100 Days of School

Erin has already finished 100 days of school!  In Kindergarten, the students celebrate this milestone by creating their very own personalized shirts decorated with 100 items.  Erin decided to deck her blue shirt out with blue, red and purple sequins.  She also created the number 100 with butterflies and flowers in a blue AB pattern. 

Today, Erin will get participate in the Warner Elementary 100th Day Olympics.  They have an assortment of activities and booths available for the Kindergartners.  She was so pumped this morning, she could hardly wait!  I am so very proud of my big girl and can't believe she is growing up so fast!

Daisy Vest Is Here!!!

Erin has been waiting for her Daisy uniform since the day she began Girl Scouts.  Her troupe leader ordered them over the holidays, but they took a while to come in.  We were told at the last meeting that the uniforms had finally arrived and Ms. Sandy (the troupe leader) would be bringing them by everyone's house.

She made arrangements to come by last Thursday evening.  Naturally, she came over while I was baking chocolate cake for chocolate day at school and making dinner.  Erin got her vest and patches from Ms. Sandy and insisted that they had to be put on immediately!!!  Erin and I figured out how to iron on the badges and troupe information in record time.  The big Daisy was ready to model her her vest complete with her patches!  Check her out!! :)

Best Daisy EVER

Erin has been enjoying her Daisy meetings.  Last meeting came the part that she has been waiting for since she joined the Daises: Girl Scout Cookie Sales!  She was so excited when the cookie Mom brought out the sales sheets and told her troupe they were going to begin selling cookies.  The entire way home, she planned which houses she wanted to visit and wanted to know if she could begin "as soon as we got home".  Erin went to the houses she had planned to visit and made 3 successful sales.  She was overjoyed!

This week Erin's troupe learned about sharing and how it makes you feel.  She listened intently to the story and was happy to participate during the sharing time.  They made friendship bracelets during their craft time.  During closing circle, all the bracelets were placed in a bag.  Each girl picked one from the brown bag .  She enjoys socializing with the girls in her troupe and learning a new lesson each time we meet.  Erin is an AWESOME Daisy! :)

Bus Stop Happy Dance

Erin likes to get to the bus stop first every morning.  Erin and Randy leave the house every morning and walk to the bus stop.  They enjoy this very special routine every day.  They talk and share the things that they have to look forward to for that day. 
Erin greets her friends when they come to the bus stop and they play while they wait for the bus.  They run around the circle, race and do all kinds of fun things.  All the while, they keep an eagle eye look out for the bus.  When a child spots the much awaited bus, they yell "BUS".  Every child seems to magically appear from everywhere and form a neat line to climb onto the bus.

Louisiana Christmas

We drove to Louisiana on December 26 to visit Randy's family for Christmas.  We stayed with his Mom who is always a wonderful host.  She still had her Christmas tree up and Santa had left some very special gifts for Erin under the tree.  She loved the paper doll and chocolate, but most of she enjoyed the gift cards from Maw-Maw and aunt Windy.  She bought herself a Squinkies games for her new DS and an adorable Cabbage Patch Infant.  The most exciting part of all was when they asked her to sign the signature pad to complete her purchase.  Erin was so proud and felt so grown up!

Later, we went to Randy's sister's home to see Aunt Maria, Uncle Mike and her cousin Cameron.  The Christmas tree was up and the house was still beautifully decorated for the holidays.  Under the tree, Erin found more presents!  She loved the Angry Birds pig that matched the larger one her cousin had.  She also had a wonderful time with her coloring dome that projects your drawing all over the room.  Cameron and Erin were very creative with the dome.  They created all kinds of fun and imaginative scenes!  

Erin enjoyed seeing all of her family.  She especially enjoyed seeing her Uncle Mike.  They had a great time being silly together and exchanging a million kisses.  Best of all Erin thought his uniform was "AWESOME" when Uncle Mike got ready for work!

Merry Christmas!

Erin woke up and ran downstairs.  She was so excited that it was finally Christmas Eve!  She had been counting down the days very patiently with her friend the Nutcracker.  She knew that she would be able to open some her gifts that were under the tree that evening and that Granny would be coming over in the afternoon to help her celebrate Christmas.  Erin did her best to be patient waiting for my Mom, but the excitement of the day prompted her to ask "When is Granny coming?" too many times to count.  At last Granny arrived with her arms filled with gifts that Santa had dropped off at her house.  Erin was so happy to see her!

Granny joined us for a family Christmas Eve Service at our church.  We then headed home to open a couple presents and have dinner.  Erin insisted that it was time for bath because Santa would be coming soon.  She also had a little chat with him asking him to shoot her gifts down the chimney and letting him know that his cookies could be found outside. 

Christmas morning, Erin ran into the living room and was amazed by the sight of all of her presents sitting in front of the chimney.  She began unwrapping all of  her gifts.  She enjoyed all of her gifts from Santa, but her favorite of all was her long waited Nintendo DS!

We had a blessed and wonderful Christmas and we look forward to Santa's visit next year!

Warner Elementary Holiday Party

This Monday, Erin's elementary school hosted a holiday party of all of it's Kindergartners.  They had 3 large blow up slides set up behind the school.  The first was a large wave with 2 huge slides going down the sides.  They had a large Titanic looking ship with a large tunnel up the middle.  Finally, they had a fun obstacle course blowup with a huge slide at the end.  Erin enjoyed the obstacle the most!

They also set up a reindeer tossing competition and a snowman bean bag toss.  Erin managed to get 1 bean bag into the snowman cut out.  She also dunked 1 reindeer in the camo cut out!  Both extraordinary performances earned her an extra special candy cane!

The final activity was a reindeer food booth.  Volunteers mixed an assortment of marshmallows, goldfish, fruit loops, pretzels and M & Ms into Ziploc bags.  It turns out that children and reindeer like the same snacks... Erin ate all of her snacks that evening.  We'll have to make more for Santa on Christmas Eve!