Halloween Parade

We participated in two Halloween Parades this year and the costumes came out wonderfully. I had to do a bit of the work myself because I canceled a meeting due to family issues. Each box had a picture of the girls doing something at a Girl Scout function.

The first parade was at night, and I don't have any pictures of them! We bought 30 dollars in candy and would you believe that they threw out all that candy in about 2 blocks. And we had about 10 blocks left to walk.

A little girls brother and my son held the banner. I love when the brothers help out.

And the girls walked great. It was a bit chilly and it was a bit of walking, but there was not a complaint among them. I just love these girls!

We did not win or place in this parade, but that was OK as long as they had a good time.

Then we did a parade in our home town on Saturday morning. The weather was fabulous and the girls were in such a good mood. They stayed together and walked so well.

At the end of the parade, they stood before the judges and rocked the Promise in sign language.

We ended up winning first place inn the group category!

We are hoping that they won enough to help them go to a reptile zoo.

Happy Birthday Juliette!

Our meeting on Tuesday was a throw back meeting. We wanted a way to celebrate our founders birthday. I decided to have the girls make butter and I would bake a loaf of bread. After all, what is better than hot bread and melty butter?

I made butter once with my own kids before and it is fairly simple. It does take a while, especially with the little ones shaking, but when it goes from cream to butter the kids get a kick out of that.

I started the bread at home and was planning on bringing the dough into the meeting place.

Then the temperature outside dropped.

Now I was worried that by taking the bread outside in the cold air, it would flatten the dough.
I heated up my car and made the transfer from the house to the car as fast as possible. I left the dough right on top of the vents in the dash board. But it didn't work. However it smelled awesome and the girls loved it.

To make the butter I bought heavy whipping cream and I brought with me some small ziploc containers. I filled 3 containers about half way full, snapped the lids on and handed them to the girls. I have 5 girls that night and I figured that with 3 containers, once they pass it around, every now and then the girls arms will get a break.

While they shook the containers, I read the Brownie story out of the big brown book. The week earlier, we asked the girls to tell the new scouts the Brownie story. Now I wanted to read it to them. It is amazing to me how these little things make such an impression on them and that they remember them.

It took about 5 minutes before the first container became butter. That made the girls so excited and all of a sudden they no longer had tired arms and they were shaking like crazy. Just about the time when the butter was done, the bread was done as well.

The smell was amazing!!

The girls could not wait to put that butter on the bread. They were so proud of themselves.

Even with the flat bread!

The Meeting that Wasn't

I don't know if it is just my council or if it is a common problem, but reps just don't make meetings!

Yesterday my co-leader was supposed to meet with our council rep for her adult training. She gets to McDonalds at 5:15 because she had her daughter and figures that they would get dinner. She was supposed to meet the rep at 5:30.

5:45 I get a text saying that the rep is not here yet, WTH!

I know that the rep knows that she is supposed to be there because I sent her an email earlier in the day with a troop roster and to let her know the Miss B is going to have a new girl registration and check. She acknowledged that she would see B there.

And I know that Miss B is getting angrier with every passing minute.

5:55 she sends me a text saying she is leaving, and quiet frankly, I don't blame her.

Ten minutes later my phone is ringing.

Our rep called her and asked if she was running late. Miss B said she had sat there for 45 minutes before she left and that she was not coming back.

And really you can not expect a child to sit for 45 minutes and then go back and sit longer. Even the best kid will have trouble with that.

Turns out that the Rep was sitting there the whole time. Unfortunately Miss B had never met the rep before. And I guess the rep didn't know what she looked like either. 

Miss B offers to do it again next week and is told that it would be the 24th before the rep can come back and do the training.

BUT this is not the first time that this has happened!

Once with a different rep, my co-leader of the time and I sat for an hour waiting for a rep to meet with us. We called her several times, sent text messages and did not hear anything from her until the next day when she said that she had forgotten about us.

It is absolutely frustrating. These are supposed to be the PAID people who are there to help you and they can't be bothered to make a meeting or a phone call or even get up from her seat and walk around looking for someone.

As is becoming my mantra, "Thank god the girls are awesome!"

