Grocery Store Tour - For Girl Scout Troop

We took our Brownie Girl Scout Troop on a field trip to the local grocery store.  I know, I thought the same thing.  A field trip at a grocery store?  Now that's exciting (NOT).

Boy was I wrong!

We visited our local Jewel store.  They were very accommodating and were very excited to have us visit their store.

Our trip started out in the floral department.  The floral designer talked to the girls about the flowers (some were in the cooler to keep them fresh) and plants (they need to be watered a little daily).  We were there right before Christmas so we talked a little about poinsettias.  I asked her about when they bloom.  She was surprised that I still have one (a gift I received last year from a family member).  She said they need to be in complete darkness for half the day and suggested that I put it in a closet.  I'm afraid if I do, I will forget about it and it would die.  I will keep you posted if I ever get the nerve to try this out....

We moved on to the grocery department and got to see the big freezers in the back that hold milk and the one that holds the ice cream (YUM!). 

We walked over to the meat department and they gave us a little information on how their department is set up...meat/chicken/fish.  He even told us that they will cook the fish for you while you wait.  How cool is that?  An easy dinner with no dirty pots and pans to wash!

At the bakery we watched how they decorated a big cookie and the girls were able to sample some bread and a cookie.

The deli gave us a little tour showing us all that they carry: deli meats, cheeses, salads.  The girls sampled a piece of American cheese.

In the product department we learned that there are over 7000 types of apples and that they have 15 of them in stock.  We sampled a yummy honey crisp apple.

Each department was wonderful answering the girls questions.  The girls walked away with a fun gift bag from the pharmacy and a troop picture to remember their time at the store. 

By the way, our Girl Scout store has a fun patch for "Grocery Store Tour."

If you go on a tour, let me know  how it turns out and what your troop learned.  I would love to hear about it!

The kids are back in school today. 

One more day off and I would have dropped all three off at the school district superintendent's house. 

I think days off school should be delivered with a bottle of wine (and some duct tape). 

I love my kids but two days of being in the house with them all day and night was a killer. Too cold to send them outside and too cold to get out of the house myself. 

Of course, now that they are out and at school today, I am working. 

Day two of No School due to cold weather

It's bikini day at our house today

Poor Pippen

when do they go back to school?

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

(It's a couple of days late...sorry!)

Day one of no school due to the cold weather

Nothing like telling the kids they have to keep quiet. 

RT had to be on the phone for an hour and needed it to be quiet.  A tough thing to ask when school was cancelled due to the extreme cold weather.

No school.  Too cold to go outside.  Stuck inside the house with a limited number of things to do and all day to do them.  They can talk but can't scream and yell.  That means fighting is taken out of the list of "things to do" today. 

I have to say it was quite entertaining watching them.  And by them, I mean Alex and Bella.  Nick ran and hid in his room. 

I could see that Alex and Bella were about to explode at each other and were trying so hard to hold it all back. 

I'm quite thankful.  This provided me with an hour of entertainment on this cold, cold day.

Once RT finished his call, all **** broke loose.  

So, I guess I could say, things are back to normal now. 

My achin' back

I must have pulled my back shoveling the drive way today. 
I have been walking around like an old lady today (yea, I know...I am an old lady)
The kids have been pretty good about it.  Alex said, "Let me do this for you, Mom.  I dont' want you to pull your back again." 
I'm so old, my back goes out more than I do.

Who let the dogs out?

This morning I had to do a little shoveling on our driveway.  We got maybe an inch of snow over night.  I try to keep up with the shoveling.  We are supposed to get a little more snow tonight.

RT was out there with me.  He was shoveling the side yard a little for the dogs.  The dogs happened to be outside with us.  They usually just hang around and stand where you want to shovel (well, Pippen does).  Not many people walking their dogs lately because of the cold temps.

I try to keep an eye on Pippen.  I'm always afraid he's going to run off after another dog.  I don't worry too much about Newton.  He usually hangs by the garage when it's super cold.

At one point I realized the dogs were gone.  RT said, they're probably running around the back.  I worried.  Pippen might get into his psycho attack dog mode (which is really his I want to play mode, but, is mistaken as mean, attack dog).  I heard the neighbor's dog in their yard barking and was afraid Pippen was paying him a visit.

I ran to the back of our house and called them. 

I see Pippen running towards me with a bone in his mouth.  They weren't by the dog that was outside, they were visiting our next door neighbor (who also has a dog).  I thought that Pippen dug up a bone he found in the snow in the neighbors yard. 

