Christmas Break

Ah, Christmas! Here you are again.

Just because we are taking a small holiday break from Girl Scout Journeys doesn't mean we can't earn patches!

Like this one...

We spent the evening making gingerbread houses with her older sister and my grandsons. We kind of cheated buying a kit, but I'm so glad that we did.

And this one...

Then, the next night we all made the cookies, you know, because Santa must have them...

Our family tradition is to open one present on Christmas Eve. They each got a new set of pajamas and we do family movie night. This year we watched Arthur Christmas and munched on popcorn. Then the kids checked Santa on Norad. Finally, set out the cookies, carrots and milk for Santa, of course!

Checking on Santa's progress

Then THIS happened!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Swap Tree

Miss Thing wanted to do something special with her Christmas/Winter  themed swaps. I scooped up this mini tree at Dollar General for $3.50 and cut her loose!

Swap Tree

I think she did alright :)

She was really excited when we received them about 10 days ago, and she's already talking about the next swap which will be World Thinking Day (sign ups starting in January.) Next up is Earth Day (sign ups in March), then 50 States swap (sign ups in May). The link for the group is Girl Scout Swaps mail-in exchange and it is a closed group, so you have to join to see all the past swaps. The moderator, Angel, is awesome and helpful, so I hope to see you there.

On to the next craft! 

Girl Scout Themed Christmas Cards

Miss Thing really wanted to send out a Girl Scout themed Christmas card to her pen pal. Yeah, you can't find 'em.

 Anywhere.

I looked. I Googled. I gave up on buying one and we put our heads together.

                             This is what we came up with...

Inside

We looked up the item number for the patch that we bought on the GSUSA Website and printed it on the card (I surprised her with the Omnes Girl Scouts font), then we used a glue dot to attach the patch over the picture. That way her pen pal can use the patch without messing up the card. Sometime that kid comes up with such cool ideas! She even helped me design her own return address labels. The only thing is that I have to take it to the Post Office to have it hand postmarked.

May your days be Crafty and Bright!

We Met the CEO!

Yesterday was the big holiday party for our Service Unit. The theme was "Sharing is Caring" and the service project was to fill stockings for Lonoke County CASA for foster children. The guest speaker this year was Dawn Prasifka, CEO for Girl Scout Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma & Texas. Miss Thing got to meet her and even got a patch!

It was a lot of fun. They let the girls write cards to the local firefighters, craft ornaments and play a game where they got to decorate their Troop Leader like a Christmas Tree! In this case, Miss Thing decorated her old Daisy Troop Leader. It was kind of sweet how she included my daughter whenever they grouped up kids by troop. Sister to Every Girl Scout!

We had an opportunity to meet another Troop that has invited us to march in the Ward Christmas Parade next weekend. So, now we have another event to look forward to!

Happy Holidays to all!

Thinking of and Thanking Our Soldiers Overseas

This week we are focusing on getting some homemade and store bought Christmas cards out to the soldiers overseas. The deadline is Dec 1st, so we're kind of under the gun. This is a cause that is close to our family's hearts because I have been deployed during the holidays, and this time of year just amplifies your homesickness. I encourage anyone who has the time to participate because I can tell you from personal experience that it really makes a difference for the moral of a soldier to be remembered and appreciated when you are away from your family.

This is their website for instructions: Operation Christmas Cards
This is their Facebook page if you like updates: www.facebook.com/operationchristmascards/

This has to be the best thing about being a Girl Scout Juliette family. When my daughter was a daisy in a troop, we spent one meeting decorating cards for the military, then the next meeting putting stockings together for our Service Unit's holiday service project, then on to cookie season, then World Thinking Day, then bridging. It was always hard to get any badge work done. Now, working independently, we can do stuff like this and take side trips and still sit down and work on the journeys whenever we want. I just love it!

On to the next project!