Cookie Bonanza

Its been a little crazy around here the past week.  Our Girl Scout cookies came in and had to be picked up and distributed.  Did I mention the girls sold over 100 cases of cookies?  For a first timer with no training, and not having all the information at the beginning, this was a challange (still is...collecting money).  Hopefully at the end everything adds up...or is really close :)

This is troop 3217, making silly faces!

Besides all this, we had spring break and round of some kind of stomach flu.  My husband found out that he again will be coaching little league, and this year for the first time, soccer.  Busy spring and summer is coming!  The troop learned about being friendly and helpful at our last meeting.  We also did a spring/Easter project of planting daisy seeds in little clay pots, gluing on a little wooden daisy and using a pipe cleaner to make the flower pot look like a basket.  Still trying to find some neat games that we can play.

The yard cleanup has been going a bit slow due to really windy weather.  Everytime we clean up the leftover fall leaves, more blow over from the neighbors house (who might I add, did not rake any of their fall leaves...and we have tons of trees...grr)

But Maddox's planting project has sprouted Yay!

The Dollies are sent!

I sent my dollies today!  Don't worry I sent them priority mail so they will be there in 2 days.

Lexi Time!

My daughter is on spring break and the rest of us have been sick, so the poor girl is bored stiff!  We've been trying to come up with some projects she can do to fight off the boredom.  We got this idea from Stephanie Lynn who guest blogged on Someday Crafts (if you click on this link you can find a link to her blog).  Although our finished product was more of a child version.  We started with a baloon, a bowl, yarn cut into strips, elmers glue and water. 

Notice the really terrible line I made for her on the balloon.  That was her guideline :)

We then mixed a lot of elmers glue with water and soaked the yarn strips in the solution.  The next part got a little messy, we put the wet strips over the balloon letting them overlap.

Keep in mind you have to keep rotating the balloon because the wet yarn makes it heavy.

Oncw its covered well, let it sit overnight, then cut a small hole in the balloon and let it deflate slowly.

And the final product!

Tree Donation Update

I think I found a nursery that will donate 20 trees for the troop!  We do have to pay for shipping but that is not so bad.  Pretty sad that no local nurseries even responded to us and it took one in Oregon state to make a generous offer. So I want to give a big THANK YOU to Brooks Tree Farm on behalf of troop 3217!

Planting with Maddox

While my daughter was at school the other day, my son and I decided to plant some flower seeds.  Since it still gets cold (actually snowed the other day) we used egg cartons to plant the seeds so that we could bring them inside.  We are planning on moving the seedlings outside when they are big enough.

This is my cookie monster...in his favorite froggy boots

He was reading the seed packet he he

We chose Nasturtiums because they're bright and pretty and their leaves look like lilly pads...AND they are edible.  Some people enjoy them in their salads, my kids like to "drink their nectar"

Here is the happy gardener watering his crop!  I thought the spray bottle was a safer choice than a watering can which has been known to cause flooding :)

Need your help!

I know Easter is right around the corner, but so is one of my favorite days of the year...Earth Day!  This year it is April 22nd.   As you know I have a large Daisy troop and I would like them all to recieve a sapling to plant for Earth day.  I have been pricing these on various sites and the average is about $2-$3 a piece.  Since we are a new troop, we do not have the kind of funds to buy 20 of these.  I have been e-mailing companies about discounts or donations but would like to know if any of you know of any websites or tree farms in my area (Rockford, IL area) that could help us out.  I think the girls would be very excited to plant their own tree and it will be a great lesson for them about keeping our planet green!

Fireplace refresh...

Now that its warm enough to have windows open I decided it was time to tackle that old fireplace project.  The glass doors on my fireplace were rusty and whats worse, gold!  I hate gold.  So we took the doors off and I masked off both sides of the glass

I bought this fantastic heat resistant, matte finish, spray paint

I used this on the gold trim on the doors as well as the gold strip that was attached to the top of the fireplace (I couldn't take that part off to take it outside, hence the open windows)

Pay no atttention to the ashes in the fireplace, a thorough cleaning is to follow.

Alexis IL Show

My daughter had her Just For Kix Illinois show yesterday.  It was too cute and I can't believe this is the same girl that just two years ago ran off the stage crying! 

Sorry about the quality, for some reason when I upload to YouTube the quality gets bad.

With her friends...My friend's poor little one (in the pink) wiped out on concrete the other day and hurt her face, poor baby!!!

For little cuties

My friend is having a baby girl so I ordered her this adorable little beanie from Piggy's and Petals.  I wish my daughter was little again so she could wear one.  They come in a larger size also but she thinks she is too grown up for one! 

Sis, if you are reading this, sorry to spoil the surprise but I had to share it...it's just too cute!

