Round 26: CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Here we are folks! The Christmas round. I love this round. I love Christmas and the spirit of giving. There's something extra special about blessing someone at Christmas, isn't there? Imagine being thousands of miles away from your spouse, kids, parents, friends, and extended family. I think I would shrivel up and die. Honestly. My family is everything to me.

I've always loved to bake so when I heard about Operation Baking GALS I was all in. What a great way to combine my love for baking and my love for giving. I'm not sure how many rounds I have baked for but I never tire of it. It is just as fun each time. I'm not sure who it blesses more: me or the recipient.

I am excited to be hosting 2 teams this round.
1)Team Fire & Icing. Reciepent is my boyfriends brother, Matt. We've already sent him packages the last 2 rounds. They are having fun with it for sure. Matt was in Iraq when I first started dating his brother so I didn't meet him right away. Shortly after his return we found out he would be deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. Now here we are. I've emailed Matt back and forth and he is definitely missing home right now. I hope we can make this round extra special for him and his unit.

2) Team Baking Blessings. Recipient is the brother of someone I met in college. I believe this is Josh's first deployment. He is a christian and has a huge loving heart. This shouldn't surprise me because his sister and my friend from college, Angie, is one of the sweetest people I know. Their family is close-knit and I know he will really be missing home this holiday season.

I am encouraging everyone on my teams to make/write our christmas cards to each of the recipent. I am also hoping they will get their friends and family involved by having them write out some cards too.  I've started Operation Christmas Blessing through my other blog. I have high hopes for this round!

Matt's Promotion

Recently Matt was promoted from Corporal to Sargeant. We are all so proud of him! I'm sure they still had some cookies and goodies around to celebrate!

Here are a few pictures from his promotion. A couple of them are just of him thanking people for coming. The other is a friend of his that he's known since his training in Pensecola. She's also married to another friend of Matt's that he has deployed with.

She was smart enough to snap some pictures!

Round 25! Baking for Matt

Well its been a while since I wrote anything on the team blog! I took a break from hosting a team but good news:

I'm baaaaaaaaaccccccckkkkk!

My boyfriend's brother, Matt, was just deployed to Afghanistan in mid august so guess who is the recipient for the next few rounds? ;). Don't worry, I save a few of the cookies for the boyfriend. He still gets some of the cookie love. Matt and his unit are pretty excited about the packages they have been getting. Matt says they all appreciate more than we will ever know.

Every time I get an email from one of my team members, I am blown away with the generosity people have in their hearts. First of all, some of these ladies are packing machines! They list everything they have put in a box and I wonder to myself "how in the world did they fit all of that into one box?!" simply incredible!

Thank you Team Fire & Icing for showing Matt's unit so much love! You are all amazing!

Coming Home!

Just wanted to update everyone that Crystal and the 335th Fighter Squadron "Mighty Chiefs" are heading home soon. They will be leaving Afghanistan on January 3rd. Crystal asked that I pass along a big "thank you" from the entire squadron for the goodies and everything that was sent! They were much appreciated.Please pray for safe travels for all of them. I will coordinating with the squadron taking their place and we will possibly start sending goodies to the 494th squadron "Panthers". Thank you everyone for sending the boxes full of items!

Round 15 Info

It is coming up fast folks! Here's the Round 15 info!

Sign up for Teams: Nov 23 thru Nov 29
Addresses Mailed to team members: Nov 30
Shipping Dates: Dec 1-16th

If you want your package to get there by Dec 25th, you MUST have it in the mail no later than Dec 11th!
Please do not feel obligated to get them in the mail by the 11th. They will be more than happy to receive packages after christmas too!

It's Christmas package time!!! Let's bless the socks off of Robert and Crystal and everyone they work with.

Thanks again to everyone that joined Fire and Icing for Round 14 :o).

Team Shipping Stats!

Well, I haven't heard from everyone on the teams but here's what I have so far:

Team Grier: Heard from 13 out of 18 members.
21 packages sent!! (holy wow!!)

Team Kirkley: Heard from 14 out of 21 members
18 packages sent (woot woot!!)

Fay and Angela

It's always fun to bake w/ a friend! Here's Fay and her friend, Angela, baking their hearts out for our soldiers.