Locks of Love

My group of Girl Scout Juniors are working on earning their bronze award, which is kind of a simpler version of the gold award which they can earn when they are older, and is the Girl Scout equivalent of the Eagle Scout award for boys. The bronze is a 20 hour service project that the girls do as a troop. In a couple of years they can earn their silver awards which is a 50 hour service project done in small groups of no more than 4. Finally they can earn their gold award which is a 100 hour (or two 50 hour) service project(s) that they do on their own.

We had each of the girls submit at least one project idea, along with a basic plan of what we would need to pull it off, and in the end we didn’t select any of the plans the girls turned in. One of them had suggested that we organize free hair cuts for poor people, but that isn’t a sustainable project, because you cut the hair once and eventually it will grow and need to be cut again. Somehow as we talked about that, other ideas came up and the idea of doing a Locks of Love drive was presented. This would be more sustainable, since girls would come and have their hair cut for free, and we would send the hair to Locks of Love to be made into wigs for girls who lose their hair due to medical issues. So that is what the girls decided they wanted to do.

Being the leader, and having long hair, I of course let them cut my hair to donate:

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Tyra was at the event with me and the rest of our troop, and Kyle brought the rest of our kids by to check out the bake sale and craft sale that we were also having. The girls thought that would be a nice way to provide opportunities for people who don’t have hair long enough to donate, to help Locks of Love with the cost associated with making wigs.

One of Tyra’s friends from church came to donate her hair, and that started Tyra off, begging us to let her donate her hair as well. So Kyle took the kids home and washed their hair so that they could come back and donate it. Tyra, Dinah and Chloe all donated their hair.

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Lydia’s hair isn’t long enough to donate, so she is the only girl in our family that didn’t get a hair cut. Tyra, Dinah and Chloe were all so very excited to get their hair cut though. Personally I am afraid of having their hair so short. I don’t own a curling iron and if it starts flipping every which way, I’m not going to know how to fix it. This also means no more braids or pony tails for awhile and Chloe is simply adorable with her hair in a set of french braids. As for myself, my hair was long enough to begin with that I was able to donate the required 10 inches (minimum) and still be able to have long hair. Here we are with our new dos:

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Sick children

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Rebecca has pointed out to me on multiple occasions that when it comes to having children get sick, she much rather prefers sleepy lethargic children, the type that just want to sleep all day; over barfy children (need no explanation here, but its worse with the young ones that don’t recognize the feeling and fail to reach the toilet on time.)

Well, after the last two nights of being up most of the night with feverish crying children, she exclaimed, “I wanted them sleepy sick! Not this!”

To which I had to point out, “you just said you didn’t want them barfy sick. You need to be more specific on your order.”

Caught me by surprise!

I just realized that Chloe will be in kindergarten next year! Which means she is preschool age now, and I should probably be doing more “school” stuff with her. That means she will also be a Daisy girl scout next year. HOW was I not aware of this!? Somehow, I was thinking that she wouldn’t start kindergarten until the next year and that she would start Daisies the year that Dinah moves up to Brownies. I am really finding myself shocked to figure this out. At least I figured it out now and not the week before school starts next year. 😛 But man! Who told her she could grow up so fast???

Chloe’s fourth birthday

Chloe’s birthday was actually Wednesday. But on Wednesday, we had activity days, and then cub scouts, so we ended up celebrating a little later. We let her open her card and present yesterday. Kyle and I got her a Snow White duplo set.

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We ended up having cake today. Every time I asked Chloe what kind of cake she wanted, she just said “I want a bought cake”. Once I established that she wanted us to buy a cake instead of me making one, I again tried to ask what KIND. She just answered with, “I already told you. I want a bought cake.” It didn’t matter to her what kind of cake, so long as we bought it. So I asked Kyle to pick up a cake on his way home from work. I was expecting something from the bakery at Wal Mart or the grocery store, instead he came home with this fancy, red velvet, bundt cake.

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Just look at how happy she is to see that pretty “bought cake.”

Chloe’s 3rd Birthday

Today, Chloe turned 3! When you ask her how old she is she will hold up three fingers on one hand and say “I’m dis many!” She has been looking forward to her birthday for awhile now, but mostly since Kyle had his birthday and she knew hers was next. So after dinner tonight we got to celebrate her birthday (I am doing such a good job of making sure we celebrate birthdays ON the actual birthday 🙂 ). We got on Skype to do a video call with cousins, Tommy and Annaleah. The kids really enjoyed showing off a bunch of their toys and things to their cousins. The funny thing was that everybody was showing off their own things and nobody was actually paying attention to what the others were showing them. Then we went outside to attack the pinata.

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We went through everyone twice before we actually had it totally broken open. I love this picture of Tyra though:

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She is making a funny face, and I caught the candy in mid-air as it was falling to the ground. This picture of Ethan is pretty funny too:

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After the kids had picked up all the candies it was time to go inside for some cake. Chloe picked carrot cake when I gave her a list of choices, and so that is what I made. Along with cream cheese frosting.

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Then we took a break from all the celebrating to try to clean up a bit before letting Chloe open her presents. However, the kids took a REALLY long time to get their chores done and to get the living room tidied up, so we were really tired by the time we actually got around to presents. And being tired means that one minute, Chloe was perfectly happy:

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Then the next minute she was not:

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Then she went back to being perfectly happy again:

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But all things considered, I think she really enjoyed her birthday.  🙂