Halloween Prep

The last two year we have been in the local Halloween parade. For us it is a way to celebrate scouting and JGL at the same time. When we started scouting there was no real presence in the community. It has since grown to several different troops for the same age group and a definitely a bigger presence.

The first year the girls were still Daisies and we went as the Flowers from the journey. Each girl made a face mask and we marched behind the Brownie troop.

Last year we wanted to do something a bit more. My co-leader of the time and myself came up with the idea that the girls would dress up as something the represents the badges they were working on. They would then make a sign to carry that has their badge on it. We won second place in the group category.

My daughter as Billy the Exterminator for the bugs badge.

This year we wanted to do something better. We had originally thought of doing a float, but that is a big no-no and a lot of work!

We settled on the girls being boxes of cookies and when they are in front of the judges, they will do the Promise in ASL.

Last night we started on the costumes. We have 6 girls now in the troop. (Yay, we added one officially last night. She tagged along for the hike.) We are going with these cookies, Samoa, Tagalongs, Thin Mints, Dosidos, Savannah Smiles and Trefoils.

Did you know that trefoils are nut free and produced on equipment that is nut free. Making it perfect for those with nut allergies. I have a little girl in the troop with an allergy and we are making her the Trefoil. Plus as a mom of a kid with food allergies, it is so nice that there is something that an allergy kid can have without worry.

The colors of these boxes are pretty straight forward. Purple, red, green, orange, yellow and blue. I bought the big bottle of acrylic paints for the girls to use and sponge brushes.

We only meet for an hour, which translates to about 30 minutes of work time. Some of the girls got 2 coats of paint on their boxes, and some girls used a whole bottle of paint and only did one coat. But that is what you have with young girls.

After they painted the girls had to wash their brushes out and clean up. This is where stress for me and my co-leader, Miss B, came in. There was no way that I could put 6 wet freshly painted boxes in my car and neither could she. We needed a place to store them at our church. She found a spot, kind of out of the way, and we layer garbage bags down and then proceeded to transfer wet boxes to the bags. Needless to say that we got covered in paint. I get stressed out at the end of scout meetings because I have to leave right away. My husband works third shift and we have one car right now. I need to be back in time for him to leave. As I am seeing the mess, I am starting to worry about getting out of there in time.

But then, like always, I get shown how my girls are truly amazing. Two cleaned the kitchen, where they were washing brushes, two scrubbed the tables clean, one gathered the garbage and then they worked together to clean the floor. I was so happy that these girls took the initiative to "leave a place better than we found it". I did not have to ask them to do it. They knew that we were done with the project and it was time to clean.

That is what scouting is all about.

Today my co-leader is meeting with our council rep to have her adult training done. Here is the problem with that statement.
1. She has been a volunteer for 2 full years.
2. She has been in some form of leadership for those 2 years.
3. It was done before.
So I guess my problem or complaint is two fold. First, if it wasn't done before this point then someone wasn't doing their job for 2 years. Her back ground check was done, so her training should have been done then. And Second, I know it was done because the rep before this came to our meeting (2nd year Daisy) and did the training for all the volunteer parents. Why wasn't it put into the system?

We have been working with this rep for over a year. She has never once been at a meeting. She doesn't come to our mini service unit meetings. We have no support at recruitment events unless the council sets them up. When we have our sign up nights, they are not there. We have no support at all from this woman. It is so frustrating.

 I am hoping her meeting goes well. My co-leader is a bit more outspoken than I am, and has no problem speaking her mind. It will be interesting to hear how it goes.

Hiker Badge

We had so much fun! We went to Rickets Glenn State Park in North Eastern Pennsylvania. It was quite a drive for us. I did not realize how far it actually was. We set out for the hike in a caravan. However every little town that we went through seemed to be having their fall festivals or fireman's boot drives. So not only was it a long drive, but now it was long with traffic. I do not think kids at any age a patient in traffic.

We headed to the visitors center and picked up trail maps. Then parked the cars and regrouped at the picnic area. We then proceed to make trail mix. The girls each brought an ingredient. Ours consisted of pretzels, goldfish crackers, honey roasted peanuts, raisins, and honey nut Cheerios. They all got to pour in their ingredients and then shake the bag.

