Happy Holidays everyone!
I hope y'all are managing to stay sane during this festive season! How many of you send holiday greeting cards?
We do!
Except, it is not your typical family portrait with everyone all dressed up and coordinating.
Girl Scout Promise Christmas Ornament
Try our fun Girl Scout Christmas ornament that teaches or reinforces the Girl Scout Law!!
The Best Gift for the Baking Girl Scout!
Have you seen it yet? We nearly lost it when we saw it in Target.
It's the new Girl Scouts Easy Bake Oven!
For all of your mini chefs or bakers out there this has to be the perfect gift. When I was little I had my own easy bake oven and it was so much fun. I'm mean, really, who did have one?
Pink Dino Party Printables!
Hi Ladies!
Today I'm really excited to share with you my latest party I have been planning. Ryleigh turns 4 and her party is next week. She has been in love with dinosaurs lately so I just had to use this as the theme. Here is the preview and a printable for you, including fill in invitations, dinosaur adoption certificate printable, and A7 envelope inserts!
I hope you enjoy!
----->>>>Download Dino Party Printables here!<<<<----
I hope you enjoy and check back for some more pictures of the final party!
For more ideas for throwing a Pink and Orange Dino Party check below....
Girl Scout Postcard activity and free template!
I recently created this postcard for our Girl Scout activity to go along with the 3 Cheers for Animals Daisy journey and Zinni's story!
The girls can draw a picture on either side and write a little note if they wish! This is a great idea to also use around the holidays or Valentines day if the girls want to send out love bug notes or holiday wishes. This would be fun to send to the troops overseas as well!
A natural tick and lice deterrent and tips on lice prevention... eek!
It seems that there has been an outbreak of these little buggers in the general Chicago area, including my daughter's school! Last year alone we had several letters sent home... you know the one I'm talking about.... Want to inform you that there has been a reported case of lice in your child's classroom....
Well.... this year we were not able to escape it! She got lice... yuck!!
Let me start off by explaining some of the misconceptions about lice....
People who get lice are dirty: Um, no. It does NOT mean that you are dirty or unwashed... In fact, you could wash your hair a million times and these suckers would still thrive, because they can hold their breath for hours on end!
Pets carry lice: FALSE! I blamed it on the dog too until I found this out.
I'm not itchy, I must not have it: Just because you don't itch doesn't mean you don't have them.
It can be cured with over the counter shampoo: hahahaha that's an ugly lie. If you think you just need to rinse with this shampoo and your done, you need to think again. SOMETIMES this method works but if you are solely hoping for a miracle in this method you will be grossly disappointed.
Suffocate them with oil: We tried this with olive oil and a shower cap. Slept in it overnight and kept it in for a good 12 hours. I stained my pillows and my face broke out but the lice were still there.
Now let me give you the reality...
These creatures on non discriminators, they just want to populate
It's so gross
It's such a pain in the butt
You wouldn't wish this upon your evil nemesis.
Really, it's just bugs in your hair. They don't present any real threat or spread any diseases, just the concept is enough to make your skin crawl, literally.
You need to report it!! People get so ashamed and they want to hid it and the reality is, what if you did spread it? Some poor soul might now be walking around (not necessarily itching) and carry it. Now YOU are more likely to catch it, again! Serves you right if you aren't reporting it! LOL kidding! You're also doing parents a favor of not having that kid spread it to the entire family, because that is a nightmare! With lice, sharing is caring only when it comes to information, NOT HATS!
It takes time and patience to get rid of these pests. It takes a very good eye and a nit comb to successfully get them out.
That means picking each and every last one out by hand.
DAY after DAY for about a week. And then doing the process all over again just to be safe because I'm OCD about it. We did use the over the counter shampoo to at least demobilize the live bugs while we picked them out but it certainly didn't kill them all and it's reported that they have now become more resistant to the shampoo.
The first initial comb out took 5 hours per child. Get the coloring books and iPad ready. You can use hair gel or conditioner to help run the comb through so the nits come out. I mixed together coconut conditioner, peppermint oil, and tea tree oil. Tea Tree Oil acts as a repellent. Apply it to the scalp and then section off the head with bobby pins or clips. Sectioning off the head is very helpful!
Use gloves while working with conditioner or gel. Wipe your comb after EVERY run through. Remember, I said this was a pain in the butt! It's also very tedious.
Once you have gone through the entire head of hair, manually go through each section again and REALLY inspect. You will find more...promise ;).
Then give it a good shampoo and blow dry hair. It's said that heat can kill the nits. Once you have dried the hair, get into a good area where light is bright ( outside in the sun is best) and look through that head AGAIN. Pull those nits out.
The days following, make sure to check for more nits. I went through their hair twice a day and found a few stragglers. If you notices just a couple here and there you probably just missed a few in the first comb out. If you start to notice more nits then you might have missed a live bugger, which is why you will repeat the process in 8-10 days.
Don't forget to wash all jackets and bedding in hot hot water. They say a good vacuuming and housecleaning will do the trick with the rest of the house. I would recommend replacing your brush and bagging up any hair accessories for 2 weeks. Store away any stuffed animals as well and spray the back of car seats (bet you didn't think of that one).
