CALENDAR
What a fun day we had working on our cake badges! Once the girls all arrived we did our song, our verse and had a sharing time for things they had been working on at home and acts of compassion they had done as well as a little story time about compassion.
Each girl brought one baked cake and one batch of butter cream frosting. They spent a little time practicing with their tips on a foil mat. They dusted their cakes with a thin layer of frosting to keep the crumbs from getting on the finish. They colored their frosting. They designed their cakes and then decorated them. It was a very busy afternoon!
All of the cakes looked simply great!! Good job girls! We hope you had fun learning how to decorate with frosting. You will be making some great looking cakes, cupcakes and cookies as you grow in your skill!
Enjoy this craft and have fun with it! Below are close ups of the cakes for your enjoyment!
We are working our way through the Keepers Compassion Bible study each meeting.
"Compassion is not a feeling. It only exists through action. Jesus put actions with His feelings. Thus He had compassion."
Here is a spot to share the acts of compassion you have been working on at home. Shoot me an email to let me know what YOU have been moved to do!
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" Francesca and Lorenzy couldn't come to Keepers today because their whole family was sick. After our meeting I asked mom if I could make them dinner. We went to the store and got all the things to make them chicken noodle soup along with a nice loaf of bread and Dad drove me over to deliver it to them along with some get well cards that I made for all the kids.”
Renz & Fran share:
How they each made a cake and were practicing with their cake decorating skills. They blessed a neighbor and a friend with their handmade creations & one was a birthday gift! Great job girls reaching out to neighbors and friends! Lovely!
Today we had our first cake decorating class. We found Mrs. Georgia, a lovely lady that makes cakes on the side and she agreed to come over and give us a demonstration. She did a wonderful job!
Our lesson started off with her explaining the tips and tools of the trade. She brought a lot of things to show us and explained how they all worked.
Next, we watched as she explained about leveling a cake (by cutting the top off) and turning it out onto a cake board. Then we watched how she: cut the cake and filled it with yummy goodness, how she dusted the cake with a light coat of frosting so the crumbs wouldn’t ruin the finish and how to prepare the frosting for use. Next, came the fun bits- decorating the cake. She made a simple but oh so cute cake!
She had brought enough frosting and tips for nearly all the girls to have one for a quick play and they were able to decorate two cupcakes to take home.
It was nice to have someone that does this for a living come along to show us how it all works. It was nice to see how quickly a nice looking dessert could be made for our families and also a way that a wife and mother could help supplement her families income.
the plain cake
piping the icing to fence in the filling
adding the white chocolate and strawberry filling (yum)
Putting the two halves together again
Ready for a dusting
all dusted and ready for a frosting
piping on the sides
smoothing out the frosting.
adding the stems
time for some grass
The girls were all ears and eyes
Great Easter colors!
Checking out some tips
Our simple and yummy cake all ready for tea time!
Thanks Mrs. Georgia for showing us what you do!
At the start of each meeting the girls share what they have been working on at home the last fortnight. Brianna brought along her scrapbook this week to share what she'd been doing. Great job Brianna!
We also had Indi tell us the books of the Old Testament. Way to go Indi!
What a great time we had with weaving! Our girls, as young as 5, were able to accomplish this skill with no problems. We learned a little history of weaving, saw a few different types of looms, went over the terminology and then we started.
The girls first worked on a small paper weaving- just so they had the idea of over/under. I found that to be very helpful for their learning. Next they were each given a loop loom. What a busy afternoon they had! All of the girls finished a pot holder by that evening and many have now finished several!
The loop looms were purchased from Rainbow Resources.
We also had examples of other types of weaving for the girls. I liked this site for directions- http://www.montessoriworld.org/Handwork/weave/weaving3.html
We also had an example of a bead weaving bracelet kit.
I have heard from many moms how excited the girls were with this project- simple and easy and something they can use to keep hands busy. Many of the pot holders have been given away as gifts already!
By the end of the meeting they were near finished. Way to go girls!!
Last year we worked on knitting some baby sweaters and sent a whole heap of them to our old house helper in
Here are a few pictures of some of the kids wearing the sweaters. (Thanks to all the others that heard about our cause and sent sweaters to me!)