We then looked at the trail map and came up with a game plan. We also laid out some ground rules with the girls. No running was a big one. Get girls in the fresh air and they almost always want to run.

We got to the first part of the trail and they had a big rule sign and trail map. This was a perfect chance to go over the park rules (not just our troop rules) and for them all to see on a big scale where we were going and what we were going to see. We also went over trail markings and what we should do if we got lost in the woods.

We walked for about a mile and all of a sudden the terrain changes. These trails are marked as mostly difficult and they were. The park starts off at a high elevation and you walk down hill to the falls.

The girls were dying to get into their trail mix and we agreed that they could break into it at the first fall. The girls walked great and then spotted a mini-fall and enjoyed their snack. This is the first time that most off these girls were seeing waterfalls in person. This one was about 5 feet tall.

After our snack we continued on. They found lots of wild life and bugs including this white caterpillar. The girls said that he was poisonous, but I am not sure on that.

At this point, I am thinking wow these trails really are tough. I am not in shape at all. We turn a bend, the sound of water gets louder and then another steep incline followed by stairs.

And the reason why I now refer to the first fall as a mini.

We continued walking along the path and saw three more huge falls. My co-leader got to the next set of steep stairs and we agreed, it was time to head back up.

We originally wanted to walk only about an hour and it turns out we walked about 3 and a half hours. The girls were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Not one complaint from them. Me, I was beat and at the point of whining, but these third grade girl had no issues. They just kept walking. At one point, they even broke out into song.

At the end of the day 3 girls earned their hiker badge and all 5 had a great time. (2 already had the badge.)

My daughter and her friend were asleep in the car before we were 20 minutes into the drive home!

Getting ready to hike!

After over a year from when this idea first came to mind, we are going on a hike. We picked a state park with waterfalls. I am so excited. I went there when I was in 6th grade and still remember the good time I had. I also went with an adult friend about 3 years ago. I am hoping the girls are prepared to hike, because it is not easy. Sometimes we "hike" and it is more like a walk. This is an actual hike.

We are making trail mix and planning the route when we get there. I will share pictures when we get back.

Brownie Potter badge- Part 1

We are working with the supplemental badge skills booklets in our troop right now. The potter's badge we worked on for two weeks. And like any current troop leader, when I need an idea I get on Pinterest.

I got an idea while I was looking for things for camp. The idea was to take polymer clay and to wrap a fork and spoon with it. This will give them awesome utensils for their mess kits.

I decided that we should do a pinch pot kind of fork and a coil wrap for the spoons. This covers two kinds of potter. Our school art teacher is huge on clay and pottery and I knew that they have already made a few tea cups. I have a whole shelf of pottery from both kids.

We used oven baked clay that I picked up from Walmart. I got like the big sampler pack that had several glow in the dark colors. I knew that would go over big with the girls plus there were sparkly and glittery ones too.

I gave the girls two choices of colors and they first made the pinch fork and then made huge "snakes" of clay to do the coils. We were able to finish them up and bake them in the hour before the parents came. This gave the girls something to take home with them and to show their parents. I think that too often, we do things and they have to wait a week to take them home. Then they forget all about it by the time that they pick them up the next week. I have a closet full of projects that kids forgot all about.

We carved their names in them or their initials.  We were able to use these at camp and they were a hit.

The next thing that we did was make beads. We used the same clay and I once again let the girls pick two colors. They made them into balls first and then we flattened them out a bit. We took these rhinestone charms and pushed them in. Then poked holes through the top centers. These needed to be baked longer and had to go home with me.

This night was a success and every one went home with a smile.

This is the original website that I got the idea from. Guidershine

Community Camping weekend

I am not sure I like the new buzz word of community instead of service unit. Especially when our community is very big and not at all friendly with each other. Our service unit was combined with another service unit last summer. The first meeting that was held with the large group, we were referred to as "the other group" and were not given a voice. Our representatives left feeling like we were the red headed step children.

