Christmas Cutie

This is an older layout, but looking through pages on some other websites I was reminded of this look and how much I like it. I love the combination of all kinds of different elements clustered together, surrounded by negative space.

I have been scrapping tons of photos of my nieces and nephew lately. When I first started my oldest niece's album, her dad thought I was giving them the album. I was like, yeah, when I die! These are my memories of my niece - I want to keep them! I'm already on volume 2 for both her and my nephew. I have been on a scrapping roll lately and I'm enjoying it very much.

Cookie Booth Video

Writing Projects

We had a big snow day this week! Esme did get most of the day off from lessons, since her dad had to spend most of his day shoveling. I also got the day off from kindergarten.

Esme is starting a new big writing project and given the choice to write about anything she wanted, she decided to write about Barbies. She is writing about playing with them, playing with them with friends, and collecting them. Meanwhile she's gotten in several hours of playtime with the kids next door - luckily she's not trying to call it research.

Snow Day

Wednesday we got about 18 inches of snow here. Since I am a long-term sub right now, I got to celebrate a real snow day. And lucky for me, I have another scrapper right in my house who invited me over to scrap with her. My friend/tenant and I scrapped her table for a few hours while the kids alternated between playing outside and warming up in the playroom. I did two coordinating layouts of my nephew.

Winter Visit

This is an older layout but still one of my favorites and I thought it would b e the perfect page to post on this snowy day. I love making pages with a grid - so fun to arrange the photos and add the embellishments!

homeschooling friends, Math lessons, and more

We are excited that we have two other homeschoolers in our Girl Scout troop this year. It is so nice to know that Esme is mixing with not only schooled children, but children having similar experiences to her own.

This year we have been focusing on Math a great deal. Esme's reading and writing are already far exceeding our expectations in second grade. We want to make sure she is at or above grade level for EVERY subject. Ethan is spending many doing Math with her.

I am teaching Kindergarten right now and it is hard to balance teaching at school and getting anything done at home. I go back to part time in early February and I am looking forward to having time to really work with Esme!

trying to get my scanner to work....

I really, really want to post more pages in 2011 but I am facing some challenges. First of all, my scanner seems to be producing inconsistent images. Parts seem overexposed and I'm not sure what to do about it. Secondly, I have yet to find a great stitching program that works with Windows 7 and and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I used to use a program that came with my scanner - well, two or three scanners ago. That definitely isn't going to work now. Third, I really, really stink at photographing layouts. Even when I use a tripod I can't seem to get a good image. If anyone has any good tips I'd love to hear them - this is how my layouts are coming out right now:



BTW as bad as that image is, I LOVE those photos. That's my niece last summer grabbing onto my daughter in the kiddie pool. Plus I love those bright Doodlebug papers, and the simplicity of the whole thing. Thanks to Jennifer for giving me the Bazzill border.

New Year's Resolutions

I have three New Year's Resolutions this year:

1. Get my arts and crafts area clean and organized, and maintain it. This will make me so happy.
2. Invite my friends over to scrap and/or craft more. This will make me super happy too!
3. Scrapbook more. I love all the other things I do, but I think scrapbooking has got to be my greatest love. I love photos, pretty papers, and all the tactile stimulation that comes along with embellishing.

To get myself started I did a layout for the Doodlebug challenge at Two Peas.

Brownie Ceremonies

We had our first Court of Awards of the year this year and it went wonderfully. We started with a candle ceremony. We had a raised candle holder with three candles symbolizing the three parts of the Girl Scout Law, and ten tea-light holders, each symbolizing part of the Girl Scout promise. We have thirteen girls in our troop so this made it the perfect ceremony for us.



Next, I wrote a special ceremony to commemorate the 100th anniversary of girls showing up at a Boy Scout meeting in England and announcing that they wanted to be scouts too. WAGGGS made the charge "plant seeds for growth" this year, so I talked about how our troop had done that by inviting five new girls into our troop, and to make it more memorable, had each girl plant 6 herbs in little pots, and gave them the 2010 WAGGGS patch.

Next, we did investiture and rededication by having the experienced members of the troop put the newer girls' uniforms on them.

Last, I gave out the awards, shaking each girl's hand and giving them an envelope. On a side note, I am especially proud of my daughter, who got a huge pile. Of course, she has to come to every event, so it makes it easiest for her to earn Try-Its and patches. She got Girl Scout Ways, Dinosaurs, Bump in the Night, Bicycling, Archery, Animals, Art to Wear, Caring and Sharing, Water Everywhere, Fishing, her Brownie Quest Journey set, the WAGGGS patch, Halloween Fun, and more. She has really put a lot of effort into Girl Scouts this year, and has done a great job!

This Past Week in Girl Scouting.....

I had my Cadette meeting Wednesday and it went very well. We finished up the "talking" part of our aMaze journey by talking about bullying. I was very impressed the girls shared their personal stories, and was saddened by the story one girl told of being bullied by a teacher so much that she had to hide in the bathroom and cry. 8-( Now we are on to our Take Action Project - we're using World Thinking Day to complete this project!


