Well lets chat for a minute about the new Space badges from Girl Scouts. We are so excited to start this new badge at all levels of our Girl Scout troop. Using VTK (the new Girl Scout leader website), one of the projects was to make a solar system using salt dough. The directions said that you needed 3lbs of salt dough, what it didn’t say (and what I couldn’t find online regardless of many google searches) was how much flower and salt I needed to make three pounds of salt dough. Using a 2:1 recipe I found online, I made three balls of dough each equaling about one pound. After putting them all together, I assumed there was about three pounds of dough ( I don’t have a scale, so I couldn’t weigh it). My original idea was to make the planets and then bake them, paint them and use them as part of our solar system later on in the badge. This didn’t work because when baked, they ended up looking like a pancake.

At my meeting, the girls enjoyed making the planets, the directions supplied by VTK were hard to accomplish, and I’m not sure that we did it right. The girls enjoyed playing with the salt dough, and presenting their planets to the rest of the troop.

After we were done making our planets, we went outside and using the app, GoSkyWatch planetarium for iPad (GoSkyWatch Planetarium for iPad - Astronomy Guide by GoSoftWorks https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goskywatch-planetarium-for-ipad-astronomy-guide/id364209241?mt=8) we looked at constellations, planets and stars in the sky. The girls enjoyed this part the most, and anytime they are able to use a gadget, they are happy.

Got Cookies?

I love cookies....

I REALLY love Girl Scout cookies, but for years I've been unable to eat them because of the gluten. 

So I introduce to you:

Trios!

Trios is the GF GS Cookie made by ABC Bakery, which is a subsidiary of Interbake Foods in Richmond, Va.

These are delicious!

They have the right combination of crunch and chew, don't have the sand texture like last years "trial" GF cookies did and have chocolate and peanut butter!

I'd recommend finding some. They come in a bag and are great with a side of nice, cold milk. 

Yum-o!

The cookies cane be ordered and shipped from COCO Direct. You can purchase them by the case or half case.

They are $4 a box. 

Thinking Day SWAPs 2015

This years Thinking Day (held the week after it was originally scheduled because of snow), was a hit!

These are the SWAPs that each country did. I tried to get them all, but some we didn't get. 

This beautiful pink rose was from India. Their troop was also dressed in traditional Indian garb and were absolutely beautiful. 

India made curry chicken with naan, and a desert that had almonds and pecans in it. It was tasty. 

This is the KIWI bird from New Zealand. Everyone likes these super cute birds. 

For their food, they made Pavlova Cake (a cake with blueberries, strawberries and kiwis with whipped topping.)

Nigeria made a bookmark. They also made delicious coconut cookies that were gluten free. I may have had two.

These are tags with real Turkish stamps on them. Turkey made (from scratch) Turkish delight--only one person said "like from Narnia?" And it was a Dad. Guess kids don't read that book anymore. 

Germany had another SWAP but between the location and my house it went missing in the car. They made a pretzel. They also served pretzels. 

Nepal made this. I'm not sure why they used these colors (yellow is not part of the Nepali flag). I'm thinking it has something to do with Peace.  They made a lentil and rice dish and a mango chutney. 

Thailand: rice, flip flops with sand, the flag pin, and a burrito (or something similar to a burrito). There food was bananas wrapped in wonton shells with chocolate and what tasted like coffee. 

France made a croissant, French bread and an Eiffel Tower swap. There food was a Creme puff. 

Crops of Luv

Crops of Luv (cropsofluv.org) is a non-profit group that makes scrapbook of Wish trips for Wish kids. 

They made Joseph one, and they did a fantastic job. 

I tried for a long time to make one. I would sit in my office for hours and stare at the pictures. I never got past two pages. That was a bad time for us. A bad time for Joseph. We struggled, a lot. And looking at the pictures and knowing that our son could've lost the battle is enough to make me cry even now. So after lots of searching (I am after all a scrapper and I felt bad sending my pics off for someone else to scrap). 

I found them, they were the answer. 

And here are some of the pages:

This was our "going away party."

Joseph wasn't feeling well that day. 

Thank you, Crops of Liv. You will never know how much this means to us. 

Ukrops and Martin's

Ukrops, a family owned and ran grocery store in the Richmond, VA and surrounding area has an awesome .pdf file on their website, that tells you every item in the store that is Gluten Free. How cool is that? You just have to download it and make your shopping list. Totally awesome!
To access the .pdf, click here.

I also spent some time on the Kroger website, which I"m sure is pretty much nationwide, and they also have an awesome .pdf that can be downloaded and used to make a shopping list from.
Naturally Gluten Free Products

Gingerbread House

This years Christmas parade theme was "Christmas in America". My Girl Scout troop decided that they wanted a large gingerbread house and they wanted to be gingerbread people.  

The gingerbread people were made out of Cardboard, and embellished with paint, glitter, ribbon and pom poms.

The lollipops were made using white plates that were then stapled to a paper towel roll, decorated and then covered with cellophane. 

Slime

Recently we went to a Girl Scout event where we needed to bring a Glow in the Dark SWAP.

We made Bats (see previous post) and I've already shown pictures of the other SWAPs.

Slime is SIMPLE to make, here's our ingredient list:

Liquid Starch (must be non-aerosol, liquid starch, I used Sta-Flo, found at Wal-Mart and Kroger.)

White or clear school glue (not Tacky glue!)

Water

Paint (in a color of your choosing, we chose Orange and Green Glow in the Dark Paint by Martha Stewart, found at Michael's). 

Depending on what you are doing with it, you may also need individual containers to place your slime after making it. 

We used jello shooter containers, purchased at Party City. There are 40 in a bag and they cost $3.99 a package. 

Step 1:

Take equal parts of glue and water and mix them together. Add paint until you get your desired color.

Then add the same amount of starch that you added of glue and water. The mix it all together. Tada-Slime.

To make 120 2.5oz containers of slime you will need 32 5oz containers of glue , 1.5 containers of Sta-Flow and water. We used about half a bottle of paint (we did 60 green and 60 orange).

Something's to note:

After a few days, the contents separate and you have to open the containers and pour off the excess fluid, you only have to do this once. 

Despite buying "Glow in the Dark" paint ours did not glow. Not sure why.