Court of Awards

Our End of the Year Coart of Awards was a huge success! They girls were very surprised that they had earned so many Try Its and Patches.



The girls sang a few songs and told everyone about their favorite memory of the past year.



Kalie was very excited to have sold 200 boxes of cookies and earn/win her dog.



The girls had worked so hard this year. I am glad that they were able to earn so many recognitions. I think they may work even harder next year. LOL!

Park Fun!

A group of us from church went to the park to play. We had so much fun!

Kasie and Carissa. I wonder if she knows how much she is loved?



Kalie and Caroline are eating lunch together, alone as "big" girls.



Josiah and Caleb conquering the wilds. LOL! These boys are so funny, cute, smart and we are very glad to be part of their life.



I am very thankful to have this "church family" they have been a wonderful support to our family.

Show and Tell Day

Half of our Girl Scout troop is homeschooled. How cool is that! In the Girl Scout organization each troop is set up a little differently. The organization has a framework for leaders to follow but there is pleanty of room for leaders and girls to make each troop their own.

One thing our troop allows, is badge work outside of meetings. The girls are give a form that needs to be completed and turned in. They are also required to bring proof (photo, the completed project, a program or brochure, etc.) to share with the troop. Our plan is to have 3 Show and Tell meetings a year. One at the end of the year (May/June), end of the Summer (August) and one mid year (January). These times match up with our Court of Awards. The COA meeting is usually the next meeting after our show and tell meeting.

As they arrived the girls were given 15 minutes to set up their tables. We began our meeting as usual with the Pledge, Promise, Law and announcements. As leaders, we choose 2 activities (per girl) from the requirement forms as the "shareing" activities. After the group sharing time, we divided the girls into 2 groups with the first group manning their tables and the second group visiting. Halfway through they switched. The girls did a very good job sharing their "talents" and talking in front of a group.

Hannah sharing to Brooke and Kalie.




Karin and Hannah.





Katy explaining to Karin.




Brooke and Katy.

Our troop is small, we now have only 6 girls as we have lost 2 due to behavior expectations. The girls have learned so much this year. They have become a close group of friends. At the beginning of the year Katy and Brooke hardly spoke to anyone and if they did speak you could not hear them. Karin and Kalie were wild and crazy. Hannah was so excited about life and Hayden was happy to be in Girl Scouts again. (She had been a Daisy but could not find space in a Brownie troop when she bridged.) Now they all interact with each other.

The night was GREAT!

A New Bed

A few days ago someone from our church posted on the email loop that they were downsizing to a smaller house and had a full size bed for sale. Well Kasie jumped right onto that! For being so little she wants/needs a lot of room. LOL!

The new bed for Kasie means ... that we now have a bed for Kalie. We rearranged, cleaned and moved the daybed into Kalie's room. She was so excited! She covered up with her daddy's blanket (she has used it often since he passed).



She arranged her "friends" and read them a goodnight story.



Maybe she will begin to sleep in her room? I will not hold my breath. LOL!



P.S. We did NOT paint her room this way. The people who lived here before us had the wonderful decorating ideas. LOL! Kalie liked it, so she was lucky enough to get this bedroom when we moved in.

Build A Bear Workshop

Kalie is a very lucky girl. Her older sister (Kasie) works at Build A Bear Workshop! How cool is that?

Kasie's ex-boyfriend (Blake) bought her a Build A Bear for her 17th birthday in June of 2006. Kalie received Kamie Kitty (her first) for her 6th birthday in August 2006. All was good. We had 2 Build A Bears in our family, a respectable amount. Now the amount is not so respectable. LOL!

Well Kasie was looking for her first job in February 2007 and she was hired at Build A Bear Workshop. It has all been downhill, I mean wonderful since then. LOL!

Kalie is an interesting child. She has a wonderful active imagination and plays with the weirdest things. She is not like other (almost) 8 year old girls. She doesn't play with barbies or dolls and she is not into Littlest Pet Shop. She has a very large fake creepy crawler collection. She plays with blocks, (plastic) animals, math manipulatives, etc.

But ... she LOVES Build A Bear! She saves all of her money to buy new clothes and animals. She thinks that every child should have at least 4 Build A Bears. LOL! She takes them places and dresses them. They are often students in our "classes" and have earned Brownie Try Its. LOL!

Everyone knows and loves Kalie so well there. When we go in they all say hello to her and ask about her animals, because she usually has one with her. Kalie loves to go to Build A Bear. She will straighten things in the store and has helped customers. If it is close to closing time and they are not busy, sometimes they let her help "stock" the animal skins. She loves it! She says, when I am 16, Kasie and I will work at Build A Bear Workshop together. LOL! (I do not have the heart to tell her that in 8 years, Kasie will probably not be working there.)

Well this weekend Build A Bear Workshop had a community service opportunity available for their customers. While you were building a bear for yourself, you could also build a bear (maltise puppy) for free and choose one of three organizations to donate it to. Well when Kalie found out about this we just had to go. (Kasie was working, so we had to go anyway.)

Kalie was SOOOO happy to make bears for kids that do not have any. The charity she choose was a childrens cancer organization. Here she is stuffing a dog.



Kalie had to do the whole shabang. They all needed a bath.



They let her build 5 dogs to donate to charity.




She made sure each dog was made with love. She named all of them. She spoke to each dog individually and told them it was their job to make a little boy or girl who was sick very happy. She had a great time and it was free.