Because baby chickens are so cute...

I was going through pictures from last summer and came across pictures from our chicken hatching experiment.  We bought baby chicks 2 years ago from an online hatchery, they were all supposed to be hens but they gave us one free "rare" (as they described it) chick...which turned out to be a rooster.  He is a beautiful Polish Golden Crested. 

 As the chicks grew up and started laying, last year we had a few hens go broody.  I let two sit on their eggs but we had no luck.  So I borrowed an incubator from a fellow chicken lover and we filled it with eggs from our flock of hens.  Three weeks later they started to hatch.

It was so exciting!  You could hear them peep before they even pecked a hole in the shell.  It took some of them a while to get out but we sat all day and watched through the top of the incubator.  My kids smothered them with love as soon as they were dry and could come out.

Too bad they don't look this cute for long! 

What's this??

Daisies and Hospitals

It was a crazy day.  I should have known this morning when I left my bag of items I bought at the cash register and had to drive all the way back to the store...(I live out of town)  I won't bore you with all the details of all the small craziness that went on, but today was our first Girl Scout meeting.  It started of a bit chaotic since we have such a large group of girls (16 today, at least one more next time)  but I think everything went well.  The girls were excited and wound up, and their attention spans were comparable to that of a small animal....(take your pick)  but they seemed to love our meeting and were so excited about being in Girl Scouts.  I had a blast, I love the fact that I get to do this with my daughter, who is growing up way too fast.  I think next time will go smoother since the parents had to hang around tonight to fill out paperwork.  Right before I went to the meeting I got a call from my father telling me my mother was being transported to the hospital in an ambulance from the Middle School, where my youngest brother was competing in a speech meet.  She ended up being fine but I was worried all night not knowing what was going on.  Since my parents were in the hospital and my husband was an hour away at his union meeting, my 15 year old brother ended up watching my son.  My 2 year old son was recently potty trained and is doing great.  I had no worries about accidents (well maybe a small worry since I packed him a change of clothes), well he had one and it was number two.  My poor brother has never changed a diaper in his life...but he did it, he cleaned up Maddox and changed his clothes and they were fine.  Oh and by the way my youngest brother won his speech meet!  Good job Adam!!

These are the bracelets we made in our meeting tonight.  Each color stands for part of

the Girl Scout Law

Just wanted to share

Before winter leaves for good (and I'm happy to report it looks like its leaving for good this time)  I wanted to share a few photos of our winter scenery.

This old beauty is near my home...my mother actually told me about it

This picture is my husbands handy work...a foggy day looking at the fields behind our home

Something about the way this building and tree lean...I love it

Don't get me wrong I am ready for flowers and grass, just wanted to give winter its last hoorah on here.

Commitment issues

I know I keep changing the look of my blog, but I am having real commitment issues with my layout....just bear with me :)

Lovely Friday

Things have been a bit crazy on my end this week and I haven't had much time to myself (imagine that).  Started out with my daughter being sick....then me....now my son...woo hoo!  Besides that I got my list of girls for my new Girl Scout Daisy troop (funny story).  We started out with 12 girls, who's moms I called to inform of the meeting, one asked if her daughter's cousin could come "sure" I said.  The following day I got a call from the council saying the other troop that was going to start no longer has a leader and they wanted us (me and my friend who is a co-leader) to consider taking on these other 13 girls.  Hmmm....ok...we know some of them probably won't be able to make our meetings but wow if they all do that is 26 girls.  We said ok, as long as we could have another co-leader.  Well then I got another call and had another girl added so now we are up to 27 girls.  This could be a disaster in the making, hopefully we made the right choice.  I'm a bit nervous about this, now I'm going to have 27 moms judging me as a leader which is waaay more than I expected.  I must say that I think I have prepared myself pretty well so far and feel ok about Tuesday.  Until then keep your fingers crossed and say a little prayer, cause I am going to need it!  P. S. I think today's high is near 50 degrees....enough said :)

Julie's Hat

A little while ago I came across a website that has patterns for clothing for American Girl Dolls.  The site is called AG Playthings  (here is a direct link to the patterns http://www.agplaythings.com/AG%20Patterns/DollDressPatterns.html) The patterns are for the clothes of the original six historical dolls and are no longer sold by American Girl.  On this site you can download the patterns and print them out.  The download takes a couple of minutes so be patient.  If your daughter is into American Girls (as mine is right now) or any other 18 inch dolls then these patterns are a must have.  I thought I would start with something simple so I chose the rain hat in the Molly patterns.  I know its kind of cheating since the hat is pretty simple, but I thought the pattern would make an adorable sun hat rather than a rain hat.  Here is the finished product.

Now I think I might try something more difficult :)