Overall, lice won't invest a house. They need human blood to survive so they won't be hangin out anywhere else unless they happen to fall out and will shortly die after.
Nitpicker will have a new meaning to you!
Ways to prevent them from infesting or coming back...
1) Use a Tea Tree Tonic solution (also deters ticks!)
- 1 oz of Witch Hazel (can replace with another 1 oz of water)
- 1 oz of water
- 12 drops of Tea Tree Oil
- 4 drops of Peppermint oil
- 4 drops of Rosemary oil
- 4 drops of lavender oil
2) Use preventative shampoo
3) Braid long hair
4) Educate your kids on not sharing hats, scarves, hair accessories, jackets, and Girl Scouts vests!
I wish you good luck and I hope that you never ever have to experience in your household. Tree Tree is an effective repellent to discourage those nesters from taking up a home in your child's head. It also helps with ticks, too. So if you are going for a hike or CAMPING, spray some of the tea tree tonic on before you go out!
The Unlikely List of Mommy/Daughter Dates
Well... Let's just get right to it!
Rock climbing
Classic Cars or Hot Rod night or construct one yourself!
Water sports- if the weather is right, get out on the water! Rent some jet skis and have a go at it!
Auto maintenance: Learn how to change the oil on your car together or teach her if you already know
Self defense class
Shooting range or Archery lesson
Hiking or cave exploring... okay maybe you have heard this one a million times but I LOVE IT. It's probably the best idea out there because it's cheap, it's not structured and you get the opportunity to discover new things all while in the great outdoors. Kids really do love and enjoy being outside and letting loose.
Mommy Daughter Camping. Check out your local Girl Scouts council if you are not a Girl Scout already. You still can camp there and in my opinion it's generally safer.
Geocaching
Take her to a game: baseball game, basketball game, hockey game....
Build something! Pinterest has an endless supply of DIY ideas. I especially love the plumbing pipe diy
Volunteer because making the world a better place is something we should all strive to do but most importantly a lesson to teach our daughters.
Daisy Flower Garden Journey: Garden Party!!!
Wow! We've finally made it to the end of our Daisy Flower Garden Journey! We've had so much fun along the way and be sure to check out our previous sessions here:
Session Five and Take Action Project
Here are some of the highlights from this journey!
- Planted our seedlings in our individual terra cotta pots!
- Learned all about our plant helpers while crafting bee pins, painting our river rocks to create ladybugs, tissue butterflies!
- Created a worm composting bin!
What I would like to add the next time around..
Visit a community garden or plant nursery
Plant a community garden
- Grow ladybugs or butterflies
And now for the GARDEN Party and our year end Court of Awards ceremony!
I made these cute little "cups of dirt" with gummy works to keep with the gardening theme. I took dollar store silk flowers and hot glued them onto the green spoons to make them look like floral stems! The cups of dirt are chocolate pudding and crumbled Oreo cookies.
Court of Awards Ceremony!
This was the first time we had a Court of Awards. In the past the badges were presented to the girls at the end of the meeting but I had saved the last couple badges for this event. I knew I wanted to keep it simple and quick and make sure the girls had some time to partay and play!
The ceremony was held outside in my backyard. It was a beautiful day, despite the wind. Luckily, I have a large 2 tiered deck that was perfect for a ceremony stage! I knew THAT deck would come in handy when we bought the house less than 2 years ago.
Both the co-leader and I got up and said a few things about the year and the girls. I explained the Journey that they had been working on and what each part of the award meant and how the girls demonstrated this. Then we called each girl up and pinned her with the daisy corsage and handed her a certificate for completing the year.
Daisy Corsage
These were pretty easy to make and the girls really adorned them! If you're doing an awards ceremony it's super fun to dress up the package a bit to make the event all the more special.
Materials:
- glue gun
- silk daisy flowers
- assorted matching ribbons (preferable in the colors of the age level)
- puffy or fabric paint
- bar pins
I used dollar store white daisies. I made sure to clip with garden cutters the back of the flower to make sure it was as flat as possible. You can hot glue your ribbon and to the back of the flower and then a bar pin to the back of the daisy. Staple the badges to the ribbons. White puffy paint was used for the girls name. This ceremony was also to reward girls for their fantastic Cookie Sales (which you can see there are a few goal achiever patches).
Presenting the Daisy Flower Garden Awards!
Originally, the Daisy Flower Garden award was presented in each girl's flower pot that they had planted in the very first session. It was a super windy day and the pots kept blowing over so we had to stick these in the large planters I had on my deck.
After the ceremony the girls showed off their decorations (they each got to decorate one of the flower friends and we strung them up with some string) and enjoyed the cups of dirt. We played some music and the girls had a fun time playing in our new playhouse! With it being our first Court of Awards and me being 9 months pregnant, it was kept relatively simple but the girls really enjoyed it and had tons of fun and got to finally take home their plants!
Daisy Flower Garden Journey: Session 5 Take Action Project
We've made it to session 5 of the Daisy Flower Garden Journey!!!
