First Day of Freedom...I mean School!

There are many reasons to love September. The trees turning brilliant colors, the cool mornings and nights, the smells of new school supplies, new school clothes, but my favorite is the first day of school! Now don't get me wrong, I love my children, but I love to send them away to school to learn many new things and when the time comes to have them come home, I can feel a sense of accomplishment for what I did that day and no one is behind me making another mess. Oh wait, I still have 4 years for that to happen! =) Anyway, I still love the first day of school so I can take pictures of the kids before they go to the bus. Since Danny started Kindergarten, I have taken a picture at the same spot so I can see how much they have grown. This is a great tradition that the kids actually look forward to.

Happy Mother's Day & Happy 9th Birthday Aaron!!

Today was a wonderful day. With it being Mother's Day, I also get to share it with Aaron every few years. Matt and the kids made a really delicious dinner and I didn't have to help one bit, It was really enjoyable! They also got me a couple of gifts. I love anything by Hilary Weeks so they got me ner newest CD and then the newest book by Brandon Mull, author of the Fablehaven series, Fablehaven: The Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary. I had to laugh at the kids reaction to the book. They have been waiting to check it out at the library and now they have to wait for me to read it. Can they wait that long? Oh ya, I also had some chocolate covered strawberries at church. Yummy!




Aaron has been a great sport. Even though his birthday is today, he decided to celebrate this coming weekend when Tom & Michele are in town. He is a great kid. Thanks Aaron for letting me have my day.

Pinewood Derby

Tonight we had our annual Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. Jake and Aaron had so much fun. We have about 16 boys in our pack and there were a lot of unique cars. Jake's car was painted like Lightning McQueen from the movie "Cars" and Aaron's car was painted like the Mach 5 from the movie "Speed Racer". Aaron is in the Wolf Den and raced against 5 other cars and he won 1st place within his den. Jake is a Webelos and raced against 3 other cars and he won 1st place witin his den. That put Jake, Aaron and a young boy who was the Bear winner racing against each other. It was really exciting to watch who would be the over all winner. The track started acting up so it took quite awhile to see who would be the winner. The results came in and Jake was the overall winner with Aaron as a close second. I was happy to see that Jake finally won an event in his Cub Scout career. He is so easy going and little things like this don't bother him. Aaron had a great sense of sportsmanship because he wanted Jake to win since this was to be his last derby. Aaron said, " I have two years to win the trophy, so it's okay that Jake won." What a sweet boy. Congrats goes out to both my boys for a job well done!

Cub Scout Blue & Gold Banquet

This months Pack Meeting was the Annual Blue & Gold Banquet. Thursday night Jake and Aaron had so much fun decorating their cakes. This years theme was American ABC's, so Jake decided to make his cake look like the state of Michigan and Aaron decided to make the American flag. Before the kids went to school Thursday morning, they mixed up their cake mixes, put them in a pan and started baking them. I had to take them out and flip them out of the pan. When they got home from school and after dinner, I mixed up some frosting for them and then let them have at it. I was amazed how well they did. If I'm not careful I might lose my job as the family birthday cake decorator. =)

Friday was the big event. Matt says it was a huge success. It was hard for me to say since I was in charge or it and felt like I was running around with my head cut off. I guess that is to be expected at this type of Pack Meeting. We had a turkey dinner with all the fixing. I think the cakes that all the boys brought were a huge success. This year we even invited the 11-yr. old scouts back to help serve the food, judge the cakes and award the boys their cake certificates. All I can say now is, I'm glad it's over!