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. 

Missing

Where the heck have I been?????? Well to tell you the truth up to my eyeballs in planning. Since I've been put in as YW president my time to go through the lessons and come up with ideas has been severley cut. So I apologize to those who come back to my blog looking for lesson helps and find nothing more has been posted. 

I've been thinking as well that it may be the end to my lesson help posts because of the new ciriculum starting in January. If you haven't seen what will be changing be sure to visit the churches web site for LOTS of details. 

I am actually really excited for the change. I feel it is so much more personal for the girls and they wil feel more invested in the lessons because they are the ones helping to decide what will be taught. 

So, because we will all be teaching different things and because it's suppose to be a more personal lesson, this is the end of lesson helps. Of course there is still Sugardoodle which is an A.M.A.Z.I.N.G 

resource so be sure to go there for additonal help. 

Now this isn't to say that this is the end of this blog for me. I have LOTS of activities in the works and will be posting those as they happen or as I have time before to show you what I'm up to. 

Here's a peek at what I've go going on.

Our night of Excellence is coming up next week and this is the invite we gave each of the girls. 

We rolled these up and tied them with twine and put them in plastic bottles (which we found at Oriental Trading) with a little sand. 

more details to come

 I am also in charge of the Youth Leadership training/planning in our ward. This is the invite I did for each class presidency member which I also stuck on a plastic fork. A little more memorable than just a piece of paper.

The theme came from Sister In Zion as well as the training outline. 

also coming up the Laurels are in charge of the joint activity this month and they chose to do a Murder Mystery dinner. They are very excited about this and I know it will be a lot of fun. 

The YW are also in charge of our ward Christmas party this year and we have a fun one planned. 

We are doing "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" which will be a narrators play where everyone is encouraged to participate. 

So as you can see I have a lot on my plate and will have a lot of fun things to share so please be patient with me and I promise to try to keep you updated as these activities happen. 

Thank you to all those who leave me such sweet comments, they all mean so much.

Temple Marriage Activity

 This one of my favorite activities we've done so far. This came about because we had to skip the temple marriage lesson in the manual due to our stake leaders coming to teach that Sunday. As a presidency we all felt this was one of the MOST important lessons in the manual and we either needed to fit it in with the Sunday lessons or address it another way.

  Years ago I had found this idea through someone else serving in YW's and new it would be perfect for teaching the importance of a temple marriage. I'm sorry I can't give credit to the person who did this originally. This was also an activity we invited the mothers to as well.

Our invitations were wedding announcements, worded like an announcement, fancy font, etc. (sorry I didn't take a picture of ours) We went with a yellow and pink color scheme because we wanted to keep the yellow from our Arise and Shine theme for the year.

The basic outline of the evening was that we would divide into three groups. We would have three rooms set up to rotate to. One room was set up for the girls to try on wedding dresses and have their pictures taken. We send around a sign up sheet in Relief Society and Primary for anyone willing to loan us their wedding dress for the evening and had a great response. I think we had about 10 different dresses for the girls to choose from. We also are lucky enough to have someone who takes really good pictures.

Another room we had someone in the ward who was married in the temple, has had their children marry in the temple and has grandchildren speak. She spoke about how making the choice to married in the temple has influenced her children and the way she lives her life. She decorated her room to look "homey", while she spoke she turned the room lights off and only had on a lamp. She brought in one of the armchairs from the foyer and had lots of family pictures on the table.

The last room was the reception area and in here we had a women who was recently married in the temple speak about the decisions she made to make it to the temple and how making decisions young that the temple is your goal influenced how she lived her life. 

We also had all the YW leaders bring their wedding pictures and any other memorabilia they had to display. The girls LOVED to look at how different their leaders looked "back then". 

After all the classes we met back in the reception area for cake and a sweets bar. 

Isn't this cake amazing. One of our yw's mothers does cake decorating, lucky us!!

And of course we had to have our tables look like they might at a wedding reception

We got really great feed back from the girls about this night, as well as from their mothers. I hope they each made a greater resolve to live worthy to be married in the temple. 

Where's mom when I need her activity

The beehives were in charge of our last Joint activity (w/ the YM) and they decided on a skills night. 

We had three different classes, Laundry, Money, and Cooking. 

