Daughter of a King YWIE

I have been blessed in my life to have 4 busy, busy boys. I've recently been blessed to have added 25 surrogate daughters as well. 

MOST my girls wearing their tiara's they were crowned with

Right after I was called as YW Pres. in my ward, my presidency and I started planning our YW in Excellence.  After LOTS & LOTS of prayer, we chose "Daughter of a King" as our theme. We had given a challenge to the YW at the beginning on 2011 to complete an entire value in Personal Progress. Which I am proud to say, ALL COMPLETED! (Unless they were new to our ward or new to YW).

We had each YW decorate a table about herself and the value she completed. We place those tables around the entirs culteral hall. We gave each YW a silver framed picture of the temple with her name on it to use as a nameplate for her table.
Then we had each girl present the table that evening. They ended their presentation by saying..."My name is _________________ and I'm a Daughter of God."

Talk about inspiring!!

They were then walked up to the stage (by one of the YW who has  already earned her medallion), where they sat in a HUGE throne, were crowned with a tiara (again they were crowned by a YW who's already received her medallion).  & awarded with stickers and bookmark ribbons in ALL the values they've completed while in YW.

The tiaras decorated the front of the stage

The evening turned out BEAUTIFUL!! I am blessed to work with inspired and hard working women that helped pull it all together. I'm also grateful & so humbled to be serving such an AMAZING group of YW.

Thanks to Rachel, for the pictures. I TOTALLY forgot my camera...AGAIN!!

Oh what do you do when it's conference time...

I LOVE General Conference weekend. The talks are always so uplifting and seem to be exactly what I need to hear. So what do you do while your listening to conference? I used to just lay around on the couch but then realized that made it REALLY hard to stay awake. So the last 2 years (4 conferences), I've done little projects during conference. Crafting is relaxing to me and it's the perfect way to keep my bum in one spot long enough to listen to a session.

So what did I work on...

Well I started by pulling out my Halloween decorations.

I'm in the midst of changing my living room decor so my Halloween decorations from last year that had lots of orange in them, had to be re-vamped.

So I changed everything for my living room to JUST black & white.

I re-wrapped my white candles that adorn my coffee table. I also re-cut my boys names in white vinyl to change their cauldrons that sit atop my piano. Lastly, I found a adorable free Halloween printable that I found on Eighteen25. I attached it to black card stock and just cut it to fit in the frame that ALWAYS sits on my piano.

Easy Peasy & free-sy!!

Next I made Halloween magnets for my chalkboard & my fridge.

I made them to match my fall "To-Do" list. Am I the only one who must have a different "To-Do" pad for every season??  

THEN I cut some new vinyl for my Halloween plates.

Got the idea for the skull on

House of Smiths

(her's is WAY cuter than mine. but it's not to shabby for just working with what I got!!

The bird was a free printable that I found on pinterest.

Its from a blog called bloominghomestead.

Then FINALLY

I have wanted to make a Halloween wreath for YEARS!! I've NEVER gotten around to it because I've never found anything that I liked.

This year...thanks to my new addiction *pinterest*, I found lots of cute yet spooky Halloween wreaths that I LOVED.

Here's what I came up with...

Don't know why but this year I am LOVING the crow thing??

Good luck with your Halloween Decor :)

Happy Haunting.

YW Handout "Change of Heart" Manual 3 Lesson 29

This Sunday's lesson was on having a change of heart. I really wanted to do a handout with heart shaped goodies (sugar cookies or rice crispy) but I was teaching on Fast Sunday, so that was out.

So I came up with this instead. At the end of the lesson, I asked the girls to think of things they could work on to have a "change of heart."

I gave each girl a small Chinese take out box with a great quote on it from Dallin H. Oaks.

I just happened to find these boxed when I looked through my Valentines stuff...searching for 'heart stuff' to go along with the lesson.

Inside each box were 4 hearts that my friend cut for me on her cricket (thanks holly!!).

I gave the girls a few minutes to write down 1 goal on each heart that she could work on. It turned out REALLY cute for a last minute hand out that was totally free. Best of all the girls LOVED them.

Overcoming Opposition Handout-YW manual 3 Lesson 23

Yesterday our YW lesson was on overcoming opposition.

Here is the hand out that I made for my Laurels.
CLICK HERE to download this handout

I printed up this little handout on card stock with the scripture reference of D&C 29:39

"...for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet."