I realize that this little escape was led by Newton.  Newton knows that this neighbor will give him cookies if he walks up to their back door 
 
I call Newton (who has suddenly lost his hearing).  He's wandering around the neighbor's yard.  I walk up to Newton and tap him on the back so he knows I'm there.  His hearing is still not working and he is doing a great job ignoring me.  My neighbor pops out and tells me the dogs came to his door a few times and he gave them some cookies.  This last time he gave them a big dog bone.  I thanked him and told Newton to go home.  I was excited because he actually heard me and started walking.  He trotted a little, right up to the back door of the neighbors house! 

Apparently, that is Newton's home.  The one with the unlimited cookies.

Close the door!

I was standing in my kitchen wondering why certain areas on the floor were colder than other areas.  The colder areas were towards the center of the house.  If they were near a wall or a door, I could understand.  I thought maybe someone opened a window.  If you have been following along and have read about my family (especially my children) you could see how something like that could happen.  I can hear it now..."I know it's below zero outside, but I was so hot so I opened up a window."

Our furnace was working, which was a good sign.  I walked towards the stairs and felt a nice breeze.  Yes.  Someone left the front door open.

I texted that "someone" (Nick) and let him know.

"You left the front door open.  It's healthy to get fresh air but not when the temperature is below zero."

I realize it's cold outside, but, we live inside a house that has heat.

The temperature the last couple of days has been hovering around 0 degrees F (sometimes above sometimes below 0).  All over Face book and Twitter people are complaining about the cold weather.

We live in the Midwest.  It gets cold here in the winter.  It isn't something new.  Believe it or not, when I was growing up (here, in the Midwest), it got cold during the winter.  I remember winter snaps where the temperature was below zero and would last for a week or two.  We got through it then and will definitely survive this time around.

Peppermint Swirl Bundt Cake

I bought a bundt pan awhile ago and have been dying to use it.  Just the name is fun to say. 

Bundt. 
Bundt. 

Of course, I like pronouncing it "Boondt."

"I want to make a boondt cake."

Boondt.

Try it.  It's fun.  

I found this recipe for a Peppermint Swirl Bundt Cake on the Betty Crocker website.  Here is a link to the recipe from their site.

I love peppermint and you make this in a bundt (boondt) cake pan.  It's a win win for me. 

I wasn't sure how the peppermint would go over with my family.  It's one of those things either you love or you hate.  Apparently they love peppermint because this cake lasted less than 24 hours.

This is probably more of a Christmas type dessert.  I don't see why you can't put some red hot candies on it and serve it up for Valentine's Day. 

Here's the recipe:

Peppermint Swirl Bundt Cake

Ingredients:
For the cake:
1 white cake mix
   (water, vegetable oil and egg whites called for on the cake mix box)
1/2 tsp red food coloring
1/2 tsp peppermint extract

For the White Icing

1 cup powdered sugar

1 T milk or water

1/2 tsp vanilla, if desired

• Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pan). Generously grease and flour 12-cup fluted tube cake pan. Make cake batter as directed on box. Pour about 2 cups batter into pan. In small bowl, pour about 3/4 cup batter; stir in food color and peppermint extract. Carefully pour pink batter over white batter in pan. Carefully pour remaining white batter over pink batter.
• 2 Bake and cool cake as directed on box.
• 3 In small bowl, mix white icing ingredients. If necessary, stir in additional milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, until smooth and spreadable. Spread over cake. Sprinkle crushed candy on top. Store loosely covered.

 
You can decorate this cake using crushed candy canes or peppermint hard candy.

You can use little red hot candies on it to make it special for Valentines Day, too.

 

If you try it, let me know how long it lasts in your house!  :)

 

Enjoy!

Through sickness and in health....

A gentleman came in today looking for games to get for his wife to improve her memory.  He told me that she fell down the stairs and was in a coma for 19 days.  Her memory isn't that great.  He wanted some help so he could try to help her remember various things. 

I helped him pick out some games he can play with her.  The whole time I kept thinking how sweet it was that he was trying to help her. 

One thing he said stuck with me. 

"I'm here to help her." 

Junior High School Dance

So, I get this phone call from Alex at 3:00pm.  He was using his friend's phone.  I thought he was at the friends house and was going to ask if he could stay there for awhile.  Instead he asked me to bring his basketball shoes to school. 

Me:  Why do you need your basketball shoes?  What's going on at school?

Alex:  There's a school dance going on and you can play basketball.

Me:  Are you going to the dance?

Alex:  No.  I'm going to play basketball.

Nutella Cookies

My family likes sweets.  Especially cookies!

