Dough Making

For our "extra" meeting this month we made Christmas cookie dough to freeze away for the holidays. YUM.

We made four different doughs, doubling the recipe, if needed, to make sure every family received enough dough for 1 dozen cookies of each type.  All of our dough is now safely frozen away waiting for Christmas time to come around.

It was a fun day and a really enjoyable way to make Christmas dough.  I’d love to have all the helpers come back over and make even more dough to squirrel away. 

Foreign Language

Originally we were scheduled to play croquet tonight.  However, the lack of light and hard ground necessitated a quick change for our badge work.  I had the girls come prepared to talk about a foreign language of their choice.  It was fun listening to them as they attempted to say several phrases and recite John 3;16 in their chosen language.

We opened  our evening going through our verse, purpose, goal and prayer.  We then sang our hymn for the month, Be Thou My Vision.  It was so sweet listening to the girls singing the hymn.  We then did a brief devotional on Patience.  We’ll be working through the Keepers character study book on Patience.  Each week we’ll do a little more in the book until we’re through.  By then we should all have patience in every situation, right??? 

Spanish

Talking about the Country Ecuador

Italian Gals

Talking about Italy

More information about Italy

Norwegian
talking about Norway of course

Swahili
talking about Tanzania

German
talking about Germany

After the girls presentations we enjoyed some pumpkin fudge and running around the dark yard. 

We’re looking forward to seeing you all in a couple of weeks for Christmas cookie dough making!

Welcome Back

We had a great night of swimming and fellowship.  I’m looking forward to another exciting year.

We started our meeting off going over the basics for our new girls.  Memorizing the verse, goal and purpose of Keepers.  I also handed out CD’s I burned of 7 hymns and the lyrics to go along with them.  We will be learning a new hymn every month and singing them when we get together.    Next, I handed out gifts to our birthday girls, Anna and Hannah.  Anna’s birthday was over the summer and Hannah’s is this month.  Unfortunately, Rachel and Elizabeth, who were also our birthday girls (Elizabeth in Aug., Rachel this month) were unable to be here, but there bags were given to them a day or so after our meeting.

After the general announcements were over, we headed out to the pool where the girls had fun swimming and munching while the moms enjoyed sitting around chatting.  The looming lightening didn’t deter the girls as they swam.  Once the wind started to pick up and the lightening seemed a little closer (and lower) we got the girls out of the water.  That didn’t stop anyones fun.  The girls just ate and ran around the yard instead, while the moms continued to chat by the pool enjoying the refreshing cool breezes that the storm brought in.

Looking forward to next month where we’re back at my house to play a rousing game (or two) of croquet!  Don’t forget to work on memorizing your hymn for the month, Be Thou My Vision, as well as the verse, goal and purpose of Keepers (found at the beginning of your book).  Also, make sure you bring your Keepers book to every meeting.

I hope you enjoy the few pictures I was able to snap in between all the jumping and swimming. 

Night shot

Saying Goodnight

New Year!

We’ll be starting our new year this week!  I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again and to welcome some new girls into our group.  Here is our upcoming schedule for the year:

September:  Welcome back swim party

October:  Croquet

November:  Teaching

December:  Tea Party

January:  Ceramics

February:  Miniatures

March:  Latch Hook

April:  Sign Language

May:  Banquet/Awards Ceremony

Praying for you all as we begin our new year full of changes, getting to know each other better and making new friends.

Don’t forget to check back in here periodically for updates and pictures of what we have been doing.  If you have something to add, let me know.  This is a blog for us all to use. 

Make sure to visit often and leave comments! 

Our Year in Review

I hope you enjoy looking back over our past year. 

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.