Mikaela's First Project!

Mikaela's first project was to create a habitat for an animal - any animal.

Her first choice was a dog - she has a new fascination with toy dogs (if only we could get her interested in the two live options in the bag yard - a little feeding, getting water, ....).

We asked that she choose an animal that she didn't know much about - so she chose a dolphin.

She painted her shoe box blue - for the ocean. She used moon sand to create the ocean floor, and seashells from Nana Barbara's house!

Then she hung plastic dolphins from the top of the box so they would look like they were swimming.

She had to give a presentation - complete with 3 facts. Her facts were:

Dolphins live in the ocean.
Dolphins eat fish.
Dolphins are mammals because they carry their babies in their tummies.

What one does, so must the other, so Xander chose to create a habitat for a parrot. He painted his box green. He put sand for a beach in the jungle. He glued rocks to the bottom of his box. He then hung a toy parrot in a tree in his box.

Daisys are.........Considerate and Caring

The next line of the girl scout law promises that our daisies will be considerate and caring. We began our meeting by working on a puzzle together as we are still working to learn to share and work together.

For considerate and caring -

we drew pictures of what it means to be caring (I drew one of my picking up crying babies.....)

we made thumbprint cards with ink to give to a friend at school (can you see all that ink on Xander's hand - what part of "make thumbprints" did he miss?)

we practiced being considerate as worked on having good telephone manners

Though my favorite line of the whole meeting came from my own child, who declared just minutes before we began "Mommy - without Xander we couldn't be daisys - a flower can't live without it's stem."

Thrailkill's First Sporting Event!

First, a HUGE Thank you to Daddy's friend Steve for sharing his hockey tickets with our family. It was great to see Steve, his wife Susie, and their two girls - Shelby and Kelsy.

The Thrailkill family's first sporting event.........Gwinnett Gladiator Hockey! The Gwinnett Gladiators played a special matinee hockey game on Martin Luther King Day. The announcers were even kind enough to remind the enthusiastic audience to watch their language as many kids were present.

Before the game we watched as the Zamboni prepared the ice for the game. Even more exciting was the blimp that circled overhead - complete with a camera. We could see the people on the HUGE Tvs!

We were only minutes in the game when we learned about the ever important time out box - Xander was fascinated (perhaps something he could relate to?). Two players threw off their gear and began to beat each other - while Daddy cheered on. After a little prompting Daddy remembered that we don't encourage fighting and the two players were carted off to time out - for a long time!

Normally a game that is tied in the last minute, goes into overtime, tied again, and ends in a close shoot out would be exciting - Unless at that point in the game your 5 year old is bouncing up and down on the foldable seat and your 3 year old is crawling on the floor.

All in all - A few nachos, a big pretzel or two, a $4 coke - some crayons and a soda holder - we made it through the whole game.

Happy Whole Hand Elizabeth!

We went to our first sleeping in party! We arrived early (early for others I suppose, those my children had been up for hours) on a Saturday morning in our pajamas - ready to party!

First, we laid out our sleeping bags and watched a little of Mulan while we waited for those not so early risers.

Then, we decorated a pillowcase using fabric markers - Mikaela drew a picture of her family and wrote her name.

Next, she got to squeeze her own orange juice - pretty cool!

We had muffins, fruit and Trix yogurt - definitely five year old party food fun. We sang happy birthday to Elizabeth, she opened presents, and the party ended with getting out toe nails painted.

Make New Friends......

Make new friends,
but keep the old
one is silver
and the other's gold

A circle's round
it has no end
that's how long
I'm going to be your friend!

If you can hum that as you read along, then you remember those glorious days of scouting!

Our troop met this week for the second time in the New Year!

We kicked off our meeting by making cards to give to a non-girl scout friend at school.

We are working on earning our friendly and helpful petal.

We then moved to our daisy circle to official begin our meeting.

We finished our collage from last week - gluing down the pictures we had cut out of people who were friendly or helpful.

