Little Miss Earned Her 1st Awards

Yippee!!! Daddy came home on Sunday afternoon. It is always a fun time
when Daddy gets home. My husband and I made the decision before the
school year began that on days he was home from work, the kids would
have time off from homeschooling also. It was a great decision to
make. As excited as the kids become with Daddy home from the road, they
would have a hard time focusing on their schoolwork anyways.

After dinner, I brought out the 4 awards that Little Miss had earned in
the Little Keepers at Home program. Over the past couple of months, she
has been working on the phonics portion of the ABC's academic skill.
She had already learned to say and write her ABC's but I wanted to be
sure she understood their sounds. The second skill she worked on was
Decoupage. She used the decoupage technique to make holiday gifts last
December. That was one of her most fun projects. She really enjoyed
making them. The third skill was Cookie Baking. At the holidays and
since then, Little Miss has been helping me to make cookies. At her
age, I have to do the actual baking to prevent her getting a burn. She
is able to do the mixing of the ingredients and putting the dough onto
the baking sheets. We did take a minor shortcut in the baking part. I
always try to have parchment paper on hand to line the baking sheet
with. I am then able to simply slide the parchment paper full of baked
cookies off the sheet and onto a cooling rack. This helps also to
prevent her from getting burned due to a hot pan. The last area that
she worked on was a health unit on Keeping Clean. We talked about good
personal hygiene and why it is important. Having learned it during a
time of year when colds are going around was especially timely. She was
able to manage going through the season without getting sick, even
though exposed to others with colds.

Daddy was really pleased with her efforts. He made quite a production
out of awarding her the pins. I haven't made her banner yet to display
them on, which is a good thing. We decided to make her a vest with her
helping to sew it. This will give her another skill area to work on.
She has been wanting to learn to sew something. Letting her help sew
her vest will make a nice project. I already have a pattern. It is
very simple and does not require button holes. I have a couple of ideas
for closures, but will wait and let her help choose them.

I am finding that Little Miss, while very much an outdoors type of girl,
is also a very dainty girlie-girl. She is so cute to watch. One day
she is wearing bib overalls, playing in the mud with her brother and
nephew. The next day she can be found wanting to wear a dress and do
the more dainty things. I love it! I hope that she always knows that
being a lady doesn't have to mean always being "girlie" but means far
more. I believe it to be an attitude more than anything. Of course,
this is coming from a Mom who used to drive trucks for a living.