Little Women was once again a BIG success

Second meeting down and once again it ROCKED! The girls had a blast! This meeting's theme was dusting and cleaning in preparation for a guest. Now, most girls are not excited about cleaning, but once we began discussing the discomfort we've felt when visiting somebody's house that was dirty, they realized the importance of this dreaded task.

It all started with our opening prayer and discussion on why this skill is important in showing hospitality. I gave the girls a sheet to list the different ways they could use this skill. I loved the idea of offering to clean house for someone who just moved in, had a new baby, and even clean the church. I also shared with them some scripture verses on keeping our hearts clean which goes right into the joyful attitude we need when performing works of mercy. The patronage for this skill is the Immaculate Heart of Mary. How perfect!

After that, each girl received a Cleaning Checklist. We all read aloud the steps that are taken when properly cleaning a room. These included things like dusting the tops of shelves before the bottoms, straightening a room by fluffing pillow and folding blankets, leaving the floors for last, but making sure to create nice vacuum lines etc. I always like to light candles or add fresh flowers to add warmth to a room, so that was on there as well. Finally, we got to play our game.

The manual suggested a literature selection that told of a game where a mother hid buttons to be found if her daughters had done a thorough job of cleaning. That's exactly what I did. They found all seventeen buttons and they only needed two hints (which were the frames on the walls that needed to be dusted).

Here they are doing a fabulously joyful and complete job of moving objects, dusting objects, and dusting shelves.
They each ended up receiving a prize because some of the girls couldn't make it to the meeting. The first place winner got to pick her bag first, the second place chose next etc.
These snacks were totally inspired by God. I had wanted to do something with a button theme and this came to me. I twisted the top off of the Oreo cookie and then took the end of a straw to pull out four circles of creme. This created the button holes. Next, I used slivers of fruit by the foot to create the thread. They were a big hit, especially because there was an oreo cookie at the bottom of each cupcake!

Next, I led them all to a craft. The manual didn't suggest this, but I had seen an idea similar to this years ago for a different virtue. I just loved the idea of making work more fun when you're feeling silly and even glamored up a bit! So, each girl brought their own pair of dish gloves. I put before them a HUGE bucket of miscellaneous puff paints and they went to work. I am hoping that by using their "new" gloves for cleaning, it will encourage joyful attitude and thus bring graces upon them. As one girl said, "My mom always says that a job not done joyfully is not worth doing."


After the craft was lunch and they even had time for a few games of Scattergories. By 12:45, we were headed down the street to a neighbor who suffers from chronic back pain. I had offered the help of the girls to do her dusting and windexing since getting up on ladders and bending over is really painful for her. We were so happy that she said yes.

Here we are arriving with treats that we had baked her in order to keep practicing our cooking skills from last month. Each girl had baked something different and we put them all together in a tray. There was pumpkin banana bread, brownies, and sugar cookies. YUM!
After receiving instructions, the girls suited up and in an extremely happy way, started working!
Wiping down blinds so that the dust doesn't just get moved around is such a tedious, but necessary task. I wish I had thought to have the girls do mine. ;)
Getting up high and dusting each knick knack. I'm so proud of them! Something she did as a treat for the girls, based on the button game I had described to her, was that she tightly rolled up one dollar bills and began hiding them around the house. At first the girls were bringing her the money saying they had found this while dusting and she would smile and say, "Finders keepers" then she told them of her own take on the button game. Believe me when I say that they began cleaning swiftly!
As an added surprise, she had baked for the girls a hot fudge sundae cake and served it in the end with vanilla ice cream. Bubbles expression says it all!
I brought Prez along when I went to pick the girls up and he was able to eat some too! He felt so lucky.
Here are the girls with the benefactor of their hard work! Way to go girls.