Offering a Helping Hand

Over this past weekend we went over to our friend Mrs. Smith's house to weed and clean up her flower beds and plant some flowers for summer. While Lindy and I were shopping for the flowers and mulch, Bill was busy digging out more space for a larger bed under the front window. Mrs. Smith is housebound so he wanted to give her a good view of the flowers. It was a lot of work but the kids really enjoyed doing this for her.

We were going to take the Brownie Troop over to do this but many girls were not available. All of our kids still wanted to go and work on the yard and Bill was not able to go many other times. We will be taking the Brownies over to weed this summer. Good Work kids I know that Mrs. Smith really appreciated all of your work!

Some serious manual labor by these little girls.

Planting, planting, planting....

Snacking, snacking, snacking.

Kyle can do some serious grown up work now! I can count on him to carry heavy bags of mulch for me, mow, trim, and do just about anything I need. When did he grow up?!

Ethan worked on this little corner by the front door. Mrs. Smith may see this when she goes outside for appointments. He weeded it really well,cleared the ivy and put in flowers. It looked great and he couldn't wait for her to see it. Words from Ethan, " I love working on other people's yards." He really enjoys going to work on Mimi's while Kyle is mowing and he had a great time doing this.

Lindy chose these hanging baskets to hang on the shepards hook. Mrs. Smith love the fuchsia. She used to be quite the gardner and has a little greenhouse on the back of her house. She knows all kinds of flowers so we had quite the challange to give variety and find some neat colors for her to look at.

They were hot and tired but proud of a job well done!

Memorial Day

The kids celebrated Memorial Day by putting flags on the Veterans graves on Saturday. The Cub Scouts do this every year. Lindy and Paige are working on the Waving the Flag Try it and celebrating a holiday that focuses on the flag is one of the requirements. Since Kyle is so interested in history we all have a great deal of war knowledge (thanks Kyle!) and a great appreciation for the veterans and their service to our country.

On Memorial Day Monday they went back to the cemetery for a 21 gun salute and then walked from there to the Veteran's Memorial in the park. There was a brief ceremony with flag raising followed by another 21 gun salute. All of the kids really enjoyed the mornings they spent doing these activities.

Kyle and I spent last Wednesday at the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge bimonthly meeting. Kyle was on the meeting's agenda to update the group about the project he is working on. He is interviewing veterans and compiling a book to give them. It is really turning into a neat project and we have all enjoyed reading the responses.

These men have really taken Kyle under their wing. They enjoy seeing him and love bringing him things to read and pictures to share. We missed the March meeting because he was sick and on the way to Wednesday's meeting Kyle told me that he really missed seeing the vets and talking to them. Well they missed him too! He is still collecting information and we will probably have to extend his project due date since missing March but he left the meeting with 8 more people who want to give interviews so we will be busy visiting vets in the next month.


Flag placement by the Millers

One of the very decorated vets, the Purple Heart was among his medals.

Raising of the POW flag, Kyle is the Boy Scout right behind the man raising the flag.

The beginning of the walk from the cemetery to the park.



The 21 gun salute from the park.

Kyle updating the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge about his project.

Kyle and Mr. McFarland who spoke about some of his experiences during WWII.

Lanterns

When I was looking on line for lanterns for VBS I stumbled upon this idea. It was not on a web site someone had put it on a forum so I don't have a site to give out. They were so easy to make and I had everything.

They are simply mason jars with fabric strips glued around, wire is wrapped around the top and used to make the hanging part. Filled with clear glass stones and a tea light and it is ready to light. I found small shepard hooks at Joann's on sale for 2.5o and put them around the patio and hung the lanterns from there. We like them so much that I got more hooks and am going to make a few more to line our walkway off the patio by our flower garden.

Whitney - You're getting a couple too!

An Evening of Rewards

I haven't been on here for the last week and part of the reason was I was getting ready for this special evening with the Brownies. We had a year end ceremony on Friday night to celebrate all of the hard work of each of these girls.

We opened with a flag ceremony which we just started learning this year. Lindy, Paige, Mary, and Claire shared how we learned to do this at our Brownie Mom & Me. It was pretty much the same as we had been doing it but we added saluting the colors. Paige wanted to call the colors out but once she was in front of the crowd I ended up doing it. Lily posted the colors and the girls led everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance and we then did our Girl Scout Promise.

Each girl had something to read that we had done over the last year. We were really busy! Food drives, scrapbooking, cooking, COSI, crafts, and more these girls have had a very full year. Everyone received many Try it's along with other special patches for participation in other projects or activities. All the girls left with lots of rewards and I am so proud of each of them. We are all looking forward to a summer together earning more Try its and just hanging out and having fun! Great job girls!


We opened with the Pledge and then the Girl Scout Promise.

Each girl read something about what we did over the year.

Annabel received her first year pin and try its. Welcome to our troop Annabel! We enjoy having you and Christa.

AnnMarie loves Brownies and it shows in her awards. She received 17 Try its! She told me she has been working hard. I am very proud of her!

Mary also received a big bag of Try it's and other awards. Both AnnMarie and Mary are finishing their 3rd year as they started with Daisies.

Lily earned lots of Try its and celebrated 3 years of Girl Scouts. I am so glad that she is a part of our troop. Her sisters have been a great help to us with out Music Try it.