Then wrapped it up in a small cellophane bag filled with Sour Patch Kids.

And tied it up with a match ribbon.

Too cute!!

"Worth of SOLES..."Board Meeting

One of the first things that I did when I recieved my new calling was plan a board meeting with our YW board. The whole presidency, (besides me) was new and most of the advisors had been in less than 6 months. I really wanted everyone to meet each other and feel comfortable in their new callings.

So stealing an ADORABLE idea from my BFF April, I put together a quick board meeting.

The Theme: "The worth of SOLES is great..."

D&C 18:10

I asked each YW leader to bring a shoe that best describes themselves so that we could get to know each other a little better.

That evening I had each of my councilors go over an important part of the YW program. One talked about the basics of the Personal Progress Program. The other talked about the importance of teaching by the spirit.

I then spoke about important things we needed to do to become great YW leaders. Using talks, quotes & scriptures, I related all the aspects of a good leader to the perfect pedicure. I gave each of the leaders a "Pedicure Menu" with all the quotes and talkes I referenced and put it inside a small bucket filled with pedicure kits.

Of course, I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THE HANDOUT!! Dang, I HATE when I do that. But I do have a copy of the "Pedicure Menu" that went with each item in the bucket.

CLICK HERE to download the YW Spa Menu (2 per pg.)

The evening turned out great!! And was also fun to give each of the new leaders a cute handout.

Getting our YW Personal Progress Organized

Since I've been called as the YW President in my ward (which by the way...was a total shocker to me...but that's another story for another time). I have felt a VERY STRONG need to get our YW working on their Personal Progress. I am bound and determined to have each of my YW get their Young Women Medallions.

 Sooo...here's how we are getting started on it...

A PERSONAL PROGRESS PIE night. The girls HAD to have their PP books with them in order to get a peice of pie. Then with the help of my AMAZING 2nd councilor & Laurel class Presidency we came up with a Personal Progress folder that we had each of our YW put together that evening at mutual. We put EVERYTHING that we could think of that the YW would need to work on PP into this folder.

It was a lot of work and took a lot of time searching for items online for the folder BUT all in all, it was TOTALLY worth it!!

I am attaching a list of what we included in our PP folders for any of you who'd like to do the same for your YW. Feel free to use whatever you'd like from what we did to save yourself some time & energy.

YW FOLDER CHECKLIST:

WHITE 1" FOLDER

ZIPPER POUCH to hold

     Personal Progress book & journal

     For the Strength of the Youth Booklet

     True to the Faith Booklet

1 PLASTIC SLEEVE

     Quote from Ezra Taft Benson (front)

To DOWNLOAD the pages BELOW that were used for my YW PP folder CLICK HERE

Picture of the Temple (back)

3 WHITE TAB DIVIDERS:

Tab 1: ROSTERS/CALENDARS

Tab 2: YW ESSENTIALS

YW Theme

YW Motto & Logo

YW Classes & Symbols

The Living Christ (ordered from Distribution Center)

The Family Proclamation (ordered from Distribution Center)

13 Articles of Faith

TAB #3: PERSONAL PROGRESS

Personal Progress Tracking Sheet

Colored Cardstock Value Dividers with notebook paper between each value

(made each image in Black & white and then copied them onto cardstock in the value colorS.

To DOWNLOAD the YW value folder dividers CLICK HERE

Book of Mormon Reading Chart to go with VIRTUE.

After assembling their folders the YW scrapbooked covers for them. We just printed a couple different subway art pages that they could use on the covers and then let them decorate with whatever we had.

YW VALUES SUBWAY ART
(I didn't create either of the YW subway art below, so I don't have a link for you to download them :( SORRY!)

YW THEME SUBWAY ART

2011 MUTUAL THEME SUBWAY ART

To DOWNLOAD the 2011 Mutual Theme CLICK HERE

Summer Sanity Savers

OK...so we are a month into summer and about a week ago, I thought I was going to lose it!! My kids have been pestering me all day, everyday, since the minute school got out. If it's not "I'm bored," it's "I'm hungry!" OR they would be tattling on their brother for picking on them OR tattling for not watching what they wanted on TV OT tattling on them for not playing the right video game or watching the right movie...AGGGHHHHHH!!! I was seriously considering shipping them off.

So here are a couple things I did to save my sanity.

