First and Last Days of School, 2011-12

On their last day of school this year, I talked Rosie and Dash into wearing the same outfits that they had worn on their first day so I could take this comparison photo. They didn't protest at all, and amazingly, Rosie still fit in all the clothing, including shoes (although, I noticed afterwards that she had worn holes through the soles).

While they are standing in almost the same spot, I didn't get the exact angle from the original shot. I was pretty careful to scale the after-shot to an accurate relative size, basing the measurement on Dash's shirt from collar to shirt-tails.

They *have* grown quite a bit, haven't they? Cheers to my rising Second and Fourth-graders!

Recital Day!

Rosie's GS Bridging Ceremony

Rosie and her Girl Scout troop mates all bridged over from Brownies to Juniors today. Congratulations, girls!

Rosie's Design Won the Patch Contest!

Rosie's Girl Scout troop will be going to the annual "Encampment" this weekend and she is very excited about it — she started packing last week. As with many GS events, there's a patch associated with it. We are new to Scouting, but it doesn't seem like they enlist for patch artwork submissions that often. However, we got a contest entry form for this event. When we originally got the flyer via email back in early March, I sort of blew it off, thinking it would be like many other contests that Rosie's entered and nothing would come of it.

Mid-March, I ran into the mom who was collecting the entries; she told me that was worried about the lack of submissions this year and whether they would have a viable option to choose from. When I was home with Rosie next, I talked her into making an entry. The text that needed to be included was daunting for her: all of "Girls Rock!" and "SU 53-3 Encampment 2012" needed to fit on the patch along with the art. If you know how big kids' writing can be, you'll understand why it seemed like it would fill the small space (2.5 in sq.). I helped out, just a bit, by lightly penciling in where I thought the text would fit best. Then Rosie did the rest, in crayon (we have markers, and colored pencils, and many other media, but she insisted).



Rosie's orginal artwork is on the left, and the resulting embroidered patch on the right.





I contacted the GS mom about Rosie's submission, because we had missed the deadline. Did she still need more entries? I got a two-word response: "SEND IT." Rosie originally drew tiny little girl-figures, much too small for the embroidery machine to work with, so the patch artist made them larger. Also, her two girls were originally more diverse, one with brown, curly hair and brown skin and the other with long black hair and pale skin — the final art limited the usable colors (there are 8 in the patch), so no brown (or pink).

This encampment is for all of the scouts in our County, so approximately 200 girls will be wearing Rosie's artwork on the patch they all receive. I think her original and the final patch are both lovely! Rosie will be so excited to have this as a keepsake of the contest that she won and of her time in Girl Scouts.