Wii will make you cry

This video is from Christmas morning when the kids got to open the Santa gift. Samantha got the honors because she found the "Christmas pickle ornament" hiding in the tree.

Christmas card display

After reading Liza's idea for a card display I knew it would be a great way to display our cards. Above is a start to our card display. We now have more cards on the wall. If you are wondering what the yellow stars are all about you can refer back to this post. The card display really livens up the wall.

Merry Christmas

Tonight after dinner we have a tradition of letting the kids open the presents they got each other! They was fun. They also opened their present from G'ma (new pj's). The kids look so cute.

We took G'ma to look at a really neat light display set to music.

When we got back Andrew called Norad to find out where Santa was at and when he was arriving in Eugene, Oregon. He was told Santa would be here in an hour. All 3 kids rushed to bed. I wish it was that easy every night. :)

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve Dinner

Jay asked for prime rib for Christmas eve dinner. I have never made prime rib before so I searched on the internet for a recipe. I found this one. It took me forever to find kitchen bouquet since I had never heard of it and either had the grocery store helper. The prime rib did not turn out that great. I wish I could of made my special steak.

Here was our menu:

• Prime rib
• Twice baked potatoes
• Spicy Shrimp
• Apple Pie with flaky crust

Last Nativity Picture

This by far is my favorite part of the Live Nativity!

Merry Christmas!

More Live Nativity

Below are pictures we took as we walked around the church block remembering what Christmas is all about.

The Magi

Jesus as a young boy working with Joseph

Live Nativity

The other night we went to a Live Nativity that a church downtown does every year. It is so beautiful.

(The Angel telling Mary she is going to be the mother of Jesus)

Simpsons

While out shopping the other day we ran into the Simpsons. So, the girls stopped to take their pictures with them.

Christmas Cards

The kids made Christmas cards for the gymnastics's coaches. Maddie made the reindeer cards (she used her finger prints). They sure turned out cute.

Samantha made the snowman doing the pull-up (she made that card for Rosen). Andrew did the upside down snowman. The snowman is doing "giants" (that is where you circle around the high bar). Andrew made that snow for his coach Svetlio.
Yea, I made the boring one in the middle. :)

Christmas movie list

At the beginning of the month I posted about a new tradition we started this year. You can read about it here.

Our new tradition deals with Christmas movies and books. I thought I would list our Christmas movies we have accumulated:

1. A Charlie Brown Christmas
2. A Christmas Carol
3. Christmas with the Kranks
4. Deck the Halls
5. Elf
6. Garfield's Holiday Celebration
7. Home Alone
8. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
9. Jingle All the Way
10. Miracle on 34th Street
11. Narnia
12. The Polar Express
13. Santa Clause 2
14. The Star of Christmas
15. The Toy That Saved Christmas
16. The Very First Noel

Home Alone is a movie we haven't seen yet. I saw it as a kid but haven't watched it again. So, I don't remember if it is any good or not.

I was inspired to make this because of Veggiemomof2. She wrote about her Christmas movies. If you need more Christmas movie ideas check out her list on her blog.

WFMW- Watering a Poinsettia

I can't believe it is already time for Works-for-me-Wednesday. You can find other tips by clicking here.

To water a poinsettia and not "over water it" just place 2 or 3 ice cubes (depending on the size of your poinsettia) in the soil. It will slowly melt and not kill your poinsettia. Check the dirt every few days to see if feels dry. If so add an ice cube or two.

If you need a good way to water your Christmas tree....check out my last weeks post. You can click on the picture to see it better.

A follow-up to "Adopt-a-Grandparent"

I thought I should up date on what we did last Saturday.


I'm standing in the middle. So, this is in front of me and there are at least that many girls behind me.

A group photo after we had went door to door singing and handing out presents.

This morning I received an e-mail from the assisted living home:

Hello Amy,

Thank you so much for coming to our facility all of our residents really enjoyed the girls.

I have made a slide show and the girl scouts are in some of the pictures I was wondering if you would like a copy. Please send me your address if you would like a copy.

I would enjoy very much to work for you in any future projects you would like to have.

I think it is a great interaction between the elderly and the girls. I've never seen some of my residents light up and smile like they did. It was wonderful. I think you will see that in the slide show.

