Learning The Girl Scout Ways

Lily made Katie feel welcome.

Because the Brownie girls have such an eagerness to learn we are able to accomplish great things at our meetings. At last week's meeting we welcomed both Faith and Katie to our troop. They jumped right in to face painting with the girls and made new friends. They all had fun getting to know each other and learn some things about each other.







A Daisy Scout flower.

After our flag ceremony, Lindy proudly shared her crafting hobby with everyone. She showed us her itty bitty paper dolls, yard dolls, pom pom critters, and art class creations. Being we are such a crafty group everyone appreciated her ideas and hard work.




We headed over to Mrs. Smith's house with some cards and a planter. She has been feeling tired which is to be expected at 92! But we thought that we could bring her some smiles to cheer her up and it was just what she needed! She was waiting to share her hobby with us (and I did not plan that!). She crochets dolls and had a basket of them to share with the girls. They loved seeing them as much as she loved sharing them. We sang some songs and chatted and truly brightened her day.






When we returned to our meeting it was time for smores! I think it is great that making and eating smores is a requirement to earning a try it! Thank you Kyle for providing a fire for us. We enjoyed roasting or in some cases burning our marshmallows. Another requirement was to stitch our sit upon together but we ran out of time and now everyone has Brownie homework.

To finish our afternoon off we released our families butterflies. This was a huge hit especially for the siblings. It was the perfect ending to a great meeting.












Laura and I like our marshmallows the same way, burnt!



Butterflies are off and flying!

So much accomplished in a short time but most of all we were able to spread some good cheer and let Mrs. Smith know that we really care about her. Great work girls, you are a special bunch!

Ethan

My favorite pictures of Ethan May 2009 with my new camera.
Taking orders Gretch and anyone who would like one.

My Mother's Day

My boys

There is reason for my delay in posting these pictures that I will explain. I had the best Mother's Day. We went to church and had lunch together at home. We split up for the afternoon as Bill and the boys had to mow and I had to get things together for Brownies and VBS crafts. Since my mom gave me a Joann's gift certificate it was the perfect time to get the girls and I stocked on scrapbooking supplies. Yes, they are into everything crafty much to my delight, including scrapbooking! I have been waiting for the day that we could do these project together and it is here! We have so many things on our list I don't know if we will ever have time to do them all but Lindy and I will definitely be trying.

So, when we returned home from church we took these pictures and when we came inside there was a bag waiting for me to open. I thought we were not exchanging gifts! There is not a thing I need but once I opened it I remembered there was something I wanted! As Bill said we were not exchanging they were giving. Much to my delight was my dream camera, additional lens and all. Rare as it is I was speechless. I so did not need this as I have a wonderful camera already. Bill, being the attentive husband he is, had noticed though that it can't always do what I want. Apparently because of the small gallery I have started on the walls he thought I was ready for an upgrade!

Hence the delay as I am still trying to learn what I am doing! But I am very, very, happy with the results especially the color. Thank you kiddos for such a wonderful surprise! Bill you always surprise me, thank you so much, I love you.

Is he handsome or what?! He is becoming a fine young man.

Ethan - You make being a mom a daily pleasure.

Wow was all I could say (Hey Uncle Bobby can you give me a hand learning this thing?)

One of my first shots, oh the color, just look at the pizza on her face!

Tween Night Fun!

Tween night was a hit! The kids have a great time hanging out and talking. They play the Wii but that is all they really do as far as activities. No movies or anything else just the time and the place to be together and they take it from there!

Friday night we had pizza and snacks and with the warm weather kids drifted outside to hang out on the porch and patio. I had the makings for smores so we had an impromptu fire in the fire pit right before the rain. Everyone got their smores made and headed for cover!

It was a pleasure to host these kids!



Wii fun went on for hours!


Dance demos!

Smores brought my little ones out, they were not missing out on this! All the older kids are great with having some younger ones roam around!

A Birthday Celebration - Ethan Style

This incredibly sweet boy does not like a lot of attention on his birthday. He does not like anyone to sing Happy Birthday and does not relish the center of attention like most kids. He has never had a friend party, ever, he prefers to celebrate with just family. We can't sing happy birthday. He just blows out his candle and we eat cake. This year he requested that we all say Happy Birthday together so we are making small steps forward!

He truly has an appreciation for his family as that is all he wants for his birthday. So Saturday night everyone came over to help him celebrate. This makes gift giving something of a challenge, when you ask him what he wants he can't come up with anything. But everyone took the challenge and came up with some great things for him. We had Jersey Mike's for dinner and his favorite chocolate cake and ice cream. A perfect way to finish off the week long celebration!

We love you Ethan!

Gretchen, Whitney, and Grommy got him a digital camera. He was very surprised!

Paige can't wait to get her hands on this!




Ethan just finished the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. They have a Do it Yourself book where you fill in and answer questions to give you information and ideas to then write your own story in the back.




Nancy was able to join us for the evening. Ethan was thrilled!




New clothes from Grommy make him the best dressed in the family.

Bill knows how to spoil all of us. He sent our moms flowers for Mother's Day, except for me but more about that in another post!



No Gretchen is not breastfeeding and leaking, she is always my kitchen help and we always have to pull her out of dish duty! Looks like the sprayer won.

Thanks for the camera Aunt Whit and BJ!




This was not posed, Lindy and Kyle were really sitting like this. He is a great big brother!

His sundae on his actual birthday, still no singing but I was able to sneak a round in when I tucked him in that night. What a sweet boy you are Ethan. I love being your mom!

Beautiful Butterflies

Our Painted Ladies emerged on Friday to the delight of all the kids. I can't remember all of the names except for Kyle's is Julius for Julius Ceaser! Once one of them had emerged the kids kept a close eye on them and were able to see two others come out of the chrysalis. Way cool! Erin's is still in it's chrysalis. I think when we got her caterpillar it had just come out of the egg it was so tiny, very suiting for her. It still looked small when it tucked itself away for it's great change but everyone is different!

We plan to keep them another day and then it is off to the great outdoors. We will be doing this again over the summer since we missed last year. The best part of this has been listening to Erin say metamorphosis, way too cute!




The faces on Lindy and Paige are so sweet, they have absolutley loved this. I don't think they remember much of the last time we had caterpillars.

Boat Day!

Ethan is having the best birthday! We went over to Jenny's to see if our boats would float. All the kids were very excited especially Ethan. He was thrilled to play in the creek and not have to do any school on his birthday! And his boat, along with the other kids, floated! They all had a blast. Ethan got to pick what he wanted for lunch and he chose Wendy's much to the delight of all the other kids and I made his favorite brownies for dessert. All in all a fun morning and we learned a little something about floating as well!

Pre floating

Other than hitting a few rocks downstream they stayed afloat.

And looked really pretty as well.

Happy birthday Ethan!

Two peas in a pod, Lindy and Adrienne are so much alike!

And this little girl adores her big brother.