Blessings!
The end. Ü
Our club starts at the end of summer so a trip to the pool was a welcome activity! All of our girls know how to swim so the time was spent going over the skills listed in the handbook so we could check each girl off. The girls enjoyed the afternoon and learned a few new skills as well! Thanks to Rachel for opening her pool for us!
There was a lot of playing and I understand everyone had a good time. Later that week a few of the girls got togteher and did their treading water and other skills.
Great job girls!
( I was away for this meeting-- any pictures anyone?)
Each girl brought along 6-10 pictures of one event, but before they could use their pictures, we had some things to go over.
I put together some projects for the girls before they arrived. They each had a piece of white paper and some different, basic elements that can be used to jazz up the page.
(white paper, a triangle, a strip and some matting papers along with a die cut.)
(I slipped it all in a page protector so the girls could take home their finished project and it made sorting everything ahead of time so much easier.)
I ran through a basic 101 scrapbooking with them. I demonstrated and then they made their pages- using triangle pieces and strips along with some die cuts. We did about 3 of these examples- pointing out different ways to journal, and matting using plain and patterned papers.
(just adding the strip and triangle brings a white piece of paper to life. )
(Add in the die cuts and you have a themed page all ready for pictures and journalling.)
(chuck down some mats for the pictures or for journaling and you have gone from a simple plain white piece of paper to one full of color, bright and cheerful. simple eh?! )
It was good basics for the girls since only two of them had done any scrapbooking before. Once we had gone over the basics and all the tools and elements that had been used – the girls spent the rest of the afternoon creating their pages. Hopefully, they will keep up with this skill and the history they are making.
(Hard at work)
( mum's little darling ~ working together)
Today we celebrated the end of our first year of Keepers with a tea party. We enjoyed each others company and talking about the things we did this year. Everyone had a favorite activity to rave about.
We went over some Bible memory games and each girl circled the ten things they would most like to work on for next year.
It has been a blessing getting to know each and every girl in this group- and watching the friendships grow.
Looking forward to seeing you back next year. A few of our girls are moving away or moving on. Thanks for being a part of our group!
Blessings to you!
Our lovely mom with the wonderful garden (Mrs. Janette) brought in basketfuls of different types of flowers. Each girl brought along phone books and Rainbow Resource catalogs to use for pressing. The girls were shown how to lay the flowers between the pages and then they spent some time pressing all the flowers into the books. She had made up papers with pictures of each flower, its seed and the girls wrote in the information about the care of each flower and its uses.
We had pictures of the flowers and the girls added those to their garden books.
At our next meeting, the girls opened the pages to find our flowers all dried and ready for use. They used different papers to make lovely keepsakes. Some made bookmarks, some made pictures to place in a frame, some made placemats and others coasters. The girls loved having the finished project to take home with them and all were excited with the results.
One of our moms (Mrs. Janette!) has a lovely garden and she invited us for a tour. She explained about each type of flower and plant as we walked along the path. Telling us the name, the conditions it needs and how to prune it as well.
She let each girl have a go with the shears (a brave woman!)
The girls really enjoyed the hands-on and seeing, smelling and feeling of the garden. It was a great way to get them excited about their own little patches of earth! We took some pictures of the different plants and trees and printed those off. Each girl then made a booklet identifying all the ones they had learned.
We also ended up with some seed packets that were made from her flowers!
Our seventh Keepers meeting was about horses. We have several older girls that own their own horses or have taken riding lessons for a long time. So, I assigned three of them a different area to talk about. It worked out really well. Our day went along like so:
We started off singing our Keepers song and working on our memory verse. 4 of the girls came in with the verse memorized this week (yea) for the rest we said the verse a few times as I erased bits and parts of it from the white board. ( way to go Indi, Katrina, Esther & Addison)
Today Indi started off out storytelling on a book she has read & enjoyed about horses. Katrina also told us the story of Black Beauty … that great horse classic. Both girls did a GREAT job of sharing! Thanks so much for being willing!
