Life

Where do I start? Life has taken a huge turn and made posting on my blog a lot more complicated. I found out in April that I was expecting my fifth. I was completely unprepared for this thinking I was done having kids. I do have to say that I am super excited for this little angel to arrive and it has been quite a journey to this point.

Just before I found out I was expecting my husband and I were called to be a ma and pa for our stakes trek. That took much of our time to prepare ourselves and our youth for this experience. When it came time to go my Dr. said no, which I am thankful for looking back. I was disappointed to have put so much time and energy into this experience and then not be able to go but it really was for the best.

My only other excuse for not posting is that summer happened and we made the most of it.

Really we haven't had many "big" activities to post about. Trek and Beehive camp took up most of our time as well as a low key summer.

We are now planning for our Night of Excellence and I will be posting about that once that happens.

As for  trouble getting to the files for our "Be Not Moooooved" night, I'm sorry.

I have answered as many emails as I have been able. I don't frequently check my email or this blog so the delay may have been frustrating for some. Again I apologize. I'll try to put the files on another site that may work better. I don't know why some weren't able to download files.

Thank you all for your kind words and comments.

Stand Ye In Holy Places & Be Not MOO-ved

We had such a fabulous New Beginnings this week. I am so thankful for everyone who helped make this night a success. 

I'll give you the basic details of the evening. 

This is our program that we handed out.

This was printed on one side

And this on the other. So it was a single sheet instead of the "book" form normally used. 

You can find our program outline here on another post. 

Our musical number was by one of our YW and her mom, it was beautiful. They sang a Jenni Phillips song "Stand in Holy Places"

We did a cookies and milk thing for our refreshment table. My 2nd counselor did the milk bottles which she just bought and emptied the Starbuck frappacino bottles and made cute. 

For the girls to take home I made these little milk cartons filled with M&M's 

We had some yummy cookies to eat and we added the flavor straws so that you could make your milk a different flavor. 

I printed the poster out at Costco and then added a bunch of tissue poms to cover the wall.

Love how it all turned out. 

This is where we did our skit and I don't have any pictures of that because I was too busy being a cow. But it was an adorable skit and many thanks to my talented friend who wrote it. If you would like to see it you can get a copy here.

We had the new beehives fill out a questionnaire earlier in the week with questions you normally wouldn't see, like if you could pick your own name what would it be, or what would be a super power you would want to have.  

Then we read them and had them come up so everyone could see them and to give them these little picture frames with this years theme. 

I hope this was an evening our girls will never forget,  I know I certainly won't anytime soon. : )

New Beginnings Program

I have had a few different requests as to how our program is going to go for our New Beginnings, "Stand Ye in Holy Places & be not MOOOOved"

One of my counselors brought this idea to our planning meeting and the girls really liked it. 

We are going to have each of the girls take a picture of their "Holy Place" and I will collect them so that I'll have them ready for them for the program. 

I think she found the original idea here if you'd like to take a closer look.

So as each of the girls are doing their part in the program they will also be telling us why this is their "Holy Place".  We will then add their pictures to our wall in our YW room around other temple pictures and a framed sign of our theme for the year. 

Here's a rough outline of our program:

Conducting ~ Laurel class pres.

Opening hymn~ How firm a foundation

Opening prayer~ Beehive

Welcome & brief explanation of the PP program ~ YW Pres.

Introduction of new beehives

Motto/Logo ~ Beehive

Theme ~ Beehive

Introductions of Values

Faith~ 

Divine Nature~

Individual Worth~

Knowledge~ 

Choice & Accountability~

Good Works~

Integrity~

Virtue~

Holy Places

Musical Number

Short Skit

Bishop remarks

Closing Hymn ~ As Zions Youth

Closing Prayer ~

I do not have our skit yet, a good friend is still working on it but I'll be sure to post, if she's given me permission, when it's done.

When the girls are doing their Values they will be telling why it's their holy place and how that value can help them be not moved from it. 

Anyone who doesn't have a part in the program will be coming up to tell us about their Holy place. 

We will be posting these on the wall in the room where we are holding New Beginnings and then moved to our YW room. 

I think that's all I can tell you for now. I'd love to hear or see others evenings as well so please leave me a link in the comments section. : )

Have fun!

