Banquet and Awards Ceremony

For our end of the year ceremony we had an Ice Cream Sundae party!!  Siblings, grandparents and all the moms joined in the fun as we celebrated our first year of Keepers coming to an end. 

My girls helped me set our table with various items that represented what we worked on over the past 9 months.  It was fun coming up with something that represented our Ice Skating badge.    Emily made an ice rink complete with a paper Zamboni.  I had a fun quiz for the girls to fill out as they arrived and were waiting for everyone else to get there.  The questions went over various things we learned this past year.  The girls looked at the table for clues to help answer some of the questions.  They did a great job filling out the quiz.  One thing that has been fun for me is to watch all their different personalities as they’ve tackled various assignments.  The quiz was no different.  Some were determined to get that quiz completed!  Every answer filled in.  Others, looked at it, answered a couple of questions and were done.  Both were perfectly acceptable ways to approach this quiz.  We had personalities that varied from more intense, "let’s get down to work and finish this task" to more laid back "it’ll get done when it gets done" and some in between.   The one thing they all had in common was how incredibly sweet and kind they all were.  They all have such a love of Jesus in their hearts, it’s really neat to see.

After everyone was there and quizzes were "graded"  we had our ice cream sundaes.  We scooped out the ice cream (or dairy free sorbet) into the bowls and the girls, their siblings and invited guests, took them to the table where they could top it however they liked.  Yum!

Once the bowls were licked clean and everyone cleaned up, it was time to hand out the badges.  The girls accomplished so much this year and through it all kept wonderful positive attitudes, even when things were hard. 

When planning our banquet, one of the moms suggested handing out roses to our daughters.  I thought it was a great idea.  I told the moms to be prepared to say something about their daughters as they presented them with their rose.  It was tough keeping our eyes dry as we all took turns telling our daughters what special girls they are and just how much they mean to us.  Our daughters didn’t quite understand why we were all teary eyed, but one day they will. 

We had a wonderful ending to a wonderful year.  We’re all looking forward to September when we will start another fabulous year of learning and growing.

Thanks girls and moms for a fun year!

Week 15 Ice Skating

For our last badge of the season we went ice skating!  We had a variety of skills, from never on the ice before to pretty confident.  After our half hour lesson everyone was standing on their own, knew how to come to a fast stop and could skate backwards!  What an accomplishment.    The girls spent the next one and a half hours skating around the rink practicing their skills and having a blast. 

Learning how to fall down

Listening to the instructor

Lesson over, the girls are ready to skate!

Everyone did an absolutely fabulous job skating and passed their badge work with flying colors.  Way to go girls!

To earn the ice skating badge the girls need to:

• Be able to skate one mile by yourself.  We decided that 10 laps around the rink equaled about 1 mile.
• Learn to skate backwards and demonstrate to your leader (or Mom).
• Learn to come to a quick stop without falling or depending on anyone or anything to stop you.

Week 13 Soap Making

For our last meeting we made soap.  One of our Mom’s led the girls in the fine art of soap making and another mom, who wanted to learn how to make soap, was her helper.  Since I was outside with yet another one of the Mom’s helping with the younger siblings, I wasn’t around to get the details of what went on.  I was able to jump in every now and then and snap some pictures so I will share those with you.  Thanks Jen for leading the group in soap making.  The girls enjoyed it, I could tell by their big smiles and excited responses when I asked them. 

Each girl had their own shape mold to make colored and scented soaps.  These molds were theirs to take home.  They also made a conditioning bar and a bar of exfoliating soap.  The larger bars were still cooling at the close of our meeting, so they will be picked up when we meet again.

Bar Soaps

Molded soaps

To earn the Soap Badge the girls need to:

• Make soap using fragrance and color.
• Make one body scrub soap.
• Make one conditioning soap.

Week 12 Health and Fitness

At our last meeting we worked on our Health and Fitness badge.   We met on Good Friday, so we started our meeting off, after our opening, talking about what an amazing thing Jesus did for us.  I asked for volunteers to pray to open our meeting and to thank Him for all He did for us.  Three of the girls volunteered and gave the sweetest prayers.  Their hearts are so open and they love Jesus so much.  It is really neat to see.

We got a late start, in order to get everything done we were hopping!  To start our topic off I talked with the girls about nutrition and read Dr. Sears book, Eat Healthy, Feel Great.  We talked about green, yellow and red light foods.  We went over the food pyramid and all the various sections.  We discussed food labels and how to read them to find out what we’re really eating.  I reminded them that looks can be deceiving, especially when it comes to bread, and to read those labels to know just what they are getting.

I then told them what our snack was going to be, Green Smoothies!  I cut up some swiss chard, put it in the blender and added some orange juice, bananas , frozen blueberries and frozen mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries and blackberries).  It was fun watching the girls taste their smoothies.  One of the girls told me she didn’t think she was going to like it.  I told her, "Well, there’s only one way to find out!"  She liked it. 

After drinking their smoothies, we went outside to start on our fitness part of our badge.  I had the girls make an obstacle course using the materials laid out in our backyard.  I broke them into two groups and told the groups to make their own course, which would then be added to the other one.  The guidelines I gave them were they needed to be moving.  They needed to jump, crawl, climb, run, twirl, whatever they wanted, as long as they were moving!  They had a blast making their courses, teaching it to the other group, then taking turns running through the course.

The two groups setting up

Explaining the course
Lining up

They’re off!

After they ran through their course, our time was up.  I gathered the girls together to wrap up our meeting and say goodbye.  We ended our meeting w/ three different girls volunteering to end our meeting in prayer.  It was a sweet way to end our meeting.

To earn the Health and Fitness badge the girls need to:

• Read a book that explains how the different things we eat can affect our health.
• Explain the importance of vitamins and minerals in our diets.
• List five common vitamins our body uses daily.
• Explain how our body benefits from consuming the proper amount of each of these five vitamins.
• List ten "healthy" foods (those rich in vitamins and minerals) that we should have in our diet to keep us healthy and strong.
• List ten common "unhealthy" foods that we should limit in our daily diet.
• In your notebook, keep track of your daily diet every day for one month.  At the end of the month look over your lists.  
• Read a book on the benefits of physical exercise.
• Write an essay explaining how physical exercise can improve your health.
• List ten different exercises that you could do on a regular basis.
• Give an explanation of how each exercise listed above will benefit your body.
• Create an exercise routine from your list of exercises that you can perform at least three times a week.  
• Explain the benefits of stretching before and after you exercise.
• List five different stretches you can do before exercising.
• Perform your exercise routine with stretching beore and after it three times a week for two months.  Keep a record in your notebook.
• Name three recreational activities that provide a good exercise workout.

Whew!  That’s a lot.  You better get busy!

Community Service

Today the girls held a lemonade stand to raise money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand.

It was a beautiful morning here, the perfect temperature to hold a lemonade stand.  We set up our stand at the garage sale of one of the girls Grandparents, which provided a steady stream of traffic. 

Here’s a picture of the girls at the beginning of the morning and then at the end of our two hours.  Notice how the jackets came off as the sun climbed higher in the sky.

The girls did a great job selling the lemonade and had a lot of fun in the process.  We raised $81.00 to send to Hannah for her fundraiser.  Not too bad for 2 hours worth of work.