For more resources on the Daisy Flower Garden Journey check out previous sessions....
Session Five and Take Action Project
I've managed to get this journey finished in 6 sessions, including the Court of Awards ceremony and garden party for the last session!
Session 5 is all about the take action project the girls completed as part of the journey. We started the meeting off reading Chapter 5 from our Garden Journey books. Our troop did the worm composting bin for their project but there are endless ideas that you can consider. We did think about doing a community garden at the school but that didn't work out like we had hoped so we went to plan B.
Here are some ideas you can suggest to the girls to get them thinking. Remember: let them decided and keep it girl led.
Ideas for the take action project for the Daisy Flower Garden Journey
Worm composting bin
Create or spruce up a community garden at a local school, church, park district.
Grow ladybugs
- Find a need or issue in your area and have the girls brainstorm ideas to solve it.
Now for the worm composting bin!!!
What you will need:
- two 10 gallon rubbermaid containers w/ lid.
- Food scraps and other organic materials (see list)
- newspaper and cardboard
- water
- drill with small 1/8 drill bit
- Something to separate the two bins on top of one another, you will want about 2-3 inches. We used scrap wood left over from our deck (use resources wisely). You can also use large rocks.
- Red worms about 1/4 to 1/2 pound (we purchased ours from Bass Pro Shop but you can buy them in bulk online)
- dirt... don't buy dirt just what every you can find in your yard. You will want a couple of small garden shovels full.
Ahead of time
Have your Girl Scouts start collecting food scraps ahead of time. Here is the example of the letter I sent home during session 4. Download here: ----->>> Worm composting letter
Prepare your bin
- Decide which bin you will use to put your actual food scraps and worms in. Drill small 1/8 drill bit holes at the bottom to allow for excess water to drain out. Drill larger holes at the top on the sides of the bin, between 1 inch to 4 inches from the top. This will allow for ventilation.
- Take your second bin (bottom bin) and put in your material you will use to separate the two bins. You want to offset the bins by at least 3 -6 inches. This will allow the liquid from the composting bin to drain out so you don't drown the worms. This liquid is also considered compost tea! We used two pieces of scrap 2 x 2 wood, large rocks work as well.
- Place your bin with the drilled holes inside of the bottom bin. Save the lid and you are ready to start adding your goods.
Add your goods!
Now that you have prepared your bin you are ready to get the composting environment started for your worms.
- Add some bedding... What is bedding? It's your paper scraps such as shredded newspaper, paper bags, cardboard. YOu will want to lightly dampen, not soak, with a sprinkle of water.
- Add dirt. This will help the worms with digestion and help the "process" along.
- Add your food scraps... please reference the list provided on the letter on worm composting. I had each girl tells us what her scraps consisted of and add them in. Sprinkle lightly with a little water to moisten.
- Add your worms. For the girls that are not scared of worms (courageous and strong), which ended up being all of them by the time we got down to the last of the worms, have them hold the worms and add them into the bin themselves. Advise them to be gentle and quiet as you don't want to shock the worms. There were girls that were afraid to touch them but after seeing the rest of the troop participate they mustered up the courage. Make sure each girl gets a chance even if she turns down on the first try.
- Cover with bedding. Don't be afraid to be liberal with this. You want to add enough to keep the bugs and flies away from your composting bin. Add some bigger pieces of wet cardboard on the top.
- Put the lid on and let it chill! By chill I mean don't continue to move your bin around and place it in a quiet place. I put it in my garage for the first two weeks. I recommend also putting it in the garage and leaving the light on for the first couple of days.
What I noticed, and I'm glad I put it in my garage to start, was that some of the worms started trying to escape. Some worms trying to escape is normal. You've taken these little creatures and put them into a new environment and potentially shocked them with the move so naturally you will have your rebel worms trying to leave. If you noticed that there are too many trying to leave you will need to troubleshoot your bin for potential problems.
Things to remember:
Temperature: 35 to 80 degrees - covered from sun and rain.
Feed your worms, about every 2 weeks or as you gather new organic matter.
Too wet = worm evacuation. Bins and bedding should not be dripping.
Flies = not enough bedding/ Continue to add bedding to the top to keep the environment happy.
Stenchy = too much food. If your bin starts to smell like something is rotting, you have a problem. Your worm bin should smell earthy, not stenchy. LOL
Do you have any other suggestions for the Take Action project?
At the end of the meeting I handed out special invitations for the last session and final meeting for the year! Here is a copy of the publisher file--->> Court of Awards Ceremony and Garden Party Invitation.
Stay tuned for the final session of our Daisy Flower Garden Journey!
We're Batty for Halloween!
I'm really excited to share this super cheap, super easy Halloween craft that you can make with your Girl Scouts troops or just as decoration for around the house! I can't remember how I came about purchasing black tissue paper back in July, but thankfully I did and this idea popped into my head. I've been a little nutty, (with fall product..lol) using tissue paper for all of my designs, lately.
Materials:
- Black tissue paper
- Scissors
- black sparkly clothespins (you can get regular clothespins and paint them black)