What little girls doesn’t love horses? All the ones in our group do, that’s for sure! It was time to learn about a few different breeds. First up was Jess. She had printed off pictures of five breeds of horses and as she went though the pictures she noted all the characteristic of each breed. The breeds Jess chose to tell us about were: Shetland Pony, Quarter Horse, Arabian, Thoroughbred and Shire. I think we could all pick those horses out now that Jess did such a good job of showing us the differences.
Next was to learn a few terms associated with horses: warm blooded, cold blooded and hands. Thanks to Katarina and Nikola we now know what those terms mean and how they are applied to horses.
After we learned about some breeds and some terms it was time for Haley to fill us in on the way horses move. Haley taught us:
WALK
A 4-beat gait averaging at around 4mph.
Only one leg is ever raised at a time, and the sequence is: left hind leg, left front leg, right hind, right front.
TROT
The trot is a 2-beat gait, also known as a jog.
The legs move diagonally, differentiating it from a pace, where both legs on one side move at once, which is used for harness racing.
In a trot, there is a split second where the horse is completely airborne. Edvard Muybridge proved this theory.
CANTER
A canter is a 3-beat gait also known as a lope.
One leg always leads the gait.
Once you hear the three beats, there is a pause, as if the horse is airborne, yet one hoof is always on the ground.
GALLOP
A 4-beat gait, averaging at around 25-30mph.
I finished up the sharing part of today by reading a few facts from Jonathan Parks episode Show Down at Twin Bridges, where they talk about horses.
We followed this up with our afternoon tea courtesy of Francesca and Lorenze. Once everyone had their fill it was time to load into the cars and drive the short distance to see Jessica’s horse. After the initial surprise at so many people crowded around her fence of the paddock, Rosie settled right down and all of the girls were able to feed her, pat her, check out her hooves and to see those characteristics of a quarter horse up close. All of the girls had a great time experiencing Rosie. for some of us you might even say the afternoon was electrifying. ( note to self stay away from electric fences- they pack a punch)
I am working on arranging some private horseback riding lessons for the families that have expressed and interest so the girls can work on their practical riding skills needed for the badge. Private group lessons or semi private lessons are available.
So girls, get those pages filled in your handbook pages parts 1 & 2 on pages 270-272 then you can work on part 3 & 4 at your leisure.
A big thanks to Jess for sharing Rosie with us!
I had not heard of any of our girls doing any Bible Memory work yet so I thought that a fun Books of the Bible game day would be a hit and it was! I think everyone had a good time and they enjoyed the games a lot. It was a good way to bring in some fun while showing the girls that learning the books of the Bible is an important thing to do.
I started the meeting off calling up two moms for a map race. I explained that when you move somewhere new one of the first things to find is the hospital. The hospital is where you go when you are aching, in pain, worried about something, are sick, for healing and for support to get you through. First up was Michelle and she had to find the local hospital using the
Next up was Kim and she had to find Walter Reed in
I told the girls that Michelle had the advantage of being familiar with the area of the map she was looking at, while Kim had most likely never seen a map of
We played:
Book Scramble: I took all the books of the bible and cut them into strips in a large font then I had three tables and each table raced to put all the books in order.
New Testament Bingo I printed off blank Bingo cards and each girl placed 24 books of the New Testament on the cards- and we played a few rounds of Bingo.
Word Search: I sent home a word search for the girls to work on finding the 27 books of the New Testament- with the promise of a rewards when they bring it back in completed next meeting.
Book Challenge 101: Anyone that was up the challenge could recite the books of the Bible on their own.
Bible Searchers: Using their Bibles I called out random books and it was a race to see which table was the first to fid the book.
I had gotten a bunch of candy bars as rewards for the games. We played bingo using gummy bears…. so they could eat the winnings.
It was a great way to get the girls digging in their Bible – the candy bars were a sure fire way to get them all excited and interested! Ü
We are working on our Music badges this year. So, the last book of the Bible that we looked up was Song of Solomon which lead straight into our discussion on how songs can really stir your soul. We chatted about how you can hear a song and your foot will start tapping, your heart will start pumping and you can’t help but sing along. Music is a powerful medium, for sure. And then we started talking about Hymns.
