Chris's birthday cake

I've added a picture of the birthday boy.

Chris had his 11th anniversary of his 25th birthday yesterday. His parents are coming down tomorrow to celebrate, so I made a cake. I was given fancy new cake decorating tools for Christmas and had to try them out. I also found a great recipe for marshmellow fondant. So here it is with a dark chocolate surfboard on top. Can't wait to eat it!

Wolf Badge - Cub Scouts

Silas earned his Wolf badge in Cub Scouts! He also received 1 gold arrow and 2 silver arrows. He won't be a Bear for a few more months, so he will probably earn more arrows in that time. He's also earned his Archery, BB-Gun, Chess, and Swimming belt loops and will have a Baseball belt loop soon. I'm so proud of my little over-achiever!

Moonset

Now that I have a nice camera and live in a beautiful place Chris is encouraging me to try out my photography skills (if I have any). He even got me some nice tripods for Christmas.
This is a photo of the moon setting while the sun was rising on the other side of the world.

Beach Day - surf session

Today was a beautiful day, so we went to the beach!
Keilah played in the soft wet sand. She wanted to go swimming, but she has a very runny nose so I didn't let her go in the cold water.

Silas stood up several times!

Zeke spent a lot of time getting more comfortable with the idea of the ocean. He had a blast playing in the shore break.

Award

Silas got a school award (they call them "Bear Hugs" since the school mascot is a bear) for excellent math skills. He's on the left reading his award. Way to go Silas!!!

Fun idea

I checked out Pinterest for the first time yesterday and saw this idea for jeans with torn knees. LOVED it, so made it happen right away. The boys love it.

House Tour

For distant family and friends I present a brief house tour. There's still work to be done on the house, so ignore the flaws. Now you can see the inefficient layout (especially for a family of 5) I've been telling you about. But it is a lovely house in many ways too. I had to do it in 3 segments or the file size would be too large to upload to blogspot.