I found this recipe on the Kirbie's Cravings blog.  You can visit her blog by clicking here for some yummy pictures and the recipe.

So, my kids went through this crazy Nutella phase.  They couldn't get enough of it!  I felt like I was buying Nutella all the time!  So, I had this idea.  RT was going to Costco (the store that sells items in the life time supply size) and I suggested that he pick up some Nutella.  I figured it would save me time and money going back and forth to the store. 

Once RT made that purchase, the Nutella phase died out in our house.  Costco sure knows how to kill a food craze.

Now I have this Nutella sitting in the cabinet and have to figure out a way to use it.  (I'm not into wasting food)  So, what's popular in our house?  Cookies! (Cookie Monster would be so proud)  How about Nutella cookies?  Sure, why not?

These cookies are called Easiest Nutella Cookies. They looked delicious and, well, they are easy to make.  I'm all for easy.

Nutella Cookies

taken from Kirbie's Cravings

1/2 cup + 1 tbsp all purpose flour
1 large egg
1 cup of Nutella
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Combine flour, egg and Nutella in a large bowl and mix together with a spoon until dough comes together and no flour lumps remain. Stir in chocolate chips until evenly mixed into the dough.
2. Make dough balls, about 1 1/2 inch in diameter. Place on cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart. Press down slightly on dough so the dough balls are more like very very thick round disks rather than perfectly round balls. Smooth edges that may have cracked from the pressure of pushing down on the balls, so that you have thick round smooth disks.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes. Cookies should be mostly set, but might be slightly still soft in the middle. Let cookies cool on rack until completely set. Enjoy while still slightly warm or after completely cooled.

This recipe makes 12 cookies. 

I doubled the recipe and made the cookies smaller.  I was hoping this way they would last a little longer. (cookies never last that long in this house)

If you make them, let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Meet My Customers - Brownie Badge

Our Brownie troop just earned their "Meet My Customers" badge.  This badge and it's activities are some what similar to the financial leaves for Daisy's.  Our girls earned their financial leaves during Daisy's, so some of these steps were quite easy and went rather quickly.

Steps:
1.  Find out where your customers are
2.  Talk to some Customers
3.  Practice handling money and making change
4.  Role playing and good customer relations
5.  Thank your customers

I know these might be out of order.  This is how we completed these steps in our meeting.  This did take us a couple of meetings, but, could possibly be done in one meeting.  (our meetings are one hour long)

As an opener, we printed out a little worksheet for the girls.  The girls had to fill in the cost for boxes of cookies (we went up to 12 cookies).

1 box ________
2 boxes_______
3 boxes_______
4 boxes_______

Our girls are in second grade and are learning word problems, so we put a few of our own on the worksheet.

Aunt Lisa bought 2 boxes of Samoas and 1 box of Savannah Smiles.  She hands you a $20 bill.  What is her change?

This made the girls think through the order and use their math skills.

(we did our attendance, pledge, promise and law at this point)

We talked to the girls about safety when selling Girl Scout Cookies (only go out with a parent, never go door-to-door by yourself).  Who can you sell to?  Neighbors, friends, family.  (we did not do booth sales this year, so we did not discuss)

I photocopied some money (nothing like printing your own money!)  (play money will work for this activity, too)  and gave each of the girls about $40.   (1) $20, (1) $10, (1) $5 and (4) $1's.  We had groups of two girls and they took turns being the buyer or the customer.  The girls practiced what to say when the door opened, "Hello, I'm selling Girl Scout Cookies...." and also what to say if a customer says No (Thank you).

The customer would place their order and the girl scout then figures out how much the customer owes them.  During this activity, we used the play money so the girls can give out the correct change.

At our next meeting, when the girls were handing in their cookie order forms*, we asked them what they wanted to do with their money that they earned selling Girl Scout Cookies.  They each wrote down 3 ideas.  As a sharing time activity we asked them to tell us their favorite idea.  We wrote them on the board and then had the girls vote on them. 

We had the girls write a thank you note to their customers.  Just one note, very general, thanking them for buying cookies.  They could add a picture if they wanted.  They could also tell their customers what we plan on doing with the money that we earned.  We collected the notes from the girls.  When the cookies arrived, we gave the "thank you notes" to the girls (and parents) and asked them to make copies to give to their customers with their orders.

*when the girls handed in their forms, we had them color in part of a thermometer that we drew.  We had our goal (this year was 500) and each girl colored in how many they sold.  Leave some extra space at the top.  We had to extend our thermometer because we sold over 700 boxes. 

Hope this helps.  If you have any ideas that you used, please share them!

Don't sweat it!