This week my Brownies attended a Try-It day at our local children's museum. They did some great projects - a collage mask, T-shirts decorated with fabric paint and markers, reindeer headbands, face painting, and friendship bracelets, earning Art to Wear. They also got two hours of free play in the museum, which may have been their favorite part!

Today we have our troop cookie kick-off meeting - if anyone needs some Thin Mints, let me know! We're selling as of Wednesday.

Going to the Mall

Both my troops have had recent mall experiences. My Cadettes earned a mall overnight with approximately 750 other girls in their council. We arrived at the mall just before 9 pm and after the stores closed down the council offered all kinds of activities like crafts, games, juggling shows, movies, nail painting, yoga, dancing, video games, and more. The girls got about an hour of sleep each with Lisa and I staying up all night. They girls had a great time and LOVED this event.

My Brownie troop went shopping at the mall tonight. They broke into small groups and had a budge of $10 per group to spend on toys to donate to Toys for Tots. Different moms led each group and the girls did a great job, picking a tea set, a baby doll, accessories from Claire's, and a stuffed giraffe. After the big unveiling we went to Target and purchased some food for our pet food drive. I was very proud of how the girls did on this trip.

We are really, really pushing Math this year. Esme is already a great reader and writer, and we want her to be totally on top of her game with Math as well, especially because she's also so interested in Science and the two go hand in hand.


Time4Learning.com actually offers lots of other subjects as well, but currently we're only using it for Math. It offers lessons with little characters leading the examples, quizzes on each lessons, tests on units, and extras like printables when Esme needs a little extra time on a lesson. She seems to be enjoying Math much more this year and it has also been much less frustrating for both her and Ethan.

So far Esme has covered things like place value, operations, fractions, and money and is doing a great job!

The Day My World Collided, and my thoughts on Journeys

My goddaughter came up to earn her Leadership in Action award while my Brownies did their Quest in a day at a local Girl Scout camp. Kristina is not one to be happy with sitting and listening so the planning section was not her favorite, but she did enjoy working with the littler girls, and Esme got to be in her group.



Initially, I was very skeptical about the Journeys. As a die hard leader, I am not sure I like something that takes weeks and tells me exactly what to do. Consequently, when Lisa (Kristina's mom and my Cadette co-leader) and I were making plans for the year, we were trying to decide if our girls should go do aMaze in one day in a council-sponsored program, or if we should do it as a troop. The more we weighed options for activities, the more I actually got excited about doing it. I can't speak to other troop's experiences, but for a brand new, very small Cadette troop, the aMaze Journey was actually the perfect first activity for us. Girls had never been Cadettes before, and one who had never been a scout at all, actually had a good way to get started and get some direction, while learning a bit about Girl Scouts and a lot about each other. We did adapt it quite a bit, mostly to keep the girls physically busy while discussing the issues outlined in the program - we found this kept them much more engaged.

My daughter is also almost done with her first Journey. I am so glad my Brownies had the opportunity to do this in one day - I think it worked much better for them. I have some non-readers in my group from what I've seen, it would be difficult for them with so much reading and writing to do. However, when they had Cadettes assisting them and the stories read aloud, it worked out perfectly. Also, I am very proud of what they chose as a group for their Take Action project - a pet food drive to help people who are out of work keep their pets.

Loving Cadettes

We've been working on our aMaze Journey for several weeks. Last night we used an idea from the leader book - we made a circle on the floor and put post-its saying what we want from friends in the middle, and what we bring to a friendship on the outside, then compared the two by grouping the post-its. At that point energy was high so we played Machine a couple times and played the froggy song. After that we talked about I Statements and gave examples of how to use them in our lives, and make some great junk necklaces, with the theme that I Statements are Key. The girls had such a good time with this, we are considering working on the Just Jewelry Interest Project.

Before we started I was a bit intimidated by the idea of working with middle schoolers, but I am so happy with the way our year is going. Plus I love that my goddaughter is excited about Girl Scouts again - every meeting she says it was better than the last!

Centenary, Awards Ceremony, and Presents

In 1910 a group of girls in the UK presented themselves at a Boy Scout meeting because they wanted to be scouts. This event is officially recognized by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) as the beginning of the movement. WAGGGS has put out a really cool patch set - four triangles that fig together) to commemorate the centenary events, and I'm excited to get them for my girls.



Our first mid-year Brownie award ceremony is a month and a half away. I am excited to have investiture for some new girls, and rededicate the rest. My daughter has put in a ton of work and will have a mountain of new Try-Its.

I am also excited that we'll be having our first-ever awards ceremony for our new Cadette troop. Last year the only awards my goddaughter received were for fundraisers, so I am really glad to have helped her earn something more significant this year. She'll be getting Journey, LiA, PA pin, and fun patches of course.

