New Beginnings ~D.O.T.S.

Our theme for New Beginnings this year was D.O.T.S. Depend On The Savior (which we found all over Pinterest. We presented the class presidents with four choices for themes and this was the one they decided on. They helped in planning the program and making assignments, making the decorations, and deciding on refreshments.

We went with a pink and gold color scheme and I love how it all came together.

We also had an amazing program. The girls each took care of the values as well as the other parts we're to cover in the PP book. (theme, motto, logo, class symbols, etc.) But for the value presentations we had them read the little exert from the Come Follow Me through PP article . That was a little something we did differently. Some thing else that the girls decided to do was instead of having a speaker we had a parent stand and tell us how they see their daughter depending on the Savior. It was a great program and was amazing to hear these parents praise their daughter for living the gospel. I think it was important for the girls to hear and to realize their efforts are noticed.

Here are a few pictures of our night.


First is our invitation. we punched out the gold and pink dots to add to the CD sleeve envelope.

AAAHHH this one is upside down, sorry.

Like I said the girls cut out all the circles to hang

And made the tissue poms for the walls

And glittered the vases for the flowers

For their take home treat we made sugar cookie bars from THIS recipe and put them in some mini pizza style boxes we made. HERE is the tutorial on how we made the boxes.

 It was a wonderful evening and I'm so thankful for all the girls and leaders and their hard work. 

I'm Back!

Wow! So much has happened in the last few months. First I've had my baby and she is perfect and such a sweet addition to our family. That in its self was an adventure I wasn't prepared for. Long story short, I had to have an emergency hysterectomy due to a large loss of blood and other complications. Needless to say I am now an adamant blood doaner after needing 7 bags myself. This was a close call on my life and I am so very thankful for Doctors who are close to the Spirit and follow it's promptings. I spent three days in the ICU following all this fun and have since made a full recovery.

   It has taken three months to feel like I'm finally back up to speed and able to handle life. Baby is doing really well and now not requiring quite so much constant attention so that I can do other things.

I've been feeling as I've come back into things that things are kinda blah. YW's is just YW's, there's no spark or excitement in being there from us as leaders and from the girls. SO I decided to make a few changes to get things rolling and bring that spark back.

First is we have been really bad about our opening Hymn. The girls would only do the first verse. So I addressed that this Sunday and let them know how important our opening Hymn is in bringing the Spirit to our classes and read them a great quote from Pres. Kimball.

Second our spiritual thoughts were just a scripture being read for the most part. I do have to say I do have a few girls who would put a little thought into it but for the most part it was read where my scriptures open to. SO now the spiritual thought is given out the week before with some hints on how to prepare (find a quote or story to go with the scripture provided, bear you testimony on the principle of the scripture, etc.) The scriptures provided are from the Come Follow Me lessons for that month.

Third we are now doing a newsletter as well as our weekly emails. We'll put the newsletter out the last Sunday of the month. Our hope is that both the girls and the parents will benefit from seeing the calendar and hearing about upcoming events.

And lastly, we are planning to do a progressive dinner for the girls with a little silly/light teaching. I'll post how that goes, it's still in the planning stages.

So for now this will have to do. I will try to get our New Beginnings posted soon, it turned out so cute!

I'd love to know what the rest of you do when things seem to get too comfortable in your program.

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