February Girl Scout Update

It has a busy month for our Girl Scout troop! As usual, the Tumbleweed has been hard at work doing individual badges in her free time, especially during February vacation. I have been keeping busy finishing up the troop quilt, planning the badge ceremony/open house and trying to keep up with the Tumbleweed's requests for badgework. Here is a quick run-down of the month's activities:

2/4-2/5: YWCA Swim & Fun Overnight The Tumbleweed was counting the minutes to her first sleepover. She had a great time playing & swimming, but wasn't all that thrilled when they started a movie at 10 pm when she was ready to fall asleep. She was the first one to sleep and the last one to wake up... and she followed up with a 4.5 hour nap in the afternoon. Even with the lack of sleep she was eager to plan another overnight!


2/12: Cookie Booth #2 Yet another frigid day to sell cookies. Thankfully they let us sit inside the entryway! We didn't sell nearly as many cookies at this booth, but we had great troop participation.


2/14: Troop Meeting We received our first letters from our New York Brownie pen pals. The girls were so excited to read them! We set up sewing stations for the girls to make their troop quilt while earning their Stitch It Together badge. Thanks to lots of extra hands, the girls learned to sew on a button, stitch a felt patch and sew on a sewing machine.


2/23: Pajama Dance Party Despite needing to arrive late because of dance class, the Tumbleweed had a blast at the Pajama Dance Party. She got a tinsel strand put in her hair, had her face painted and dance & tumbled until they turned off the music. I thought I might regret taking her out to an event after dance class (8-9pm), but she held up well and had a great time.


2/28: World of Girls Open House We concluded our World of Girls journey by finishing the last story in the book, talking about all of the places we had learned about and what Brownies are called there and having an open house for the parents to see the things the girls had been working on. We had a display of the girls "Historically Speaking" projects (the Tumbleweed did Egypt, Israel & Italy) and I had completed the troop quilt (except hand stitching the binding) so the girls could show their parents the squares they made. We concluded with a patch ceremony.

And while that might seem like a lot, March marks the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouting, and is going to be just as busy!

Color Splash Party

The Tumbleweed is turning 7 this year, and due to our busy schedules, and particularly full March weekends, I decided to do her party during February school vacation. For the first time we had the party at an outside location, Michael's Craft Store. The Tumbleweed wanted her party "somewhere other than home" but she did have some ideas of what she wanted to do at her party. Most places that hold parties in the area have package deals and it is hard to incorporate the themes & crafts she wanted. However at Michael's you can just rent the party room for two hours and I could do the crafts and activities that she wanted. Perfect. No mess at home, a helper provided by the store and a location parents are familiar with.

The Tumbleweed had selected some badge activities out of her Girl Scout books and I helped her modify them a bit for a party setting. We started the party by giving her friends shirts in all the colors of the rainbow so they wouldn't get their clothes dirty. The first activity was a pointillism painting (her current favorite technique) on a cover of a homemade notebook. I had thought this would be the messiest part of the party, but I was wrong, the girls stayed pretty clean!


The cleanliness was short lived, as next we made chocolate fondue. Yummy & messy. I only wish I had eaten some myself! We moved straight from fondue to frosting cupcakes with a rainbow of colors. The girls got to try some of the different cake decorating tips, making flowers and writing letters. After a little singing, they got to bite in and found that the cupcakes were rainbow-colored on the inside too (the Tumbleweed had found the idea in the American Girl magazine).


After presents & pictures, we made a much cleaner craft - braided and beaded belts. Each of the girls had their own style. The Tumbleweed, of course, had to put her beads in a rainbow.


The Tumbleweed was thrilled, the kids had fun and I was exhausted --- I'd say it was one successful party!

Grow Your Own Cat Toy

The Dandelion has been enjoying checking out cat books from the library. His favorite is "Kittens". Coming in a close second is "How To Care For Your Cat". So yesterday, as he was picking out a few books I spotted another book I thought he would like, "Grow Your Own Cat Toy"

Of course, he was thrilled about the idea of "growing" a cat toy, so this morning I got some catnip seeds and after school he planted his seeds. He is sure they will "grow a cat toy" for Kitty to play with. Not sure he understands that it will grow a plant that can be made into a cat toy.



We will wait & see...