First off was to explain what a Hymn was:
Carl F. Price, 'What Is a Hymn' [Paper of the Hymn Society of
A Christian hymn is a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the worshipper's attitude toward God, or God's purposes in human life. It should be simple and metrical in form, genuinely emotional, poetic and literary in style, spiritual in quality, and in its ideas so direct and so immediately apparent as to unify a congregation while singing it. [Used by permission.]
The essential ingredients of this definition are:
1. a metrical poem
2. reverent and devotional in nature
3. poetic and literary in style
4. spiritual in quality
5. expresses the worshipper's attitude toward God
6. unites the congregation who SINGS it.
I had three of the girls read through the stories in Color the Classics Hymns Writers. (We are also working on their storytelling badges). They colored the pictures and used them as props as they told the stories of Martin Luther, Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley. This worked out really well! Since we are a HS group~ it never hurts for a little extra info to be passed along Ü
I printed off the words to five well known hymns and five Christmas Hymns. We passed those out for each group to look over and read. Many hymns are just wonderful when you look at all the verses – so we had a little time for them to pour over the meanings.
We also looked at specific Christmas hymns- since everyone knew those very well and we chose five Christmas Hymns to work on for a future trip to sing at an elderly home.
So, I have now assigned a few girls each meeting something to share. We started off with three girls reading up and sharing stories about hymn writers. I gave them about a weeks notice and even supplied them with the simple stories from Color the Classics Hymn Writers. It was much easier for the girls to have something specific to story tell about. Our next meeting is about horses and there are four girls that will share about the horse stories they have read.
Addi, Lorenzy & Fran did a great job today sharing the stories about the Hymn writers Martin Luther, Isaac Watts & Charles Wesley. You girls were great on your eye contact and you spoke clearly. We all really appreciated hearing a little about those hymn writers- thanks girls for being the first to break the ice on story telling!
A big thank you to Jess for making a lovely passion fruit sponge cake with a delightful topping and to
This afternoon our group met for Rubber Stamping fun. I had set up 5 tables in the kitchen so everyone had table space and a chair. The girls arrived and took a seat. We started off with our song, verse, prayer, purpose and goal.
We chatted about our last activities – ice skating & knitting. A group of the girls had already hit the rink again since our last Keepers meeting. Everyone enjoyed that activity and they all accomplished the skills from the book and earned their badges~ Way to go girls! (The knitting you can read about in the next entry below)
Shonda led today’s Rubber Stamping and did the Bible study before hand. She did a great job!
She asked the girls what are they making when they press the rubber stamp onto a piece of paper? The answer was of course, an exact image. She then had the girls read these Bible verses:
Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
1 Corinthians 4:15-16
Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me.
…which she followed up by talking about how we are made in God's image and we are called to become a closer image of Jesus, acting like he would have us, walking where he leads, being a blessing to those in need. Great way to tie in Rubber Stamping!
We talked about how they could use their cards to write Letters to their friends or to Missionaries where they could receive other badges as well.
We ended the day with afternoon tea: hot cocoa with whipped cream & sprinkles and some yummy cake and cookies that Indy and Keira brought along.
Rubber Stamping was an easy activity that all the girls were able to accomplish. Check out our fun day!
everyone hard at work
What to use... what to use?
Down to work...
Hard at work ...
Katrina showing off her handy work.
Jessie is getting serious!
Today was also the day to bring in their knitted jumpers. We had a great turnout. Other people had heard about the project and we had some mailed in all the way from
We just found out the association that had originally organized the pattern, collection and distribution of the jumpers to the AIDS babies in
That isn’t going to stop us. We will simply send these jumpers to the Tashkent City Children’s Home, an abandoned baby orphanage in
Many of the girls in our group did not actually finish the jumpers. It is a great pattern to learn on – but it has proven a little difficult for the girls to master the knit 2 pearl 2 straight off the bat. Many of the girls are keen to keep working towards their requirements throughout the year and hopefully, now that they have another month to work on them—hopefully the girls will finish their jumpers for the babies.