2013 B-day gift

This year for the girls birthday gift we had a a hard time coming up with an idea we loved. We wanted it to be something we could do up and have in our cupboard and ready for the year, so food was out. We did fuzzy socks last year and we liked the idea of going along with the theme for the year. SO. . . . . we decided on mini pedi kits in a jar, some thing to help their feet look cute while they're standing in those holy places. ; )

In our jars we put cotton balls, a foot file, a nail file, lotion, clippers, cuticle stick, polish remover, toe separaters, nail polish, and a foot scrub. 

The green items and the clippers and cuticle stick all came in a package which I found at Dollar Tree, the mini nail polish I found at Sally's, the foot scrub and remover are found at Walgreens in the travel size section and the lotion was in the dollar bins at Target.

 I made a tag with the theme on it to attach to the jar and a paper flower. 

 I put a large cupcake paper on top and their name.

I think they turned out pretty cute and I hope the girls will love them

New Beginnings 2013

I have seen a lot of great ideas out there to go with this years theme "Stand Ye In Holy Places and Be Not Move" 

Most of them have to do with shoes but since we did a High Heels High Standards night with in the last 6 months I thought we'd go a different direction. 

So I was racking my brain as to what else we could do and this theme came to me. 

We would add a colored ribbon around this and put a milk bottle name tag on it as well.

With this we will do a cookies and milk theme for the refreshments and decorate in black and white and possibly pops of one other color. We are still putting it all together so these are just inspiration photo's I've found.  I'm also envisioning chalkboard labels, and prints and tin pails. 

I'd love to see what everyone is doing for New Beginnings. I can always use more ideas for other events this year using the theme. 

**Update~ We have worked out the basics for our program so I'm going to add the link to that post for anyone looking. 

HERE

Murder Mystery Dinner

The Laurels were in charge of our joint activity for Nov. and they loved the idea of a Murder Mystery dinner. They wanted to take it one step further by making the menu a mystery too. We used this Book of Mormon Mystery outline that I found on Pinterest and it was perfect. 

Here's what the girls named the things on the menu

Salad = dead leaves (everyone got this)

They chose from the following for the toppings

Birdseed = croutons

Maggots = cheese

Slug trails = tomatos

Toad legs = cucumbers

Zombie eyes = olives

Then for the next course everyone got Goblin Intestines (spaghetti) 

and they could add any of the following

Mold = sliced bread

Vampire repellent = garlic bread

dandruff = pram cheese

For dessert everyone received Mushy Brains (ice cream)

They got to choose what went on it

Car oil = hot fudge

scabs = strawberries

rat teeth = nuts

rabie foam = whip cream

ants = sprinkles

slime = bananas

troll snot = caramel sauce

They also got to choose their drink and utensils

Drink choices were

Sewer water = hot chocolate

Acid = water

flkj(*^$)$#)( = lemonade

Cup choices

Vase = plastic cup

Test Tube = sm dixie cup

Beaker = sippy cup

Fork choices

Rake = fork

Spears = chopsticks

Pitchfork = tongs

Devils fork = spatula

Spoon choices

Witches broom = baby spoon

pooper scooper = serving spoon

shovel = regular spoon

dead hand = ice cream scoop

Plate choices

magic mirror = glass plate

Spell book = zoo plate

coffin = foil pan

disecting tray = cookie sheet

Bowl choices (we just used this for the ice cream and everyone got a paper bowl for the salad)

Skull caps = bowl

cauldron = candy dish

dog dish = large serving bowl

shattered glass = waffle cone bowl

The girls had a great time planning this and acted as servers on our activity night. 

I had great help in the kitchen deciphering the orders. 

 We assigned everyone a spot at a table so that we would have a good mix of boys and girls as well as younger and older. We also assigned a leader to each table to be the person to hand out the clues and help the discusion.

It turned out to be a really fun evening and it's back on the calendar for the new year. 

YW Christmas gift

For our gift to the YW this Christmas we decided to give UNO cards with this little tag attached. I saw the original idea here.

Of course I needed to package them cute so I made up a little purse to hold them in. 

I think they turned out pretty cute. 

2013 Theme

What an exciting year this is going to be. With the new ciriculum and our new theme for the year, it promises to be a year full of growth and fun. 

This is a page I did up for my presidency folders or to put on our wall in our YW room. 

you can download it here if you're interested.