Please let me know.

Millions of thanks,

Daniel

Talk about Tuesday: Organizing shelves

I'm joining the blog carnival called Talk about Tuesday. If you want to see what others are "talking" about check it out here.

I'm going to talk about what I did this past weekend. I cleared these shelves and reorganized them. It was overwhelming at times and it forced me to make hard decisions on what to do with "extra" things I had.

Below are the final pictures. I wish I had been smart enough to take before pictures. To some of you it may look like I still need to organize the shelves and to others who have been to my house they will under stand how much work I've done.

Left side:
Top 2 shelves-> are my Girl Scout shelves. On the top shelf is my file bucket for scouts. It was a mess. 6 years of papers. I ended up filling the recycle bucket twice.
Then below that are the games. You might not be able to tell but I weeded out some "younger" kid games.


Right side:
Top shelf-> books (just general books)
2nd shelf-> home schooling books (manuals and text books)
Then there is a shelf of empty notebooks waiting to be used.
Then next is my "paper" shelf (computer paper and mailing stuff)
Bottom 2 shelves-> craft supplies

Blue box-> recycle bucket (2nd time filling it up)
Next box-> Goodwill
1st paper bag-> to sale homeschool boxes
Last paper bag-> to pass on to a friend

It felt good to clean up the shelves. One step at a time.

Weiner Whistles

While we were running errands the other day we saw the Weiner-mobile in a grocery store parking lot. Now, I've been listening to "weiner whistles". I finally threw away Andrew's weiner whistles because I got tired of telling him to stop blowing it in the van. A mom can only take so much weiner whistling while she is driving.

Our Gingerbread house

Earlier this month Samantha and I went to a Women's Night Out at our church. The women's ministry leader had prepared a bunch of gingerbread kits. We got to decorate gingerbread houses. Since Samantha worked with another little girl making a gingerbread house we decided to let her (the other little girl) take home the gingerbread house. The women's ministry leader gave Samantha a kit to take home to make another one.


Andrew and Maddie helped Samantha design this gingerbread house.


Here is a picture of the back of the gingerbread house.

Too much Christmas music

You know you are listening to too much Christmas music when the cat changes the channel.

Okay, Kuggles, our very old 14 year old cat that is a size of a kitten (about 6 pounds) comes into our bedroom and gets on the alarm clock and flips the music on. I will go into the bedroom and turn the music off and she'll get back on the radio/clock and turn it back on. It is funny.

Well, yesterday when I came into the bedroom she had turned on the "cd" part instead of the radio part. I guess she was tired of listening to Christmas tunes.

We've been listening to A LOT of Christmas music because we were playing a radio contest where you could win a $10,000 shopping spree for knowing the correct 10 digit numbers in order. So, I was constantly listening to the radio in the house and in the van. They got their winner the other night (I could never get through). Just for the record I would of won had I gotten through because I knew all 9 numbers and for the 10th digit I was going to guess 4 and the person who won guessed that and it was correct.

Today the house is quiet...no music going. I'm sick of Christmas music. I actually haven't been back in the bedroom to see if Kuggles switched on radio or cd.

Adopt-a-Grandparent

I'm a co-leader for our Service Unit (manage all the Girl Scout leader for our area). I organized a service project for our Service Unit. We are going into a low income assisted living home to sing Christmas carols and pass out boxes that the girls in the troops have filled with items that picked out to put in the shoe boxes.

Below are 4 boxes our troop is delivering. We got 2 couples (husband/wife).


Samantha did all the wrapping. The heart shaped packages are actually hearts (one is red feathered and the other is red sequence door decorations). We noticed at the assisted living that the residence like to decorate their doors.

I'm including the letter I gave to the leaders in case someone who reads this blog decides they want to take on a project like this....
December 15th: Adopt a Grandparent

Service Unit 610 will be visiting __________ to sing Christmas Carols, distribute gift boxes and spread some holiday cheer to the residents.

________ is a low-income residence located at__________. We will be meeting there at _______ on Saturday, December 15th. Parking is available in the front parking lot. Please try to arrive no later than _______ as we will be starting our caroling down the halls and passing out the gift boxes at that time.