We then made a helpful spider web graphic organizer - drawing pictures of all the things we could think of that were examples of being helpful.

We then read the Brownie story (okay so I changed a few words and made it the daisy story for our purposes). Each time we heard the word "helpful" we yelled "HELPFUL" and each time we heard the word "daisy" we yelled "THAT'S ME!"

http://www.angelfire.com/mi2/pud/browniestory.html

For those who haven't read it, it tells about secret daisies - creatures that come into your home and do secret helpful things for you.

We then made daisy note cards to leave behind as we strive this week to do secret helpful things for our friends and families!

This week we began our share bag - a canvas tote that goes home each week with one member of our troop. She is to color one thing on the outside (or add an embellishment) - and then bring something back the next week for show and tell.

We ended our meeting with our circle and friendship squeeze.

Bear Day

It's a bird, it's a plane - it's Super Teddy Bear!

Xand

It's Snowing, It's Snowing!

We are so excited that Xander experienced his first snow this week. We stepped out onto the front porch (in our clothes and house slippers) as the first flakes fell.

Within moments, the snow was falling in large sheets - and the kids took off for the front yard!

I grabbed some jackets, and mittens quickly -for fear it wouldn't last.

We spent a good half hour in the front yard before it got too dark enjoying the snow.

Xander loved to stick his tongue out and feel the cold flakes. Mikaela liked adventuring around the yard to find the frozen ice.

They both laughed and laughed - what a joy!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow - is always a day away!!!!!!

Mikaela and I kicked off the New Year with the beginning of our new tradition - "Fancy Day."

For our first "fancy day", we went to lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory and went to see Annie at the Fox Theatre - it doesn't get any fancier than that!

She spent all week agonizing over what to wear - nothing in her closet was fancy enough! We finally settled on a never worn before grey dress with velvet black bows - a velvet black headband - white tights and black dress shoes. She spent an hour packing her new Tinkerbell purse (which color coordinated of course) to take with us. One lipgloss (a fancy pink one), one hair brush, one mirror, and one hello kitty kleenex.

We woke Saturday morning, took girly bathes and got ready. I adorned my best jeans and a nice sweater. I was promptly informed that I was not fancy enough, and had to change into something more suitable!

Nana and Aunt Ashleigh picked us up - and we were off!

We had the pleasure of eating in the trolley at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Mikaela and Aunt Ashleigh played tic-tac-toe until our food came. She began with an appetizer of applesauce and warm bread (no butter) - lemonade to drink please. She ordered plain spaghetti - long noodles! For dessert, she chose vanilla ice cream. I won't bore you with all the calories that the rest of the table ate:).

We arrived at the Fox just in time to use the fancy bathrooms and freshen up. She immediately chose to sit in one of the vanities - and brushed her hair and applied fresh lip gloss!

She loved Annie! She smiled - giggled - and clapped in all the right places. She even sang along:).

At intermission we had popcorn, fruit snacks and an apple juice to munch on during the second half. She insisted that Aunt Ashleigh help herself to her kids' snack plate.

At the end, we bought a souvenir - a stuffed Fox to remind us of our venture. She named it "Olive" after Daddy Warbucks (Oliver).

And thus begins the tradition of fancy day!

Look Who's Student of the Month!

I am now the mother of a "student of the month" - bring on the bumper stickers!

Xander was chosen to be the student of the month for his class (Ms. Ginger's 3 Year Olds) for the month of December.

The character trait for the month of December was "Peace." Yes - apparently Xander exhibits "peace" at school.

Xander got a special award, a certificate for a free mini pizza from Papa Johns, a free kids meal at Chick Fil A, and car tag!

The Nana and I took him out to lunch to celebrate - to use his free kids meal pass. He told everyone at Chick Fil A - "This is my free kids meal - because I'm student of the month."

We even bought him an ice cream cone to celebrate!