Since then we have functioned as two units under one name. Cookies and fall products are split, we hold our own meetings. We don't go down there or participate in their activities and they do not come up here.

Yay! Communities!

Anyway... where was I?

Camping. lol  We held our first community camping weekend. It was supposed to be a re- dedication camp. My daughter Lex and I love to camp together. A weekend without boys, doing things that they don't believe we would ever do.

We were the first ones at camp. I took her and her friend out of school early so that they got the most out of the weekend. We found our cabin and wiped down the beds and swept out the cabin. For sites that are supposed to be cleaned out every time someone stays in them, they sure are gross. We found a towel and a pair of socks. Some where someone is NOT doing their job.

The girls and I then walked around the camp. They were so happy to be there. We found beaver evidence and tracks. Pretty flowers and plants.

We started the fire and waited for everyone else to get there. They giggled around the camp fire, ate hot dogs and then we hiked back to our cabin. We were actually a bit away from the group fire ring and it was getting dark. You don't want to be walking in the woods, in the dark, with two young girls.

We had 4 bunks in our cabin, with only 4 people. I thought for sure that the girls would love to sleep on the top. For some reason they could not figure out how to get out of the beds. It was actually something that was hysterical to watch. I am a firm believer in allowing them to try to figure it out with out rushing to help. But after about 5 minutes of them acting like turtles on their backs, we rescued them and they decided to sleep on the bottom beds. 

The next morning was a bit rough, but what morning at camp isn't. Our camp leader tried. I will give her that. Something just went wrong between plan and execution. Breakfast took twice as long as it was supposed to. What was disappointing was leaders who were making sure that their own kids were fed and even giving them seconds, before other girls had even eaten. I walked away with out eating and went to the archery range to set up with another leader for the day. We had both been certified two weekends before.

We had a steady stream of girls all day. They love archery. That is not something that I thought girls would. Every girl tried, and some did not want to leave.

We had a bagged lunch and after 5 groups of girls, we headed back to the group ring and started on dinner.

And then I saw the most appalling thing ever at a girl scout function.  A woman who is a leader of a troop, lost in on her child. I want to preface this with, I can not tell you how to raise your children. If you think spanking is ok, then go ahead. I do not spank my children.

Back to this woman. She grabbed her child by the back of her jacket, dragged her to a log and slammed her down on it. Then proceeded to scream at this girl.

As soon as it happened, my daughter and her friend had this look of terror on their faces. I had a rough child hood with physical violence and I can not handle seeing the same thing happen to other children.

We packed up our chairs and mess kits and left the group ring. My co-leader went over to talk to the camp host. I do not know what the outcome was personally from hearing it myself, as I was walking the girls back and explaining why we were leaving to them. From what I gather, the host asked in my co-leader thought something should be said.

YES!!! This is a woman who is in charge of other children. Of course something needs to be said. Regardless of how you discipline your children, you do not do that in front of others. If you need to use physical punishment on your child, walk away from the group. Do not scare a group of children by putting your hands on someone. Blah!

The girls though, understood and were happy to be going back to the cabins and to have a fire of their own. I was a little upset that they would not be part of the ceremony, but since my whole troop was not at camp, we would have to do one anyway. So they will still get their rededication.

We got a great fire going. Let me tell you, a year ago I went to Outdoor Skills Training and I could not get a fire started. I ended up using so many matches that when the fire finally did start, it was the matches that caught fire.  I learned that a long cabin fire produces super hot coals, perfect for smores! And that is what we did. The girls gathered wood. They are so different, but hard working. My daughter brought over a downed tree and her friend brought tiny pieces. One was good from starting the fire and the other was good to keep it going.

We were sitting for an hour when the others from our camp site came up. Turns out, that the host has decided to not do the ceremony, but sent mountain pie makers and ingredients up with them. Now the party can start. They sang songs and made mountain pies. It was a good end to the day.

In the morning we cleaned up and left early.

We had a great weekend and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Next time, I would like more of my troop to go!

10/1/13- 2nd half of Potter badge

My troop of 5 is currently in our second year of Brownies. The troop goal is to earn every badge that is offered in the Big Book. That means we have about 18 badges and 2 pins two earn this year, plus to journeys. It is almost enough to make my eye's twitch constantly.

