Neighborhood fun

There are some fun decorations in our neighborhood this year!

Annual Christmas Party

Grace had her annual Christmas party last night. We had the usual crew plus a new friend and Millie. I think they had a good time. I had to get yelly about bedtime and I was terribly mean about not letting them have a snack at 10:30 after a full dinner, cookies and s'mores.
They played outside a bit. They tried on all of Grace's costumes. They decorated cookies. We made s'mores successfully. They watched Elf. This morning we had pancakes and juice. Half of them came to church with us and half went home. It was stressful because Grace also didn't want to help clean the house to get ready for it. And she didn't want to help clean up her room that they trashed. But she's working quietly now and all is quiet on this rainy, cold day.

End of the year

I'm very, woefully behind, so I'm just going to put some Christmas pictures here. My new year's resolution is to actually document the sewing that I do. I have been sewing a lot and doing a lot and such, but Facebook has taken over my free time and that needs to stop. 

Grace's Minecraft video

Grace's video

Wilson Family 4 Podcast page

Here is our first podcast, where Laura and Grace talk about going back to school.

Girl Scout Campover

The campover satisfied the “Camping” badge. Our co-leader camps with her family, so she knew exactly what to do. She had it at her house. She made lists and assigned girls certain foods. I didn’t have to do much. I made a Kaper chart with patrols. There were 3 girls/patrol and they were either a puppy or a bunny or a kitten. I assigned certain tasks for certain patrols. It worked about as well as could be expected the first time. They still want to play instead of work. After they got there and got settled, we set up stations. There was a knife station, a knot-tying station and a station where we made sit-upons out of an old vinyl tablecloth. After we rotated through the stations, she took them outside to set up a tent, which was good for them. After that, we got stuff ready for dinner. We had roasted hot dogs. We had some set the table, some set up the fire, etc. It worked really well. We had a good campfire, then went inside and watched a movie. We lost 2 during the night – they couldn’t sleep. I don’t think we’re all ready for an overnight camping trip, but some of us are. So I have to figure out how to take the ones who are ready. In the morning, we had everyone peel and chop their potatoes, then we performed a flag ceremony. We practiced folding the flag with pillow cases. I used one of the patrols to do the It wasn’t perfect, but we did well. Then we ate and got ready to go. Success!

 

 

 

 

 

Now we are in cookie sales – a crazy, fun time of year. Grace is signed up for resident camp this summer, and she has the option of earning money toward that or getting junky prizes. She’s going to earn the money, or “cookie dough,” so I’m trying to make it a very successful cookie season for us.

Our local community has quarterly summits, which I’ve been going to. They are good – good information, good fellowship. There seems to be a good team in place and they are trying to bring in former leaders to mentor and take on new troops.

Girl scouts Christmas/Camping Skills Workshop

We used a Christmas event at Shangri La as our Christmas party this year, since we'd already planned a Halloween party and a ceremony. The girls invaded the nativity scene. We all saw Santa and were able to make ornaments. There is a Christmas tree trail decorated by local businesses that was fun to go through. My friend Joyce had an Elvis-inspired blue Christmas tree. It was nice to have all of the girls together.

 

A local junior troop put on a camping skills workshop for us. It was really well-done and sparked their desire to go camping. They learned how to be safe with matches, how to build a camp fire, how to wash dishes, how to pack lightly, first aid and how to make charcoal pizzas.

 

Girl Scouts

We’re doing Girl Scouts again this year. Grace is still a Brownie, but we have some girls who have moved up to Juniors, and I’m in charge of them. We went to the rallies held in our area and were able to recruit some girls for our troop, which was nice. Now we have 4 juniors and 5 brownies. The junior badges are more difficult to earn, which they should be, I guess. But just like in school, the girls are reluctant to work on their own or make their own decisions. They want to be told what to do, then they don’t listen.

One of the badges is “Independence.” It’s full of valuable information, but it’s stuff they have to do at home or with their parents. I told them to make a poster as they did the parts that show what they did. Hopefully that will be enough. There’s another on called “Practice with a Purpose,” again, filled with stuff I can’t do for them or with them. I’m not sure how to enforce that one. For some of them, they did a kid’s 1K over Thanksgiving. That works for me.

We’ve started pushing more of the decision-making and planning to the girls. Some of that is good, some is bad. I figured out a kaper chart, but it’s a work in progress. Some jobs require more than one person, and if you’re going to rotate instead of draw every month, that makes it difficult. I guess I’ll make a 1,2,3 spot for those jobs and move them between the spots. But then I’d have to make ANOTHER chart that would change as our troop changes. I’m still working it out.

So far this year, we’ve had our Halloween/Juliette Gordon Low birthday party, Investiture/Bridging/Rededication ceremony, an afternoon of learning camping skills from another troop, our Christmas party at Shangri La and a campover to learn some camping skills.

Ceremony

My fake campfire centerpiece

Grace and her friend Taylor

Halloween/JGL Birthday Party

Christmas Part IV

That weekend, we had my Big Mooney family Christmas at my aunt’s house. There were lots of people and lots of food. Grace got a blanket with her name on it and Millie got some toys and boxing gloves.

 The next few days were just playing with toys and preparing for the campover. Scott took Grace to see “Into the Woods,” which they both liked. After the campover, we went to my parents’ house and my sister came with her boys. They built a gingerbread train and played.

Sunday, my sister hosted her annual Friends and Kids Christmas. It was nice to have all of the kids able to play together.  

 

 

 

Christmas Part III

On Christmas Eve, Millie and I went to church, then my friend Joyce and her boyfriend came over and we exchanged presents. She gave us a family board game, which we played that night.  Christmas Day we went did our small family celebration, then went to Houston to celebrate with Scott’s family. The girls got a Frozen karaoke machine that they have enjoyed a lot. They actually got a lot of Frozen things – dolls, a castle, a microphone, shirts, etc.

Eye See It, Disney edition

 

Christmas Part II

We started the first week with nothing going on. We had 3 days of prep time, then we did our small family Christmas with my parents and sister.