New 4-H'er

Julia joined one of the local 4-H clubs in September. She has no desire to do any sport (well, with the exception of swimming...), but wanted a fun activity to participate in. This club meets about 5 minutes from our house, once a month. Julia decided she wanted to join the photography, arts and crafts, and scrapbook groups. There are other options, but we thought that was enough to be involved in to start with.

A lot of the kids are in various animal groups, but it's not like we have room to raise a pig or a sheep. I'm pretty sure our HOA rules prevent us from even having chickens, let alone big farm animals! ;) Julia could raise rabbits, we have room for those, but I'm not too keen on the idea. Plus, she said herself, "It's something else to take care of!" Ha ha--she already has to clean the cat litter box twice a week.

Anyway, Sunday, Nov. 7, Julia attended her second photography meeting, this time at Windmill Farms. She took pictures, and I took a few. Other moms were too.


The kids weren't really taking pictures of each other, but mostly of things they saw around the farm. It started raining just as we left.

Julia's second scrapbook meeting was today at 9 am. The leader is great! All the leaders are very friendly and eager to answer questions. The kids made their scrapbook pages during the first hour, then made cards to donate to a local hospital, where they'll be given to cancer patients, during the second hour.

At 12:30 today, Julia helped at a holiday boutique, selling goodies at her 4-H club's bake sale table. She was sooooo eager to help! She wanted to help in the T Ball snack shop, but kids aren't allowed. Same for the soccer snack bar. Then she was sad she couldn't sell baked potatoes at the Octoberfest, b/c we were in WA. Anyway, she had fun talking to a friend who volunteered at the same time. She got to get people coffee and water, hand them the goodies, and take the money. Right up her alley!

Picture 1: An interesting flower I saw on the photography outing.

Picture 2: a collage of baked goodies.

Tuesday and Friday afternoon this last week, Julia went to her arts-and-crafts leader's house. Tuesday, the kids made gift tags to sell at the holiday boutique. Then Friday they made the reindeer cupcakes at the top of the collage above. They sold them for $1 each at the bake sale today. I was walking around with this plate of them that I bought for Austin, Lauren, and Caroline, and got so many comments!

Julia chose to make the Brownie Alpine Biscotti, for our food donation. She did most of it; I just helped with the cutting and drizzling on the white chocolate. They were yummy, but a pain in the neck, and I will not be making them again! Far too complicated and time-consuming for me. ;) I did plenty of grumbling to myself when they wouldn't cut nicely, then when the chocolate wouldn't drizzle nicely. I was happy when the lady at the bake sale said they sold for $2 a bag. The club ended up selling out of all their goodies and made $461.63. :) Pretty good!