At our meeting on Tuesday, we finished up work on our Potter badge. I am trying to separate the badges and do them in 2 weeks each.

The plan was for them to finish their beads, that we made out of oven bake clay. Then we were going to paint some plaster pumpkins and go for a short walk to find some pottery in the area.

But seldom do my plans actually happen the way that I want them too.

I started off by heading to Micheal's craft store. I knew from earlier in the summer that they had a whole section of plaster designs to paint, my daughter had picked out a owl and a gnome. I thought that they were bound to have some fall plaster items, after all it was just barely October. My co-leader had mentioned that she would like to paint pumpkins, and because we are working well together, I suggested plaster pumpkins.

I get to the store and they have nothing!

Ok not nothing, but the only option was ten dollar skull, which I a) didn't have enough money to purchase one for each girl  and b) didn't think skulls were appropriate.

I send a frantic message to my co-leader, what do we do??

The small things that they do have is tree ornaments and snow men. We were not doing snow men in October.

After a half hour searching, I went with plaque ornaments.

Next up, we needed to turn the clay beads into key chains. This is totally out of my comfort zone. I can sew, crochet, decorate a cake, hot glue like a crazy person and draw, but jewelry not so much.

Wow, let me just say that there are millions of little things in those two jewelry making aisles. I picked up what I thought were rings that could be opened slip a bead through and clamp shut. I think they are called jump rings. Don't quote me on that. :) And I picked up big split ring key chains.

(On a side note, why is Micheal's the only place that does not have automated checks? I had to write out the whole thing. Which is a PITA when they only have one register open and there is a long line of crafty women behind you. Makes me feel guilty for not swiping my personal debit card.)

I get home. Start making dinner. Kids come home and all hell breaks loose. I have a 3rd grader and a 6th grader. 3:30pm is like a mad house.I get homework signed, lunch boxes emptied and snack in the kids, I sit down to see how the beads will work tonight.

I have that pre-crafting high. When you see in your mind how it will turn out and the crafting angels are singing a choir of praise and you think, this is going to be pinterest worthy. 

I set everything out and realize, I bought the wrong thing! I wanted the jump rings and what I got was mini split rings! Oh no! There is no way these beads were going to work with mini split rings.

Time to run to Walmart.

Fast forward to meeting time! Surprisingly everything went well. We practiced the Promise in sign language, and then we started to work on our plaques. The girls are super creative. Some just used the colors to make patterns and others made shapes, like hearts. I love seeing what they come up with. Then we worked on the beads and key chains. They were seeing the end product for the first time.

Given how the day started, I was so pleased with the result.

Next up, Saturday we are going on a hike to a local state park with waterfalls to earn our Hiker's badge.

Hello!

Hello out there. I am a Girl Scout leader. I have been some kind of  leader for 3 years now (assistant and now head) and I am just starting on my fourth year. I started my daughter in scouts when she was in kindergarten as a Daisy. We had been looking forward to it for a while, because our school district had a pre-k program. We had seen other girls who were scouts and she knew she wanted to join.
I remember the day that we signed up. In a dingy library basement. There were so many red flags that day that I just ignored because my little one had a gleam in her eye. "I am going to be a Daisy!" she said all excited. I should have packed her up right then and there and ran but I didn't. I stayed and signed her up and did the silliest thing I could think of.... I signed myself up as well.
I started off by telling the leader, sure I will volunteer, but I want as little responsibility as possible. I watched her and the girls struggle and I jumped in. Looking back, I probably over stepped my boundaries. Eventually I lead a meeting and I have done it every Tuesday since then.
This has been a journey and a learning experience that I would like to share with other crazy scout moms out there. And really it would just be nice to know that I am not the only one out there feeling these things.  I found that my community of local Girl Scout troops to be lacking, our council to be unhelpful and I scratch my head thinking, this is not what scouting is about.
It is not all bad though. I love my girls. I have a few who I think will be life long scouts. I love camping and showing them new things. If it were not for these little smiling faces every week, I think I would have lost my mind 3 years ago!