Valentine Happenings

I have made it to the halfway point of p90X! I am loving it. It definitely takes discipline and hard work. In fact, my life has been so consumed with working out and healthy menu planning, shopping, cooking, that my crafting has taken a back seat. I do miss it (a lot!) but I don't have much time for it these days. I didn't even decorate for Valentines Day this year!

I did manage a small project that had been on my heart for awhile. I wanted to make one of those fabric scrap tutus for Laila. I had leftover valentine fabric and princess fabric and managed to have enough to cut plenty of strips for the skirt. I cut about 40 strips, each 2 inches wide. I hot glued a piece of elastic end to end and just tied the fabric strips around the elastic. I used brand new pinking shears to prevent the edges from fraying, but they are fraying anyway, not sure why? But I still like the textured edges that they give to the pieces. I decided it does need some tulle to give it a little volume. But I don't have any, so I can always add it later. She loved it so much I knew she wanted it right away, so she wore it on valentines day. She had 2 parties; her preK party, and Emma's classroom party. She loves LOVES loves it, and that is a success! She also wore her "LOVE" tee that I made for her last year.

For her preK party, I made small treat bags to attach her valentine cards to. She picked out Lalaloopsy cards (surprise surprise :) ). I used teddy Graham's, alphabet cookies, gummy bears, and valentine m&m s in the treat bags. I tied the valentine cards on with ribbon.

For her teachers, I stole an idea off Pinterest. There is a free printable that gives you 4 tags on one sheet that says "I was "soapin' you'd be my valentine! You attach that to a soap bottle and it is a cute gift that any teacher can use. Here is the link to the printable; click here.

For Emma's classroom party ( I never have time to manage to take any pictures) we played valentine bingo and made fruit/marshmallow kabobs. These are a huge hit! I also made these chocolate pretzel m&m treats. These were very quick to make, the only time consumer is unwrapping all the chocolates ( I used Dove chocolate hearts, or you can use kisses), but I did all these during one episode of Max and Ruby.

Here they are with daddy getting ready to go to the preK Sweetheart dance.
Yes, I went too, I'm just the lady behind the camera!

Our valentine celebrations extended through the weekend because our beautiful cousin, Mallory, got married! Everything was gorgeous with lots of pink!

 

If anyone can figure out how to make these collages appear larger, let me know! I cannot seem to make them any bigger. :(

Congratulations Mallory and Gil!!!

Girl Scouts February Meeting

This month we covered World Thinking Day. It is a scout tradition where we think about issues that affect girls and women from other countries. This year's themes are "Together we can save children’s lives” and “Every mother’s life and health is precious." I found some free printable coloring pages of girl scouts around the world that I brought for the girls to color until meeting time started.  Click HERE for the link if your troop is interested.

Our friend, Laura (who was this troop's leader last year!), who is also a surgical assistant and works in obstetrics at a local hospital came in to talk to us about what it is like to work on the maternity floor. We talked about why it is important to take good care of babies and everything she does to make sure that babies are safe and healthy when they are born. The girls asked LOTS of questions, but the "big" question never came up! Lol. She even brought some gowns, masks, hair nets, and even foot protectors (not sure if there is a technical term for those?) for the girls to try on. So much fun for them! Thank you so much Laura!!

Next we played a game called The Link Game. I started the game off by telling the girls something about myself, such as, "I have 2 cats at home." If any of the girls has a cat, they must race to me and link arms with me. If there is more than one person, then the first person to get to you links arms and the other girl will have to wait for another opportunity. The girl who has linked arms with you now says something about herself, such as, "my favorite color is yellow." Any girl with yellow then tried to link arms with her. The game continues until everyone has linked arms to form a chain. Tell the girls that this shows how you all are linked together now by common interests. They like it so much we played it twice!

Upcoming Events:

Since these Brownies will be "bridging" to Juniors this Spring, we have a couple things that we need to do in order to earn our "Junior wings". one of them is attending a local Daisy meeting to talk to them about what it's like to be a Brownie, and to share ideas between the troops. So we will be doing that later this month. We are also planning a meeting with a Junior troop to share the same kinds of ideas.

We also just turned in our cookie order forms and will be delivering them soon. We are also planning our cookie booth weekend. Since this will be our first ever cookie booth, I think our March meeting will be focused on that. So cookie business is keeping us busy outside of our meetings.

And some very good news to share is that the girls earned enough cookie money to earn a trip to the St Louis Magic House overnight camp-in! They are VERY excited about this!!