One of our girls is moving to North Dakota. Mackenzie and her family will be leaving this summer and we will all miss her and her family. They have been a HUGE help during the cookie sale and Mackenzie is our troops top seller with over 500 boxes. We wanted to get her something to remember us by. A cookie t-shirt seemed appropriate along with a special edition Groovy Girl doll, Helpful Hayley, complete with her Brownie vest on, very cute! I also got her some extra patches for the back of her vest. The Ohio Girl patch is the shape of Ohio so she doesn't forget all of us! And I had to get her the I Love My Leader Patch too so she doesn't forget about me!

We got the Jackson family the Girl Scout cookie jar, for all the cookie hard work and Jay needs a place for all his Do-Si-Dos! We will miss all of you.

We closed our ceremony with our promise and our friendship squeeze. Then it was time for desserts and punch. Thank you to everyone for all of the treats. We had beautiful weather, it was the perfect evening.

Brownie Mom & Me

The Wacky Wildflowers

What a fabulous weekend! Lindy, Paige, and I were able to spend the weekend together at the Brownie Mom & Me overnight camp out. This was our first time camping and we were all excited! Camping has never really been my kind of thing but I am willing to try anything, especially to help my girls see how much fun they can have at camp. The purpose of this year's activity was to introduce all of the camping activities to the girls and educate them on camp safety and fun! The theme was The Amazing Race after the reality show except we were not racing against the clock. But we were definitely racing around all afternoon to 10 stations after our opening flag ceremony. It was a jam packed afternoon but we had a blast.

After we checked in and received our schedule of activities we were given our team name which was the Wacky Wildflowers which matched our shirts perfectly. Here are pictures of our day!

The Classy Campers

The Silly Squirrels

Let the race begin! Claire, Paige, Lindy, and Mary were so excited for the weekend.

With unpredictable May weather I rented a cabin for our group. It was adorable and the girls all loved it. It was one big party in the evening.

After the opening flag ceremony we made our GORP. Wish I could remember what that stood for! They have a huge container and they call all the ingredients up and the girls dump them in. There had to have been 20 different things. This is Lindy and Paige returning from dumping in our assignment, Teddy Grahams.



Our first station was knot tying. We had the square knot down pretty well after making our bracelets with Miss Juli but we learned some other cool knots and what we would use them for.

Then we were off to Meal Planning. We learned there are tons of things you can cook over a campfire. Out group got to make dump cake. Lindy got to dump the strawberries and Paige dumped the cherries. We then took our dutch oven over to the Campfire Station where we learned fire safety.





Packing for camp was really fun! We had to show our card if we should bring the item being held up to camp or should we leave it at home. We also had fun playing a game with a sleeping bag and we had to do crazy things with it and then our moms had to repeat it. I had to dance with it, do cheerleading moves, and sit on it. The girls loved this!

How to build a campfire, the fun girl scout way! This was one of our favorite stations and not just because of the treats. The older Girl Scout who taught us this was fun and we really liked her that always makes things more fun! But learning with a visual always helps and this was a really cute one. The girls had to make their own campfire complete with a gum drop fire starter and red hot coals.

Our A frame fire.


After we made adorable first aid kits that fit in a film canister so we can wear them around our neck it was off to the nature station. Here we learned that "Hairy vines are no friend of mine" and "Leaves of 3 let it be" and wrote our new sayings on a bookmark. A quick game of identifying animal homes and we learned a lot here!




Lindy loved the Activities Station, what you do at camp. She loves crafts and games (she is a camping girl!). We made our first potlatches/swaps and played Hawk and Hens a fun game.

Our last station was learning to do a flag ceremony. I'm happy to say with no training our troop has been doing a good job (thanks Ethan!).

After dinner we were some tired moms!

But the girls were going strong. In their evening free time they found a huge chess board and set up a game.

A perfect end to the day, hanging out with friends. The girls had a blast giggling and playing in our cabin. Us moms had a pretty good time too! It was so nice to see them having fun and hanging out with us too. As Aimee said they will remember this forever. I know I will.



My camping girls! We are almost done except for our scavenger hunt after breakfast. We found everything on our long list and learned some things too.



Mary and Claire had a great time together and were buddies for most of the trip.


After our scavenger hunt we had to do a meet and greet. The girls had to go around and ask each other their name and write it on the list. I was proud of my shy Paige, she took the clipboard and worked the crowd! Seeing her comfortable with so many people that she did not know is what Girl Scouts is all about. She gained some confidence this weekend!

At the closing ceremony the t-shirt contest winners were revealed and much to Lindy and Paige's delight we came in second and our prize was a cute picture frame! They worked really hard on their shirts and learned to iron on their patches. We took a picture of all of us or our "team" and ironed it onto the front and added iron on flowers to the corners for a "frame". The back had our name and we painted earths. The girls wanted yellow and green shirts but were worried we would not "match" so we came up with a way to represent the earth with our color. Lindy was yellow for the sun, moon, and stars. Paige was green for trees and plants. I was blue for sky and water.



We had a great time with Holly and Claire! Thanks so much for going with us! We look forward to many more Girl Scout adventures with you.



Hanging (literally!) on the porch while we packed up.The girls did not want to go home. A definite sign they had a great time!

I didn't have pictures of all the stations but we learned so much about First Aid, we went on another scavenger hunt to find water sources and learn our boundries. We had a campfire and learned many songs and ate smores. Dinner was fun and the girls loved using their mess kits and getting to wash them (I'm sure that will wear off sooner rather than later).

My favorite part of the trip was bedtime and not because it was time to go to sleep! The girls both wanted to sleep next to me which put me in the middle of our double bed. They both snuggled up next to me and put their heads on my shoulders and went to sleep with their arms around me. Not a very easy position to fall asleep in yet the perfect way to end the day and I could always nap after we got home!