So, as I was driving to work the other day I was thinking about my day ahead of me.  Who I would work with that day.  Would it be busy?  What (if anything) would I be doing for those four hours. 

It's been kind of slow at work and it's nice when you like the people that you are hanging out with for the day.  It's also nice if you have something to do to occupy your time while you are there.

I was at a red light when it came to me.  You see, while waiting at the light  I realized that I forgot to put on some deodorant that morning.

Normally, I can (accidentally) forget to use deodorant and everything works out just fine.  (no odor, no perspiration, nothing)  When I realize that I forgot to use deodorant, well, that's when I'm going to perspire and stink.  It's a psychological thing. 

I called my mom for advice.  She said, "Don't sweat." 

Thanks, Mom.   Easier said than done. 

I was so worked up about trying not to sweat that I could actually feel a sweat trying to come on.  Never mind that it was going to be 18F that day, I was going to sweat like it was 95F hot and humid.

I didn't have time to stop by a store and pick up some deodorant.  I didn't want to be late for work.

So, I did what any normal person would do.  I turned off the heat in the car.  I didn't want to get too warm.  Yea, it was probably 10F outside, but, I didn't want to take the chance and start sweating.  I had to try to make it through four hours of not sweating and I didn't want to start my sweating on the car ride to work.

My day (four hours) was spent trying not to sweat and hoping that I didn't stink.

I felt a little sweat trying to let loose right there at the end of my shift (I was helping a customer, ringing and wrapping).  I am pleased to say that I successfully made it through my four hour shift. 

I went home, took my coat and shoes off, ran to the bathroom and............

put some deodorant on.

Music project from recyclables

Bella had an assignment over winter break for her music class. She had to make a musical instrument using products from the recycling bin.

Bella decided to go with Maracas.

She used water bottles, empty toilet paper rolls, popcorn kernels and duct tape. < The duct tape was new, not used. 

Well, Nick saw Bella's completed project and decided that he could do better so he started making his own instruments.   These are drums (I think). 

Bella didn't like her maraca choice and wanted a stringed instrument.  With RT's help, they made a harp using an old (Bisquick) box, fishing line and rubber bands and tape.  It plays pretty good.

Freezing. Cold. Below zero temperature.

Once again, I had this post in my head but, I never wrote it down.  I should just keep the phone on so I have access to my blogger app.

Last week the temperatures around these parts were below zero.  I think I mentioned in an earlier post how the kids stayed home a couple of extra days because of the extreme temperatures.

The thermostat isn't set real high in our house.  High meaning hot.  I'm sure I have mentioned how RT loves to have a million several blankets on him when he sleeps.  Well, during that little cold snap we had, he had several blankets, a heated throw, a comforter and a real heavy sleeping bag.  Me?  A sheet and the comforter.  I did have an extra blanket but I got so warm in the middle of the night I kicked (all the blankets) off.

Yea.  Below zero, wind chill of -40F.  RT with millions of heavy blankets and there I am laying there with just the sheet. 

RT picked Bella up from the bus the other day.  Bella walks in and says,

"Mommy that was the grossest thing I've ever done. It was awful. Just awful!"

She was near tears. I thought something terrible happened (at school, on the bus ride, at the bus stop).  Did they see a car accident? A dog get hit by the car?  My mind was racing. 

RT came in and said, "It's just water."

The snow was melting and there were some huge puddles. Apparently the bus let them off in a big puddle and they walked in some water on the way home 

That's my girly girl. 

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It's time

Two weeks of winter break with no fighting. Throw in a snow day and they handled it well. Toss in an extra snow day and all h*** breaks loose. 

It started after lunch. Nick was taking a shower and Bella HAD to get into the bathroom to brush her teeth.  Never mind that she had all day to brush them. She had to do it now and she can't wait for him to finish his shower. 

Alex made fun of her which then started another battle in his room. Nick gets out of the shower and continues his fight with Bella. I said, I'm not responsible for anyone getting hurt and I don't want anyone to come crying to me. 

I was fed up with the noise and fighting and decided to sneak out of the house to get some peace.  I was busted while putting on my coat and boots. 

"Where are you going?"

"I'm running away. As far away from here as I can."

Thinking it over, and not figuring it all out, the reply:

"Sounds like fun. Can we come with you?"

It's a little chilly outside

Starting the new year off with some snow and cold weather. Today's temperature is not going to be above 0F.  The kids have today (and tomorrow) off (an extended Christmas vacation). The ghetto van is the only car that starts. I had to work and was chauffeured to and from (nice!).  So far, everyone is getting along. We shall see how long that lasts.