When they arrived we divided them into three groups by having them choose a Hershey Kiss off of a platter. On the bottom of the kiss was a colored dot to show which group they would be in. 

I used the garage sale dots you can find in the office section of most grocery stores. 

The classes lasted 15min each w/ 5 min for rotation.

Money Class

In this class they learned the importance of budgeting and played a little Price Is Right. 

 Cooking Class

In our cooking class each rotation made something different. The first rotation made no bake cookies, the second rotation made corn bread & honey butter, and the third made chili. 

(If you would like the recipes we used feel free to email me and I would be happy to share)

For this class I chose recipes that were fairly basic and simple to make. 

Laundry Class

In this class they learned to sort their laundry, which settings you use to wash, basic ironing and sewing on a button. They had a relay where they had to sort clothes, iron a tea towel, & sew a button on a piece of cloth. 

After they had rotated to all classes we got together to enjoy our chili, cornbread & honey butter, and our no bake cookies. 

I think everyone had a good time and hopefully learned something new.

added 1/14/13

Recipes used for this activity

No Bake Cookies

• 
  1 3/4 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 3 cups quick-cooking oats
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa. Bring to a boil, and cook for 1 1/2 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in peanut butter, oats, and vanilla. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto wax paper. Let cool until hardened 

Sweet Corn Bread

2 pkgs Jiffy cornbread mix

2pkgs Jiffy yellow cake mix

(add ingredients on back of box for each box and follow baking instructions)

Honey butter

2 sticks real butter, (close to room temp- works best when slightly chilled still.)
2/3 C honey
¾ C powdered sugar

(If your butter is too soft, you’ll end up with a gooey mess, so I just leave it out on the counter for about 20 minutes or so before beating and it turns out nice and fluffy)

Just place it all in a bowl and beat with an electric hand-mixer for 2-3 minutes on medium-high speed.  Serve at room temp.

Chili

1 lb of ground beef

1 pkg chili seasoning

2 cans tomato soup

2 cans red kidney beans

chopped onion

Brown ground beef in large pot with onion and drain, add seasoning, soups, and beans. Add water as needed. simmer for 15 min. (we doubled the recipe to feed everyone)

Mission Impossible ~Unity

At our last Presidency meeting the concern of unity among our girls came up. We sat and brainstormed a few ideas that I think will help bring them together but most of what we thought of isn't going to happen until later in the summer. We also felt with camp approaching quickly we needed to do something right away. The idea that came was that they need to get to know each other better, to mix more with those they don't already associate with daily. We thought we should give them questions to find out about a certain girl and preform a small act of service, and that this would help bring them together and maybe help with the unity at camp. 

Well I couldn't see just handing them a slip of paper with some questions on it so I came up with a little fun to add to this idea.

Mission Impossible 

(because right now it seems impossible to get these girls to reach outside themselves)

Each girl received an envelope with her mission inside as well as some helpful  tools. 

This is the mission letter each girl received and you can download a copy here and insert girls names on your own. 

And their questions they needed to find out as well as the small act of service. you can download a copy here

Each packet also had a small note book, fake teeth, and Poprocks explosives, that I found at Dollar Tree

the warning labels can be downloaded here

At the end of the time allotted to complete their mission we will have a spy activity where they get to play silly spy games like a laser obstacle course

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pin the gunshot on the target

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hot potato using a "bomb"

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or defuse the bombs before they explode (balloon stomp)

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and maybe a few more fun ones. They will also report on their assignment at the activity. 

Between now and the end date they will have weekly activities, camp & a fun road trip to find out about their target. 

We hope this will help bring some unity to our YW and that they will have a greater love for those around them. 

coming up

So right on the "heels" of our New Beginnings I am in charge of our Standards night. We wanted to address modesty at this standards night because as the warm weather approaches we see too much skin. Living here in Las Vegas the warm weather comes soon and stays for quite a while so we wanted to address this before it became and issue. 

I pinned these high heel cupcakes a while back and then saw that the girls over at Sisters in Zion put a really cute twist on them. I have been racking my brain for a theme for this Standards night ,because well I just work better when I have a theme, and they had a perfect one for me to run with.

So I introduce to you the invite for our High Heels and High Standards Night.

The heels play right in to "attire" and more specifically modest attire. 

