Fabulous Army Life

When my oldest started Kindergarten in 2005, my wonderful neighbor Catty introduced us to her family tradition of making a first-day-of-school cake in the shape of a school bus. We met after school and the kids decorated the cake, including faces on mini Nilla wafers to represent each of them. We loved the tradition and added it to our own family from that day forward. Now, 12 years later, we're still at it. We invite friends and neighbors to join us. It's always a fun time and I'm proud of our longevity in at least this one tradition. :)

School started on August 23 in Harker Heights.  The boys were both excited to get back to school and see their friends.  After school, we gathered with our next-door neighbors to create our traditional first-day-of-school cake.  This tradition started with a previous neighbor six years ago and is still going strong!  It's a fun way to wind up a long first day of school. First Day of School! Working on our traditional first-day-of-school cake with our neighbors. I forgot to ice with white icing first to make the windows. Oops! But this year's version does have an escape hatch on the top, courtesy of our neighbor's son. He said he added it because "it's the law." =) The finished product!  It was YUMMY with ice cream!

We love Easter at our house.  Not only do we have the supreme privilege of worshipping a risen Savior and celebrating His resurrection on Easter Sunday, it also gives us an opportunity to make some fun memories with our children.  We look forward to the Easter Bunny's visit and welcome Spring with open arms. As I was looking through photos, I found these of my youngest son's first Easter.  They were so cute I had to share them.  I can't believe my babies are growing up so fast!  In these photos, the older son is only four and the youngest is not even a year old.  Crazy how time flies. We loved making this Easter Bunny cake together, although if I remember correctly, the boys didn't want to eat any of it because it was covered in coconut.  Cute for bunny 'fur,' not so good for eating. This baby was not greedy about his Easter eggs.  One in each hand was plenty for him. Our family all dressed up for Easter Sunday. Here is wishing you all a v...

My ten-year-old adores scouting and we were so proud when he earned his Webelos badge at our pack's recent "Blue and Gold" ceremony.  I was the Blue and Gold representative for our den so I had the parents help me organize a den meeting to make decorations for the table.  We printed out a history of scouting (since this is the 100th Anniversary of Boy Scouts of America) and made a table-runner timeline.  The boys did a great job of organizing the events into order by decade and adding lots of great photos, quotes, and stickers.  The completed laminated copy looked great on their table.  You can see a little of it here: We added some bowls of snacks (pretzels, goldfish, mini-marshmallows) along with some fun pass-the-time activities (History of Scouting sticker book provided by the pack and homemade play-doh ~ a surprising hit with all ages!). Hubby was here to stand by him when he received his rank and to receive the parent pin as well. I loved t...