Girl Scout Cookies

Big sister K is making her debut sale of Girl Scout cookies this year!  If anyone is interested in supporting her, please let me know!  Cookies are $4 per box, with eight options to choose from: http://www.gscsnj.org/cookies/pinformation.html

If you live in the tri-state area, we will make delivery arrangements with you after the cookies arrive (should be some time in March).  Thank you!

Girl Scouts

It was by chance that big sister K got involved in Girl Scouts.  The room parent in her class (who coordinates the special events for the class like Halloween and Christmas parties, gift for the teacher, etc) had called me back in September to confirm our contact information, and somehow we got to talking about Girl Scouts.  I found out she was the troop leader for the 1st graders, and oddly enough, just the day before our phone conversation, big sister K had told me she wanted to join Girl Scouts (she heard about it from her friends in school).  Since they meet inside their school every other week and big sister K is already there for after-school care (it wouldn't take any additional time out of our already-busy schedules), I agreed to it not really having any expectations of what she would get out of it.

During one of their meetings in December, the girls made Christmas cards for some soldiers stationed overseas.  It was mailed to them and just recently, the Girl Scouts troop leader forwarded us a letter from the Major she sent the cards to.  Here is an excerpt of it (I took out a paragraph where he mentions the names of each Girl Scout member):

The girls received thank you cards signed by each soldier that had a personalized Christmas card on their desk, and big sister K brought hers home yesterday after her Girl Scouts meeting.  It makes me so proud of my little girl that she's doing something good to benefit others.

In their next meeting, the girls will be preparing meals to be delivered to the Ronald McDonald house.  Another community outreach activity!  Love it!  :)

Winter Break - Part 2

I dropped baby M off at school and brought big sister K into the office with me on Tuesday and Wednesday since many people were off and I figured she wouldn't be too much of a nuisance.  She spent most of the morning on Tuesday drawing and coloring before I made her practice writing her Chinese words.  For lunch, our choices at the cafeteria were limited, so we took a short drive to the mall for some shopping and pizza.  When we got back, she practiced her Chinese for the rest of the afternoon, and before we knew it, it was time to go home.

On Wednesday, big sister K spent the morning drawing and playing with my calculator (it's amazing how much time she spends amusing herself with that gadget).  I packed us some peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, so we ate those in the cafeteria before heading off to Barnes and Noble (needed to break up the monotony so that she wouldn't be stuck in the office all day).  The rest of the afternoon flew by that I don't even remember what we did.  When we got home, I gave them a rare treat and let them watch Planes: Fire and Rescue.  The kids went to sleep at their usual time that night (M and I didn't bother trying to keep them up).  I however, had good intentions of staying up until midnight myself, but exhaustion took over and I fell asleep after putting the kids to bed... when I woke up, it was 12:48am already.  Missed the ball drop, so I went back to sleep.

Thursday was New Year's Day.  We kept it low-key and just went shopping at Target to take advantage of some after-Christmas sales.  We had to buy some Christmas lights to replace the ones that were chewed through by some annoying outdoor pests (we suspect squirrels).  Hopefully these will fare better than the last ones did.

The G family made the trek into the burbs on Friday to visit us.  We had lunch at Olive Garden, followed by two hours of fun at a bounce house, and then spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at our place.  As always, it was nice catching up with my "ah jah."

What a great shot of the kids here... too bad we're missing baby M.  Ironically, he was the one who spent all his time throwing footballs/basketballs (too chicken to bounce) while the other kids enjoyed all the other apparatuses there.

 Posing in front of baby M's huge gift.  He couldn't wait to tear it open.

Kids all smiles!  Again, missing baby M here!