There are so many great Fall homeschooling opportunities! It has turned into one of my favorite seasons since I've been a mother. We went to the Big E, apple and raspberry picking, to the pumpkin patch, a corn maze, a pumpkin festival, we designed and built a Halloween costume together, carved our jack-o-lantern, made pumpkin cream pie, trick-or-treated, etc. And as homeschoolers, we try to make each activity educational, from talking about the life cycle of plants, and to life skills like cooking and using landmarks to find your way.

Esme just finished her first long writing project using the complete writing process, from brainstorming to publishing. She wrote about The Big E and did a wonderful job. I would definitely say it was strong third grade work. She's also been plugging along in Math - she has a lot to do this year, so she and Ethan are working hard to stay on task and even get a bit ahead.

We're very proud of our girl!

Field Trips, New Members, and More

It has been a whirlwind few weeks for us. We've been helping out with recruitment nights, going to meetings, and trying to keep up with all the other activities in our busy family's schedule.

I am happy to say we finally have enough girls to be an official Cadette troop! Hip hip hooray! We went on our first field trip this week, a corn maze, since we have just started the aMaze Journey. A couple weeks ago we talked about first impressions and what is on the inside, and made some awesome T-shirts. I was especially happy to do this because my goddaughter has expressed interest in fashion design, and I want to make sure we are pursuing her interests!


Brownies is continuing to go wonderfully. A few weeks ago we had a police officer from our city come in and talk about bike safety, and at our last meeting the woman who runs a local bike clinic came it and showed the girls how to do some basic work on a bike, like taking off, patching, and putting a tire back on. They LOVED this. I don't think I could have predicted how much they would love this. They were super engaged and even started the closing ceremony without me while I wasn't looking, because they were so excited to share it with their new-found friend.

This past weekend we finally set out on our bike trip to a local trail. I was disappointed with the attendance on this trip, but right now it seems like sports is a big conflict for lots of families. The girls who did come had a great time and I was really glad to see my own daughter having a blast.

We have three new members who will join us at our next meeting bringing our Brownie total up into the teens. Hoping everything will continue to go smoothly with a bigger group!

Aren't you worried about interaction with other children?

This post is a bit of a rant.

Near the first day of school in our city, a cashier at Stop and Shop, who is probably around my mother's age, asked Esme if she was ready for school to start. Esme said, "I'm homeschooled," and the cashier said, "Oh!" and I paid, we left, etc. Last week the same cashier said to Esme, "How's school going?," then remembered us and said, "Oh wait you're homeschooled." Then she turned to me and said, "Aren't you worried about interaction with other children?" Sigh. If you are homeschooler, you may have had this conversation 1,000 times.

I have many ways of dealing with this question, or the more typical, what about socialization? If someone is not a complete stranger and usually pretty nice, like this cashier, I usually say lightly, "Trust me, she's a social butterfly. She's just fine!" One day a nosy person who happened to be doing my taxes asked me about it and I said, "Well when I want her to be socialized, I take her in the bathroom, beat her up, and offer her drugs. {long pause with hard stare} Just kidding!" Sometimes extremely rude strangers question us - now that Esme is is bigger they realize that other kids her age are in school. Ethan was once accosted by someone about it at the deli counter. For them, I bring out the hard stare, and tell them we're not worried about it.

There is one other thing that people say all the time that bugs me. "You're homeschooling? That's great!!" This confuses me. If it's a stranger, again, making judgments about my life choices although they don't know me, I usually say, "Is it?" Cause why do they think so? They don't know me - maybe it's terrible! If it's someone I sort of know, I usually say, "Thanks, we think it is."

Maybe I am getting more snarky or more bitter? I don't know. I feel like when strangers choose to be that familiar, I have to say something to back them off. I try not to be rude about it (okay maybe I was a little rude to the tax guy) but I don't understand why people feel free to offer their opinions so much on this. I don't offer my opinion on their decision to send their children to school. It would be equally weird if they said, "My daughter goes to public school," and I said, "That's great!!" Maybe it is great - I have no idea!

Okay this homeschooling mom is done ranting for today. I'm off to edit Esme's essay on her trip to The Big E.

Poor Poor Poor Poor Poor Poor Esme

Esme thinks we're working her too hard this year. We have stepped up academics a bit and are focusing pretty intensely on her Math skills. She also had to work with me to create a web of her experiences at The Big E and is now working on a rough draft of her writing assignment. Frankly, we don't feel bad for her. She has no idea about waking up early, going to school 30+ hours a week, etc.


Right now she and Ethan are finishing up The Knight at Dawn and she designed her own coat of arms. She's also enjoying her swimming and ballet lessons.

Homeschooling Open Mic

Esme performed at her first open mic night tonight. They sets were up to 10 minutes so Esme prepared four short songs - One and One Make Two, The Little Brown Owl, The Stinky Skunk, and Ob La Di Ob La Da. She was nervous earlier but really pulled the whole thing together and did a great job at the show!