Lego Friends meets Littlest Pet Shop

With the increasing obsession with Legos comes more complicated builds. The Tumbleweed builds all kinds of little sets, but I tend to find it a little bit much to have all these little things taking up space. After she went to bed, I took a bunch of the little pet sets and put them together into one big Pet Hotel.



Now they all have a place to stay!

Summer Vacation: End of Week 2

Our first week of "summer activities" took a little longer than I thought because our trip to Grandma & Grandpa's happened before we could finish everything. It was no surprise the way it concluded either. The Tumbleweed had eagerly completed things during the first several days at home and only had a couple things left to do when we left (she was frantically folding laundry until the last minute). When we returned from our trip she quickly finished the last requirements and earned her prize:

With so much excitement about the new Hexapillar, the Dandelion wanted his too. Unfortunately, he still had 3 activities left to do. After a couple tantrums he finally settled down and got to work on his "schoolwork".

It didn't take long before he completed everything and had his Hexapillar.



So as I prepare for next week here is what I have learned.

1- I will probably not come up with a prize better than this week.
2- The Dandelion needs less to do and the Tumbleweed needs more.
3- Having scheduled chore days written on paper helps.

Summer Vacation: Beginning of Week 1

This week is starting with a bang --- with a loud thunderstorm rolling through.

We are kicking off our first week of Summer Vacation with a To Do list to try to keep everyone from saying "I'm bored".



I gave the kids a run down of everything on the list after breakfast this morning and showed them the pile of supplies I collected for them. I also explained the punch cards and how they were going to earn punches.



Since it was about to storm, it was the perfect time to pick something to do off the list. Both kids chose coloring.



I still can't tell how many things should be on the weekly list and if I have too much or too little, so there may be some adjustments over the summer. We will see how this week goes...

Girl Scouts: June Update

With the school year coming to a close, Girl Scouts is also wrapping up. Today we had our final meeting, which was primarily a badge ceremony.

I had prepared a cute badge presentation for each of the girls with the badges that they had earned since March. Here are the Tumbleweed's badges. She earned a combination of "Old" Try-its, "New" Badges, and Council's Own Badges from across the country.



Someone else was using the Library Meeting Room, so we held our ceremony upstairs in the library. While the seating wasn't perfect, the mantle was a nice place to display the badges and the quilt the girls worked on earlier this year.



The girls did their Girl Scout Promise and sang "Make New Friends" before we honored each girl and their accomplishments for the year. The Tumbleweed has been busy working on badges whenever possible and had quite a few badges to show for it.



It was a great first year of Brownies. Definitely a learning process for me as a leader, but I think, after a summer vacation, I will be ready to tackle Year 2.

Back-words: deja vu

Perhaps you will remember the Tumbleweed's backwards phase where she wrote her name in a mirror image. I don't exactly remember exactly how we got her past it, but I wish I did because look what the Dandelion just started doing...



Just about the same age, too. The Tumbleweed was a few months shy of her 5th birthday and the Dandelion will be 5 at the end of this month. Weird!

I don't really know if this means anything, but I am sort of hoping the Dandelion will pass through this phase over the summer and be back to writing his letters forwards (which he does know how to do) before the first day of Kindergarten.

Girl Scouts: April Update

April 3: WOW! Journey Meeting - Water Olympics and Watershed Model

Today we had fun with water by balancing paperclips on top of a cup of water and seeing how many paperclips would fit in a full cup of water.

Balancing on top:

Adding paperclips to the cup. About halfway there...

Final total of paperclips that fit in the full cup... 164!

After we cleaned up the paperclips, we made an example of how pollution gets into the town water. Each girl got to put some food coloring representing a pollutant in a familiar place and then it "rained" and washed all of the pollutants into the rivers and lakes.

April 10: First Aid

We had a guest speaker from the local EMS come to our meeting to talk to the girls. The girls learned about what an EMT does to help people in an emergency (Philanthropy badge) and then about some basic First Aid and ways to be prepared and stay safe. The girls made their own backpack First Aid Kits and we wrote letters to our penpal troop.

April 17: WOW! Journey Meeting - Project Planning

A small meeting, but the girls decided that their Take Action Project would be a Public Service Announcement for the local channel about ways to save water. The girls continued to decorate their water map with their Water Drop promises.

April 19: Pet Adoption Awareness Day

One of the Junior Girl Scout troops in town held a Pet Adoption Day for the younger scouts during school vacation week, and the Tumbleweed was more than thrilled to attend since she desperately wants a pet!

April 24: Flower Frenzy!

Our opening activity was a windsock made from streamers and cardstock, where each streamer contains one line of the Girl Scout Law.

The main activities from today were for the Council's Own "Flower Frenzy" Try-it from Pennsylvania. The girls learned about the parts of a flower and their state flowers before getting to our craft - dying bandannas with flowers. Everyone seemed to enjoy doing an activity with hammers!

First Communion

The Tumbleweed celebrated her First Communion today. She was very excited to wear her new dress and have our family come visit. At mass she lead the other First Communion students into the church and sat at the end of our row.

She had volunteered to do a reading and was assigned the First Reading. She did a great job reading at the podium and read her passage with expression and enthusiasm. She received lots of complements.

She had also volunteered to sing with several other little girls. When we arrived, the music director asked her to stand near the microphone because he knew she knew the words and would sing. She definitely wasn't shy on stage.

Finally it was time to go to Communion. She was nervous because she had to go first, but decided afterward that it wasn't so bad after all, but she still doesn't like the taste.

Lorax Cake

Since seeing the movie the kids have been talking about The Lorax a lot. Suddenly I had a cake idea for the Tumbleweed and her cousin's birthdays --- Lorax cakes! After thinking about it for a week and collecting supplies this is what I came up with...


The brightly colored Truffula Trees --- Peep chicks on a lollipop stick (I drew stripes on)

The Brown Barbaloots --- Chocolate Teddy Grahams made into sandwiches with leftover frosting, and toothpicks to help them stand up

The Lorax himself --- Three mini-marshmallows on a toothpick covered in orange frosting with frosting eyes and facial hair.

The base is just a green buttercream frosting. Finish it off with a mini-marshmallow border, drizzled with frosting and sprinkles and you have a Lorax cake. Or Two.