Many moms learned how to knit- or rekindled a skill they had not used for a while!! Girls, if you have not finished your jumper, do keep working on it!
All in all knitting was a great skill for us to tackle and I think many of the girls will keep at it.
Below are a few pictures of some of the babies in the Tashkent City Children’s Home, last time I was there.
Addison peeking in on a newborn in it's buggy bed.
baby room workers with two little blessings!
Diaper changing time.
In the Keepers handbook there is a section called recreational activities, it states:
Recreational activities can be a challenge, an excellent means of exercise, fun, and a great way of having fellowship with others. In this section of the handbook, we will cover some activities that a young lady can enjoy throughout her life. Certainly, these are skills which you will enjoy learning.
If memory serves me all of the girls accomplished all the tasks. Below are some pictures of our day on ice. What a blessing to be able to go out and have fun while fellowshipping with the girls and moms. Have I said yet today that I just love Keepers?
Addi heading out on the ice
Kim & her girls
Moms on the side for a quick break
Kim giving a lesson
We had another lovely afternoon with the moms and daughters in our Keepers group. We started the day off at 2:00 by singing the Keepers song. Liz lead a devotional, she talked about how thankful we should be with all the blessings God has given us. Since the jumpers are for the Aids babies in Africa it brought home how blessed we all are. Then Shonda gave another lesson on knitting and showed us how to finish off our jumpers.
The day was great for those of us that are completely new to knitting. I had tried for two weeks to remember and figure out how to knit... yesterday I think it finally sunk in. Since I was unable to figure it out the past fortnight, Addi had no chance.
So, yesterday was great for both of us. No one had finished their project yet and we all spent a lovely two hours figuring the basics out, working on the pattern and of course, pulling our projects apart when things went astray... to begin again.
Towards the end of the meeting all the girls were in the kitchen sipping hot chocolate and checking out pictures of themselves on our computer--- while the moms were all in the front room like little worker bees knitting away.
We have 4 weeks until our next meeting, due to school holidays. So hopefully, we will all use the time wisely to finish our projects and get the knitting thing down!
Shonda, one of the moms in our group is due to have a baby mid July. Addison and I made her up a chicken lasagna and some chocolate chip cookies for the freezer... so she will have a meal of ease once the new little one arrives. I thought it was a good chance to show
Until next time!
The girls in the kitchen just before the cocoa arrives.
Mums hard at work ... or are they? =0)
Today we had our second keepers at home meeting. I am so loving this! Today another mom, Shona, lead the devotion and the lessons. We learned about knitting! What a great day we had together. Now, knitting is rather big over here in AU, back home- I can’t really think of anyone I know that knits. Here there are heaps of mums that knit all the time and make sweaters, hats and all that good stuff to keep their families warm. Man! I want to knit together a sweater for my kids to wear- that was knitted with love in each stitch! so since I have wanted to learn for a while now and was so excited to see Keepers offers it as a lesson, I scheduled our first knitting class for now, in autumn, so we can perhaps knit a few things to use this winter. (did I mention that I am loving this?)
Our meeting started off with us singing the Keepers song and then the girls that finished their last projects showed them and told us all about them. It was great to see the different types of projects the girls did with their Candlewicking. They all shared how they finished their projects off and we passed them around for everyone to “oohh” and “aahhh” over.
Then Shona gave a little devotional about knitting, using the Keepers verse about being knit together in love and being knit in our mothers womb, and she showed us the project that she chose for us to work on. It was great! She found a mission project for us for our knitting. We will all be making a little tiny sweater to send to
Then it was time for the education: Shona taught us about some different types of needles, the different type of yarn, how to choose our wool and how to cast on, knit and pearl. A few of the moms already knew how to knit and to some of us it was completely new. We worked on those basics for a little while, some of us really having a hard time with the whole thing. (Yours truly to be exact- I was hoping that
So, now our goal during this fortnight is to practice those stitches a lot and if possible to work out the first part of the sweater. We will continue with our knitting lesson at our next meeting on the 19th.
