Me & Strawberry...

While I was making dinner just now, my little girl was watching me and she said, "Mommy, Strawberry Shortcake can do all of the things that you can do! She can cook, she can drive, she can pour herself water, and she can decorate her home!" She said it with such admiration that I am going to take it as a compliment! Maybe Strawberry can step in for one of these nights when I am too tired to make dinner! :)

Catching Up

Life's been pretty busy around here, as I am sure it is for everyone! We had a wonderful Halloween -- I'd love to share pictures, however my beloved camera is not working! I can see the pictures on my camera, but cannot upload them to my computer! I am going to try to take the memory card to the store and see if they can put the pictures on a cd for me. New camera is first on my Christmas list this year! This year we celebrated Halloween with a trip to the Genesee Country Village for some fun activities and trick-or-treating. It was a beautiful autumn day -- great weather -- and we spent a lovely day with our friends and their daughters. My family voted unanimously that we will be doing that again next year! On Halloween, we all went over and had dinner at our friends' home and then headed out to trick-or-treat in their neighborhood. We usually trick-or-treat in our own neighborhood, but last year our friends joined us and we decided to alternate every other year. It's fun to go with a group like that -- the kids had a good time with their little friends and it was nice to see the decorations in another neighborhood. We came across one family whose son is now too old to trick-or-treat and so they were all bundled up, sitting in lawn chairs in the front yard with a roaring fire in their outdoor fire pit. They had a table set up and in addition to candy for the kids, they were offering donut holes and hot cider to all who passed by!

This past weekend was all about cookies -- I helped to unload the big tractor trailer with all of the cookies for our town's Girl Scout troops, then we loaded up the cookies for my Daisy troop, and then unloaded them at our house. All four of us worked to bring the cookies in -- even my little 5-year-old! (Although, she would only carry the "Lemonade" cookies, because those were her favorites!) I spent Friday night and part of Saturday sorting cookies, then Sunday I had my Daisy troop meeting and the parents came to pick up their girls' cookies. Then we were off to pick up my 10-year-old's cookies! On Sunday, my youngest thought I should make some Snickerdoodles... I suggested that we save that for another day when we were not already so overrun with cookies!! And what did we do as a project at my Daisy meeting? Why the "Pilgrim Hat Cookies", of course!! ;)

Today's big excitement at our house was the installation of a new boiler -- woo hoo! It cost a small fortune -- I feel like taking a picture of it and putting it on this year's Christmas card -- and we scrimped and saved for it, but it will be worth it to know that our old boiler is not going to give out on us this winter! We've limped along the past two winter's and had to have the old one repaired, spur of the moment when we've found ourselves without heat! The installer showed up at 7:30 this morning and was banging away on something in the basement -- my little one, who is not a fan of noise, said, "Tell him to stop doing that!" And I said, "Honey, we are paying him to do that!" Oh. My husband was off today and when I got home from work, my little girlie came down to the basement to show off the new boiler -- she showed me how shiny and clean it is, where the new "clock" (pressure gauge?) is -- she's very excited!

Now we can move on to the next big exciting thing -- Thanksgiving and a visit from Grammy & Cici (my mother-in-law and her sister)!! We are very excited to have them join us for Thanksgiving for the first time! The decorations are up and I am already looking through recipes to decide on the perfect menu.

Are you getting ready for the holidays? What are you planning for this great, family holiday?

Ready for Halloween

Is it just me or does October seem like it is almost as long as March this year? And don't get me wrong -- I LOVE the fall, so I'd prefer October last as long as possible, but it seems as though we should have already celebrated Halloween! I don't know if I am feeling this way because I decorated for Halloween and brought out the Halloween videos at the end of September (probably), or if it's because I'm itching to get out my Thanksgiving swag out to put up in place of my black spider lights... And some of our relatives from Long Island are planning to come out for Thanksgiving -- I'm already looking at recipes and thinking about decorating and fun crafts for the kids. Of course we'll probably make our traditional Pilgrim Hat Cookies, but I'd like to find another fun activity for the kids, too!

So for now we are anxiously awaiting Halloween and enjoying this beautiful autumn season!

Girl Scout Leader Supply Kit

So as I mentioned, I'm totally immersed in Girl Scouts right now, and I love it! We are having our second meeting tomorrow afternoon. The first meeting was at my house, because our troop was so new that we had not received confirmation for a meeting site. Now we are all approved to meet at one of the nearby elementary schools -- which is great -- they have a large "all-purpose room" (cafe-gym-atorium, is what my sister-in-law Susan calls them -- you know, lunch, gym and assemblies all occur in one place!), bathrooms, playground -- perfect! And, it's free! But, since it is not at my house where I am prepared for all sorts of activities and emergencies, I decided to make a travel kit for my Girl Scout supplies. I grabbed an empty Rubbermaid tub from the basement (practically everything we own is in Rubbermaid tubs in the basement -- my husband's record collection, mementos of my children's early years, pictures, clothes, holiday decorations, china...) and I gathered some things from around the house. We also stopped at the dollar store and I picked up a few other things that I might need. Here's what I have so far:

- paper towels
- plastic bags
- band-aids (I need to get a first aid kit)
- hand sanitizer
- scissors, tape, glue sticks, crayons
- pipe cleaners
- wooden craft sticks
- acrylic paints, paint brushes, paper plates for "palettes"
- wipes (I LOVE wipes -- my kids are both out of diapers, I will never stop buying wipes...)
- construction paper
- scrap paper
- coloring pages
- yarn
- brown paper lunch bags
- napkins

I need a couple more things from the store tomorrow -- I thought I would grab a box of small paper cups to keep in there for snack time. To help save the troop some money (and my co-leader and myself), we are going to have a sign-up sheet for snack. This way one person won't be in charge of it for the whole year, and as we learned from doing this in preschool, the kids seem to enjoy getting to have their own choice of what they want to share with their friends.

I also have to organize my binder -- I learned in training that I need to carry the girls' health forms with me to meetings, field trips, etc. I bought a binder to keep all of those forms in, my training info, a copy of the handbook (I'm buying one, but it's on back-order until December!), attendance forms, meeting schedule, etc. (Ask anyone I work with -- I am the binder queen of America -- love them...)

Trying to stay organized and being prepared will probably go a long way to helping me be a good leader. And, having everything in one place will make it easy to leave my kit in the back of my van and I'll be all ready for my Girl Scout meetings.

Girl Scouts - Cookie Crazy!

I'm still here! It's been a busy month and our home has been taken over - by Girl Scouts! My 10-year-old is a Junior and she has been involved in Girl Scouts for four years now. She loves being a Girl Scout, as I did when I was a girl. So, now that my littlest girl is in kindergarten and old enough to join a Daisy Girl Scout troop, I decided to start a troop for her! My friend Kristin and my brother-in-law Mark are both teasing me mercilessly for doing this after listening to me say I'd never sign up for anything after doing the preschool family events for the past two years. Well, let's see -- Girl Scout leader, check. Troop Cookie Manager for this year's cookie sale, um, check... Went to a Service Unit meeting last night and actually felt my volunteering arm starting to twitch when they put up the list of open positions -- like, "100 Year Anniversary Chair" and a few others... Seriously, it may be time for an intervention... But, I truly have some wonderful memories of being a Girl Scout when I was growing up -- I learned a lot, I tried tons of new things, made lots of friends and gained confidence in myself. I would love for my daughters and the girls in my troop to have some of those same experiences. And, I get to do all of this with my girls -- my youngest who is in the troop, and my eldest who will be helping out and earning her Junior Aide badge in the process. Now that makes it all worthwhile!