Shoes for Orphan Souls

The second service project AHG has been working on is Shoes for Orphan Souls. We participated in this service project last year at our Christmas party and decided to do the same thing this year. All over the world there are children who have never had a new pair of shoes. Shoes for Orphan Souls strives to provide children all over the world with shoes.

Sissy has really developed a heart for service..I'm seeing it as one of her spiritual gifts. She desired to collect alot of shoes for this project, so she took her desire to the entire church. She hung a couple signs around the building and had announcements made requesting shoes or monetary donations. There happens to be someone at our church who is a manager at a local shoe store and can get shoes that have been marked down at an amazing deal. So, between her and Sissy, they were able to purchase 60 pairs of shoes for this project. Here is a picture of her and some of the 87 pairs of shoe laces she helped collect.

At the Christmas party the girls each drew pictures or wrote notes, stuffed them in a pair of shoes and then prayed over the shoes for the child that would receive them.

I'm not sure what has been more of a blessing to me, knowing how many children will be helped through the two service projects we have taken part in this year as a troop, or seeing my oldest really develop a heart for others who are less fortunate. She is hoping to make it bigger and more successful next year.

A Roman Feast

We have just finished up our study of Ancient Rome and ended it with a Roman feast. We dined on ham, hard boiled eggs, a salad of greens, peas and carrots with a "wine" dressing, cooked apples in cinnamon and a bread dessert. It was alot of fun putting our feast together.

The girls made a sign for our "dining room" to let dad know that this would be the place we would be eating our dinner that night. Romans usually at around low tables, sitting on the ground or lounging on low couches. We just pushed our two end tables together to make our dining table and dad got the couch. He really enjoyed acting like the emperor! We made him a crown using tinfoil and cardstock.

Just for fun we "dined" on giraffe (the kids found it sad that at some feasts, the Romans would eat giraffe) so we placed one of our stuffed giraffe's under a bowl and revealed it before the meal.

In addition to the meal, the low tables, couch, crown and giraffe, the kids and dad wore togas! (By the time mom got the meal together I forgot the toga!)

Our Roman feast was a fun way to end our study. We are headed into learning about the Muslim faith and where it came from for a couple weeks and then will be headed into the medieval times.

Co-Op Performance

We finished our first semester of co-op for this year. The girls seemed to enjoy their classes. Here are the classes they took:

Sissy - Book Club (Read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and did a lap book)

Apologia General Science Lab

Babysitting (learned basic first aid, information to collect before parents leave

determining what toys are proper for various ages, etc.)

Gym

Peanut - Gym

Arts and Crafts

Cooking

Lego Robotics

Sweet Baby - Fun with Books

Gym

Beginning Cooking

Ballet

Sweet Baby was so excited for ballet as she has never taken dance before. She seemed to really enjoy it as well. For our last day of co-op we ended the day with a performance by the little ballerinas. They danced for us to Silent Night. It was sweet to see all the girls sharing their new skills.

Blankets for Hope

The girls have just finished up a couple service projects with American Heritage Girls.

Our first project was making pillowcases and fleece tie blankets for Blankets of Hope - this is an organization in our county who provides pillowcases stuffed with a blanket, book, and small stuffed animal to children who are removed from their homes and placed in foster care. My girls enjoyed being able to choose a favorite fabric from JoAnn's and then were helped by people who actually know how to sew, and made pillowcases.

Here is Peanut at the sewing machine. The two younger girls mainly helped push the foot pedal, but also received instruction on how important it is to keep their fabric straight.

Sissy did much of the sewing herself. Her "teacher" is a dear friend of mine - who incidentally does not have a daughter of her own. This is another thing I love about AHG and having it at our church - we have gotten alot of support there from people who just want to teach the kids how to serve others and be the best young ladies they can.

The finished product...

The fleece tie blankets were perfect! If the girls had no desire to sew, they could easily cut and tie the edges of the blankets. Peanut enjoyed this part most of all. In total, and in about 2 hours, the group completed 34 blankets and 35 pillow cases.