#1) A new and improved CHORE CHART that was easy for everyone from my 10 year old to my 5 year old. I've tried chore charts in the past and none have been successful. However, we are on week 2 with this one and my kids have done chores every weekday morning with no problem. I made each boy a set of cards with chores on it. I made a card for EVERY chore in the house!!

Then I bought this $5 shoe holder with large pockets that fits on the back of my laundry room door so the chores are ALWAYS up for the boys to see.

Each boy has there own row of pockets. the 1st pocket holds ALL there chore cards. Each night I go through the boys stacks of chores and pick out the chores they need to do the following day. I put these chores that need to be completed in the 2nd or "DO" pocket.

When they have completed there chores for the day, they put them in the 3rd or "DONE" pocket. The last pocket is a reward pocket. I don't really believe in allowance BUT my boys have been wanting to visit a few places this summer that are expensive (like castles and coasters or Wet-n-wild). I figure IF they actually do there chores each day for a week, I could reward them with money so they earn there admission money for the places they want to go.

SO FAR...SO GOOD!! I'll keep you posted.

#2) A SUMMER FUN CALENDAR. I created a calendar that has a different activity for each weekday. IF my boys do there chores that day, then we do the activity. Such as: Monday is library day, Tuesday is friend day, Thursday is feildtrip day & Friday is movie day OR movie night. This keeps my boys from all pestering me for different things all day long, everyday. They just look at the calendar and know what we will do that day. It has really helped!! 

#3) KITCHEN IS CLOSED

My boys want to eat all day long during the summer months. I have food and drinks out CONSTANTLY all summer long. And worse, they eat crap!! Like an entire bag of dum-dums! So I've limited the open kitchen to certain times of days. If they don't eat when I'm cooking breakfast then they miss out of breakfast and have to wait till I fix lunch. I open my kitchen 4 times a day Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinner. I also post a list of snack ideas on my fridge. So when they come to me and say "Mom, we have nothing good to eat!" I can just say "go check the list."

What time is it?? SUMMERTIME!!

OK...am I the only one who does "End of the school" gifts for my kids?? I think it is so fun to try to put something together for each of my boys the end of school so when they walk in from school on the last day, they have something fun!!

Here are a few ideas.

THREE YEARS AGO...

I made each of my boys an "Art Tote." I found small bathroom caddy's at the dollar store and filled each caddy with coloring books, workbooks, construction paper, scribble pads, flash cards & some small puzzles. Each boy got different books/activities based on there grade level. I found all the books/supplies at, where else, Dollar Tree.

I velcro-ed 4 small cups in the front of the tote (also found at the Dollar Tree) each cup filled with different art supplies. Each tote had its own paint, markers, crayons, glue sticks, pencils & scissors. My boys LOVED them and still use them today for homework projects. Each boys has all his own art supplies so no fighting over crayons.

TWO YEARS AGO...

I found each of my boys a small draw string backpack.

(Each a different color or style). You can find these everywhere and a lot of times you can even get them for free.

I have been trading kids with two of my friends for the last couple summers so my boys could have a play date with there friends at least once a week. I got them the backpacks to make it easier to go to playgroup.

I filled each one with a swim towel, sun screen, goggles & a water bottle. So my boys would always be prepared to head out the door. It made play dates way easier to prepare for because each boy was in charge to "prep" his own back pack with what he'd need. Again, the boys loved them and they were really useful. We still use them for play dates, sleepovers & road trips.

LAST YEAR...AND THIS YEAR

Summer Movie Bucket!!

Our family LOVES movies!! We have family movie night every Friday night. So we look forward to the new movies that come out in the summer. However, our family movie night does pose one problem. Because we watch movies EVERY FRIDAY, my boys DON'T want to go to the cheap "Summer Movies" at the theatres because we've already seen all the movies they offer (many times more than once).

Soo...here's the solution. Instead, the last 2 summers, I have bought the 3 older boys there own movie gift card. The new movies only cost $5.00 to see on Friday and Saturday mornings before noon. So with a gift card for $40 you get to see 8 new movies during the summer. I know...it's NOT cheap. But it's one summer activity that the whole family looks forward too.   

We have a HUGE bucket that I stock with munchies and candy. Then I tie on a "Movie Menu" with the movie release dates so my boys know which movies we are going to see and when. They LOVE it!! Before each movie we go to, they get to pick something out of the movie munchies bucket. We also keep the gift cards in the bucket so they don't get lost.

HAPPY SUMMER EVERYONE!!