6 Years Ago Today . . .

. . . this sweet little angel was born. It is hard for me to believe that my youngest is 6 years old already.

And now here he is on the first day of school a couple weeks ago, with Big Brother.
He wanted to have an Army birthday party, so Mr. Jones and I had a little fun with it. I put a recruiting poster on the front door, with American flags on either side.
I made this invitation, with the recruiting image on the back . . .

Mr. Jones came up with this gem at the last minute. He was at the store getting camouflage netting for me, and found some pallets that were on their way to the trash. So he threw this together on Saturday morning. Here is Big Brother showing off the fort (please excuse the block-out on the sign. I'm paranoid with personal info on the internet) . . .
Here is the tank cake I made from this website. I followed the directions exactly, and used Wilton spray paint to make it green. WHY?? I do not know, because it tasted bad and I could have used good old food coloring. Oh well, the rest of the cake tasted good.
Here are the weapons boxes I made from cardboard boxes . . .
and the pup tents Mr. Jones put in the backyard.
For boot camp, we got some lawn spray paint for landscaping, and painted an obstacle course, with tunnels and balance beams, along with the trampoline we already had (Mr. Jones put a "paratrooper training" sign on that). We had them run timed relays. They were very cute, and took their training so seriously. Then to test their skills, they had to throw hand grenade water balloons (those were awesome!) on a spray-painted target to which Mr. Jones stood a little too close (on purpose), which gave added incentive to hit the target. They also got paratroopers to throw off the deck onto the target, and squirt guns. I bought canvas fanny packs from Oriental Trading which I dyed army green. I was very disappointed with the dog tags and canteens I bought from them, though, because all the dog tags broke and the canteens all leaked. The very nice men at the local Army recruiting office gave me some things to give to the boys, too. The boys were so impressed . . . "you mean this came from the "reeeeeeal" Army guys?" (said with wide eyes). And of course, we had to have painted faces and camo bandanas.

Oh, and I almost forgot ... I made a bunch of signs for our camp, but this was my favorite. Princess was very offended that I did this . . .

Happy Birthday, Soldier!