We will distribute a total of 38 gift boxes. The Service Unit will be providing several items (pens, microwave popcorn, cookies, nuts, note pad, ornament, hot cocoa, and Kleenex) to include in your box at the November 1st meeting. It would be nice if each girl could add a few additional small gifts. Most residents at _________ are on fixed incomes and live on a tight budget.

Here are a few ideas for gift items your Scout may want to include:
notecards
(large print) word find/crossword puzzles
postage stamps
a nice pen
lotion
gloves
hand soap
a warm throw
books or magazines (large print where possible)
ornament

We also suggest that each Scout write a short note to the gift recipient. You can simply wish them a Happy Holiday season, or better yet, tell them a little about your school or Troop. You could even include a picture of yourself (please sign with your first name only).
We hope to make this an annual service project for Service Unit 610. Our hope is to make the residents at Grace Manor’s holidays a little brighter and a little less lonely. Thank you for helping to make this such a special event.
----------------------

I started organizing this project at the beginning of October. I had to have the starter kits ready for our Dec. 1st meeting. I got most of the stuff at Costco. The ornaments I got at the Dollar tree.

The assisted living director sent me a list of all their residents gender and their room number. He wouldn't give me their name. So, I got something that looked like this:

Room 1
female

Then the leaders will write the room number and gender on each box. So, it will make it easier when we go door to door passing out boxes.

I sure hopes this goes off as well as I have envisioned it in my head.

Samantha at the Basketball game

Lastnight Samantha and her dad went to the basketball game.

During half time she got to go on the floor.


She surprised our friend, Kaila

Samantha and Kaila

Samantha and the Duck cheerleaders

Watering your Christmas Tree- WFMW

This is my Works for Me Wednesday post. You can find other WFMW tips on Shannon's blog.

To water your Christmas tree without making a mess use a piece of pvc pipe and insert it into the water bowl (where you place the tree trunk).


Then use a pitcher of water to pour down the pvc pipe (like funnel). It is as simple as that...no mess!

A Box of Blessings

Here is a picture of all 3 girls infront of the church with the Pastor. They are talking about the project and how they need donations of food and money to be able to provide for these boxes. This was done back in October so the congregation could help by bringing canned food with them every Sunday when they come to church.

Bronze
More Bronze

More about Bronze

The last post I showed some pictures of the Bronze Project.

Here are some pictures of the decorated boxes before they are filled.



A side view.


Each girl (Samantha, Sami and Michelle) had to do atleast 15 hours on this project. Samantha ended up doing 19 hours on this project. Each girl had an area that they worked on and Samantha's was the boxes. She colored a lot of the pictures but had the help the from her "team mates" and her Girl Scout troop. They covered all 4 sides of each box with pictures. They colored 20 boxes.

We got some feed back about the boxes: one family was so surprised that the girls took the time to decorate the boxes that it touched them so much it made them cry.

The whole project was a huge success. The girls were able to brighten some families who may not of been able to afford a Thanksgiving meal. It was neat to watch the girls do this project.

Picasa only allows 4 pictures at a time. So, I'll search through my pictures if I find some more I'll post them.

Bronze Award

Samantha, Sami, and Michelle worked together as a team to earn their Bronze Award. The Bronze Award is the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can earn. They have to earn a bunch of other things before they can even begin to work on a Bronze project. These three girls have been working on their requirements for the last 2 years so they could start their project. Once they got all the requirements done then they came up with an idea and submitted it to the Girl Scout council for approval.

The girls named their project: A Box of Blessings. They did this project within the church. They collected food, decorated boxes, made a Thanksgiving recipe book, made center pieces, filled the boxes and delivered some of them on Sunday and Monday before Thanksgiving. This project provided food for families who may not have the budget for a Thanksgiving meal. The girls were able to provide meals for 11 families with Thanksgiving dinner.

Here is a picture of the girls shopping at the grocery store buying items for Thanksgiving that weren't donated.


Here is a picture of one of the boxes filled with all the stuff for a Thanksgiving meal.


Here is a picture of all the boxes at the church. These boxes are filled and waiting to be picked up or delivered.

Here is Samantha getting a box out of the back of my van to deliver to one of the houses. It was raining on the girls as they were trying to get the boxes to the front doors.