We finished our time with some hot tea, cola cake and biscuits (er, cookies).
I am looking forward to figuring out this whole knitting thing and to making some projects! ‘Till next time.
Today was our first Keepers meeting. I am so excited to have this time with
For our first meeting we worked on a creative skill, Candlewicking. I had put together bags with all the necessities for each girl. They included a small hoop, a size 1 milliners needle, a piece of practice of cloth, a length of cotton thread, a needle threader cheat (my own name for those handy dandy tools that take the pain from threading needles)
and on the table I had a few simple patterns, a fabric pen, longer lengths of cloth and some felt.
I am having
What is Candlewicking? I’ll tell you what I learned. Candlewicking, also known as whitework, is a traditional needlework technique of white on white embroidery. Usually the stitches used were colonial or French knots along with stem stitch. So basically, Candlewicking is embroidery using a certain type of thread. It is 100% cotton and much thicker than most threads. For our handbook and this skill we learned the colonel knot. Candlewicking is traditionally done with white thread on white fabric or cream thread on cream fabric, we used a thread that is the same thickness as traditional Candlewicking thread, but the one I chose has a bit of a sheen to it making it just a tad easier for beginners to see and work with.
The colonial knot uses a straight needle, so when the knot is pulled it stands up well and tight. In the handbook they actually say we can use larger needles, but the heads of those are flared and will not produce the correct knot. So we went with the traditional. The other thing with this technique is you don’t pre-wash the fabric but stitch first and then wash in hot water & iron, to shrink the fabric just that little bit to make the knots stand up even more. Another thing I learned- did you know needles have a correct side to thread through? When the needles are pressed by the machine the top of the metal is a bit larger then the back where the machine pressed through. Check it out, whoe knew! You learn something new every day!
Anyways- I think the girls all got the hang of the colonial knot, some took to it quit easily while others had a bit of a time figuring it out. I had taught
Our time went quickly and I was a bit surprised when it was time to pack up and enjoy some lovely treats that were brought for afternoon tea and a cuppa!
The girls will now spend time working on a project from home and will bring it in to show the group when they finish. When they finish they are able to receive an award, either a bracelet charm or a pin with the skill listed.
We will be meeting and sharing our days fortnightly.
The Purpose, Goal, Verse & Prayer of Keepers as stated in the handbook:
Purpose: To learn to walk in the steps of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, day by day, moment by moment, in every situation.
Goal: To have a teachable spirit so that I can master the different crafts and skills which will enable me to become a competent, well-balanced Christian girl who loves God, and who will one day be a proper helpmeet and keeper at home.
Verse: 1 Peter 2:21, “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow in His steps”
Prayer: Dear Lord,
Teach me the way to make each day a stepping stone as I learn to walk in your steps, and with your help I will make of my life a harmony of love, joy, and service to Thee, my family, and others.
I am so thrilled to join other moms that wish to encourage the skills & growth needed for our daughters to one day be keepers of their own homes!
Today, once everyone arrived, we passed out the handbooks, went over the above goals and did a quick finger walk, through the handbook, pointing out the 5 different skills areas: Biblical, Creative skills, Homemaking, Knowledge & skills, Nature, Others & Recreational Activities.
Next, we went over our proposed schedule for this year. We are going to meet the first and third Tuesdays of each month from 2-4. We will take breaks during the school holidays. Below is our proposed schedule of activities and skills for this year.
week 3- Candle wicking
June Family, missionaries, story telling
week 1- Knitting
week 3- Knitting
July Family, missionaries, story telling
week 4 iceskating
Aug Family, missionaries, story telling
week 1- Rubber Stamping, letter writing
week 3- Memory Verse, Hymn
Sept Family, missionaries, story telling
week 1- Horses
week 3- kitchen time
Oct Family, missionaries, story telling
week 1- Wild flower walk & Pressing flowers
week 3- First Aid
Nov Family, missionaries, story telling
week 1- Gardening (may change)
week 3- Hospitality
Dec Family, missionaries, story telling
week 1- Awards lunch
* the family, missionaries & story telling are all three on- going awards for the girls to work on all year a thier own pace.