International Day of the Girl

In honor of International Day of the Girl, I thought I'd share some pictures from our weekend. We had Girl Scout-mania this weekend. I don't love parts of the kids being in scouts (it sort of triggers all my introvert twitchiness and performance anxiety) but I do love that both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts seem to promote independence and decent human beingness.

On Saturday, Syd and I went to a STEAM expo that was put on by the regional council. SO COOL. There were all kinds of groups there, from wildlife conservationists showing the girls how to collect data on waterfowl to civil engineers talking about water reclamation. There was a robotics team consisting entirely of cool middle-school girls and Intel was there with a 3D printer. Syd loved it, and was only disappointed that she wasn't allowed to use the power tools in the woodworking station.

She lifted me off the ground and now keeps telling people that "I lifted ONE HUNDRED POUNDS!" Yep :) (BTW, that's not me, obvs. That's the sweet lady that works at the camp)

Testing out her catapult

Patterns and angles! I also took advantage of the opportunity to tell her how awesome miters were.

On Sunday we took the troop on a field trip to a pumpkin patch. We went on a "hay ride" and then had a contest to find the ugliest pumpking. After that we went to the corn maze. Somehow I ended up alone with seven girls. I consider it one of my greatest accomplishments that I didn't lose any of them (or come out with any extras!)

I love her face! She found a rotted pumpkin in the field and diligently planted many seeds. 

Sunday night the boys went to WWE and the girls and I made vegetable soup. Averson had been talking about her recipe for two days and would not stop until we made it. I vetoed the egg and the strawberries, but other than that it was all her. It didn't come out too bad! Both girls really loved chopping and stirring and picking out ingredients. If I were a better mom, I'd totally cook and bake with them all the time. 

And then in true Girls Night fashion we did makeovers. I took these pictures because the girls did my make-up and I looked ridiculous. But then I posted them on Facebook and everyone was like, "Cute!" "Beautiful!" "You look great!" All very great comments and very affirming, so now I'm thinking that blue glittery eyeliner in the crease of my eye and hot pink lipstick with a generous line may be my look. 

 So that's my ode to the International Day of the Girl. I am deliberately choosing to focus on these amazing girls that are going to change the world, rather than on "locker room talk" b.s. If I think about all that too long it gets pretty ugly.