Girl Scout cookies!!

The girls were really excited to participate in the annual Girl Scout Cookie sale this year!  They set their sights high (a computer at 5500 boxes) but ended up settling for an artic wolf stuffed animals.  We sold to friends the first day to get some guaranteed sales under their belts and then they tackled the neighborhood, Grandma's office, Grandad/Dad's office, and Grandad's neighborhood.  The both also sold at their schools and lots of booth sales.  The fist day they had the cookies, Keeley went to school and asked her teachers.  The upper elementary teacher told me that Keeley approached her first thing in the morning and asked if she'd like some cookies.  The teacher replied that it was trying to set her class up and that Keeley should come back a little later in the day.  She reported to me that Keeley leaned back and crossed her arms and said, "When?"  The time was set for after Keeley ate lunch and she returned to secure that sale.  The teacher told me that a few hours later Keeley returned and asked, "Are you sure you wouldn't like to buy some more cookies?"  She was set on getting her goal!

I picked up the cookies in the evening on a Friday.  When I got home, I let the girls come down and help me double check my numbers and sort the cookies.  This is the first year the scouts in this area had cookies in hand when they started the sale.  I had 300 boxes of cookies at the house!

Grandma's office was the first time we got pictures of the kids selling.  Of course brother had to help :)  When we'd go door to door he'd run right along with the girls and say, "These are my sisters" and get boxes of cookies out to hand to customers.

The first meeting after receiving the cookies we had a cookie knowledge meeting.  Keeley's favorite part was tasting all the varieties.  Kayden was sick that night so we brought some home for her to try another day.

Adorable girls at two of our booth sales. 

I was really proud of the girls.  They both got really good at asking people, handling the "no" responses, and counting money.  I love the cookie sale.  All of the money from the sale goes back to the troops so we can fund activities for the girls.  Such a great experience.

Sayings I don't want to forget

Killian is really developing his independence and speaking his mind a lot more.  Some of the things I love -

* "me do it all myself!" - We hear this one frequently!
* "No, I busy" - If we ask him to do something he doesn't want to do - take a nap/go get his sisters/clean up his dinner plate.  This is the standard response.
* "My hams" - how he says hands.  I love it and fully understand that we need to address it soon, but for right now it is just so cute.
* " I need a little help here" - If he is having a hard time figuring something out - such as getting dressed on his own.
* "I boy" - If we call him a baby or anything else he always corrects us and says, "I not....I boy."  When I say, "That's right, you are a boy and I'm a girl."  he replies, "You not girl.  You Mommy."  Every time. Cracks me up.

Three little pigs!!!

For the last month or so, the girls have been preparing our "Three Little Pigs" play. Keeley wrote the scripts and passed them out. Then the girls made the backdrops.  Then Mom had to order the pig noses (we already had the wolf ears from our trips to the Great Wolf Lodge.  The last step was having Oma here to watch it.

Oma did the video and I took pictures so my part isn't documented here (since Mommy Pig couldn't do the part and take pictures).  That scene took place on the first landing of the stairs.

Daddy...I mean "the big bad wolf" at the first little pigs house.

At the second little pig's house.  You can see Kayden reading the script from behind the house :) 

Killian was supposed to be a pig but got stage fright so he just watched.

 

Keeley had realized that one easel paper wasn't tall enough to hide them so she taped two together and made the second on be the "ground".  So creative.  She also figured out how to put them up with yarn on the banisters.

 

Silly kids

I love those three so much.

Parent Lesson Night

I love, love, love parent lesson night at school.  The kids come home and talk about "the bank game" and "checkerboard" and I love getting to see those and all the other works I don't understand.  I also really love how montessori teaches math so I truly enjoy it when the kids teach me math works. We started in Kayden's class.  She had been prepared to show me the bank game.  It is a work that teaches dynamic addition of 4 digit numbers.

After gathering her supplies at the rug, she sets out all the numbers.

Waiting patiently for Mrs. Wilcox (love her) to write her problem for her.  The problem will be written with the same color pattern as the cards Kayden laid out.

She will pull the cards that she needs to form each number and then go to the "bank" to get her manipulatives.  The big block is the thousands, the flat sheet is the hundreds, and then there are the 10 bars and the unit bead in the bowl.

Once she gets all the manipulatives for each number, she adds them together.  When she has to carry a number, she physically takes the beads over to the bank and changes out the 10 units for a 10 bar.  I just love the way that it works to reinforce all those math concepts.  I love the way the manipulatives really help them "see" and "feel" that 1000 is so much bigger than 1.

Next up, the elementary building!  Keeley chose to show me the checkerboard.  She uses it multiply a 4 digit number by a single number.  

Here she is laying out all the bead bars and the numbers.

Writing her problem in the journal.

Mommy got a turn!

I had to lay out all the bars according to my multiplier and multiplicand.

 Then I had to exchange out to figure out how many I had.  Keeley had to help me because I got confused!

My finished product! I was very proud of myself!

Tooth Fairy

Tonight when I was tucking Keeley in she was reading a book about a the tooth fairy.  As soon as I got up on her bed she said, "Mom, is there really a tooth fairy?" I tried to play it off for a while but then she looked at me and said, "Mom, I want to know the truth."  I'm all for maintaining the fun of childhood but I'm not going to flat out lie when confronted like that so even though I was super sad, I said, "It's me.  I'm the Tooth Fairy."  She looked at me with wide eyes and a huge smile and said, "YOU!  You put the sparkles (glitter) in my room?!"  When I nodded she leaned over and gave me the biggest hug and said, "THANK YOU!  I love them so much!"  We talked for a few minutes about how this needs to be super secret so that Kayden and Killian still get to have some of the fun and then I told her I'd still be the Tooth Fairy for her. Another huge smile broke out on her face and she said, "You will?!  Thank you so much!  I love you!"  I'm totally sad that she is growing up so fast but it was so sweet tonight that I almost (almost) didn't mind.

Painters!

We had the majority of our house painted this week.  Terrible plan on my part because the kids were off school so we had to shuffle around and try to be where they weren't and where they hadn't just been.  We got pretty creative until the last day when I was done and we headed out while Daddy stayed home!

Kayden organized all her dolls on the bottom of the stairs during a Killian nap

Keeley did too.  She sorted hers by size as well.  And needed to pose.

Playing with her password journal.

Love this sweet girl

Painting in the art room.  We spent hours in here.

Keeley prefers to work on the ground for some reason.

All the work we did while the painters were here.  That's a lot of work.

A couple of weeks ago, the kids started practicing a play for the family - The Three Little Pigs.  Keeley wrote the script and handed out the parts and the girls worked on props.  Then they realized that we didn't have the correct costumes.  Mom ordered the pig noses and they were so very excited to try them on and start snorting!

By Saturday, Mommy was totally done herding kids around so I took the kids to the zoo while Kelly stayed home.  Somehow our anniversary celebrations have changed since we had kids!

When we came to the zoo on the first, neither of the grown ups had any coins for this and the kids were not pleased.  I planned ahead this time and brought several coins for each kid.

And Keeley planned ahead and brought her purse so they could have even more.  Love this picture of the other two waiting for her to share.

New Year's Day!