So here is the invite I created for this night. 

 

I've had them printed off and then I added some black boa to the top for a more boutique kind of feel to them. 

I'll post more soon about the program and what else I've got cooked up for the night. I'm so excited about this one!!!!

Love One Another

This last week for our activity we had a Personal Progress night, meaning we did an activity to help the girls with one of their goals and we got everyone caught up with having everything signed that should be. We also brainstormed on ideas for the projects for some of the girls who were ready to do those. 

I saw this activity that someone had done for activity days and loved it. I wanted to do a Valentines activity for my girls but we didn't have a class activity any where near Valentines day. So I found a goal that tied in perfect with the activity I had planned. This activity goes with Divine Nature #3, and here is where I first discovered the idea, The Fickle Pickle. 

I picked up the boxes at Target for a $1 ea, as well as the notepads. I added some conversation hearts to the bottom of the box, printed of the instructions and scripture that went with it, and it all went in the box. 

 We talked about loving one another and why that is so important. We also brainstormed about who they could do this for in their family. 

She also had a great idea for a treat to go with this activity that the girls loved putting together. 

These are cupcakes split in half, vanilla pudding colored pink with some Cool Whip added, and then plain Cool whip and sprinkles. They really were quite yummy.

It was a great activity and I'll be checking in with the girls after two weeks to see if they have finished this goal. 

Babysitting workshop

For our activity this week we  had  a babysitting workshop. Beehives are the perfect age for this, just starting to get babysitting job and in need of a little training. 

I found the original idea for the kit at Wendy's Activities blog and made a few changes. 

We had a few ladies from the Ward come talk about what they expect from a babysitter, what actually makes an emergency and when to call, what to say when someone asks "how much do you charge?", and then they were able to ask some questions. 

After our discussion we went over the papers in their folder. (all of which you can download for free)

These are the papers that were in the folder

Add to your kit

Safety

Games

Songs

Tips to be a great sitter

Important information

Once we'd covered all of these I had set up tables and on each table was a game they could put together to go in their babysitting bag. The games were four of those listed on the "Games" worksheet, ribbon matching, sink or float, sock guessing game, cotton ball blowing game. 

First they started by attaching the LABELS for the games to a plastic bag.

Once they were attached they could go to the tables and assemble the games. 

 I found tote bags at Target for $2.50 that were really a good size for them to add the other suggested item to. 

I also made luggage tags for them with their names to put on their bags.

I took this to Office Max and had them printed as well as just a polka dot paper cut them out so that there was a front and back and then had them laminated. I punched a hole in the top and added some ribbon to attach them to their bags. 

I think they were most excited about these because they had their names on them. 

It turned out to be a great activity and the girls are going to be great babysitters.

mother/daughter activity

I've been collecting ideas for a mother daughter activity. Last year we did a dinner and game for our mother/daughter activity, this year I'm thinking spa party. 

I've found some great ideas out there on the web so this is just my idea board.

supplies: nail polish, lotion, files, cotton balls, Q-tips, towels, headbands, bowls, polish remover, cucumbers, facial masks, clippers, toe separators, cutical sticks

these invites are adorable and perfect!!

 source

 I loved the idea of the mom's and girls doing the treatments on each other. 

here is a cute soak and nail station. She also had a facial station with an oatmeal mask and cucumbers for the eyes.

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You'll also need some soothing music and water sounds, as well as low lights in the facial station. use battery tea lights or twinkle lights

Can also decorate with louffa's

I thought this was a cute idea for the nail station

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I loved these flip flops and thought they'd be fun to have for the girls and their moms

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A scrub would be a great take home for each of the girls and their moms

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I also thought we could have a make-up station where the girls could get tips on make-up and skin care

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We could also make lip gloss 

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and of course there has to be food. these veggies and dip would be perfect and add some mini water bottles and we're set. 

 sorry I couldn't find the source for this one, if anyone knows it's origin please let me know

I also thought these might be great favors for a take home, nail polish in cupcake holders

or do swag bags with all the fun things in them

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another cute favor idea

I've seen nail kits at the dollar store with toe seporaters, files and clippers so that each girl would have something to use. 

could also find hand towels at the dollar store to use. 

What to do with mom's with more than one daughter???? Leaders step in?