chop saw as these tubes are hefty! Flags were painted on cardboard than attached to the fort. The boys all wore baseball pants. Hot glued strips of white felt made the criss-crossed belts. Cardboard was cut into a buckle shape, painted and then hot glued to the boys' dress shoes. One of the biggest feats of the whole float was getting 9 boys to all wear polyester baseball pants and dress shoes. A few of the boys wore three pointed hats while others sported a bandanna.

Mary's group had a really great float also. It was colorful and fun. Their beach theme had them all lounging about sitting in front of a backdrop of fabulously painted surfboards.

They did a great job and I am trying to be very gracious when I say, "Isn't it lovely that we TIED for first place." Hmmmmm.........

If you have kids to keep busy and want more ideas you can always try PVC Plans. Our favorite is the PVC Marshmallow shooter. For plans go here. The PVC Bow and Arrows are a blast and can keep a birthday party of 10 boys entertained! My boys now graduating to larger weaponry want to try a catapult and a mortar. They love The Art of the Catapult and Backyard Ballistics.