Dress Up!

Jenna LOVES to dress up and had fun with these sparkly sequins today!  

 She did this clown make-up completely by herself too!

Making a Pinewood Derby Car

The girls were excited when they found out that they would get to participate in a Pinewood Derby for a combined Young Women/Young Men activity! When I told them that they could just race one of Josh's cars they both said, "No way! We want to make our own car!" And they did! They went to Brother Compas's two Saturdays in a row to work on their cars. They did everything themselves. They even cut out the car themselves (which made me really nervous). They then sanded it down and drilled holes for the weights. We went to Home Depot for FHE in order to buy paint, epoxy, graphite, and weights.  The girls glued in the weights, painted their car, and then went back the next week to  sand the grooves out of the nails and sand the wheels. The girls really enjoyed the process! I am grateful that Jeff Compas offered to lend his tools and expertise and helping our girls!

  

The final product!! 

New Beginnings!!

Tonight was New Beginnings! We met at 11:00 and spent a couple of hours setting up. We had decided on the "Three White Dresses" theme on go along with the Youth theme "Peace in Christ." We decorated the three chalk boards and wall with blessing dresses and baptismal dresses. 

We put gold wrapping paper across the chalkboards and then hung up some white cord and put the blessing dresses from our babies (yes, we all still had all of our children's blessing dresses) and hung them up with gold clothes pins. We also had little battery operated lights and hung them up across the clothes line and put up five or six big trees with lights. We had a beautiful wedding dress on display.  

Charise did an awesome job on the food! She brought white wedding cookies, vanilla chocolate covered pretzels, swedish cream (which was amazing), white frosted sugar cookies in the shape of a temple, and fruit kabobs. She also brought a beautiful wedding cake made my Karen Phillips. She is so talented! 

Our program included a speaker to represent each dress, Kalli Potter for the blessing dress, Amy Ence for the Baptism dress, and Mallorie (Cloward) Wilson for the Temple dress. They all did a great job! Cindy Rodet made these darling invitations. 

 

Janelle, Jaiden, and Anna sang "What Heaven Sees in You" for the musical number. Janelle and I spent several hours putting together a slideshow it. We were happy with the way it turned out!  Here is the link: What Heaven Sees in You

We had a great turn out with girls and parents. All in all I think it was a lovely evening!

Rosenbruch Museum

Today Jenna's grade went to the Rosenbruch Museum for a fieldtrip. She really wanted me to come and so I signed up to be a chaperone. I ended up with a couple of requests for all-day interpreting jobs but turned them down since I had already promised her that I would come. It was worth it! She was SO excited to have me there and kept holding my hand and hugging me. At the museum we watched a very interesting 45 minute movie on wildlife from around the world and then took a tour of the wildlife museum. I had never been before and found it quite fascinating! After the tour we walked to a nearby park for lunch. It was chilly outside but at least it was sunny, which helped!

Homemade Peanut Butter and Pizza!!

Jaiden and Emily made homemade peanut butter today! It turned out really good -- and I love their cute label! Creative girls! Jaiden, Emily, and Mariposa also made homemade pizza -- both gluten free and not gluten free. I love it when they cook! I just don't like the mess they leave behind! In the midst of all this Jesse Callahan came and put new hinges on all of our cup-board doors -- yeah!!

Janelle Patriarchal Blessing

Janelle (age 15) received her Patriarchal Blessing this afternoon. Her blessing is absolutely beautiful and describes her so perfectly! Janelle is really maturing into a beautiful young woman both inside and out! One of my favorite lines of her blessing states: "You have been blessed with eyes to see the hurt in others and with a heart to heal." What a precious gift!    

Janika and Jared both came to her blessing. After we got home we had a nice Salmon dinner and then Janelle taught a lesson on Patriarchal blessings and shared her feelings about receiving hers. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father has given us the precious gift of being able to receive a patriarchal blessing. Our Patriarch described it as a personal love letter from our Heavenly Father. Precious indeed! 

Miamaids

Here is my cute Miamaid class!! A few of them are missing, but pictured are: Emily Williams, Janelle Jensen, Baylee Cloward, Ruby Bolton, Jaymii Bonadurer, and Layla Purdy.

Preference

Jared had his Preference dance today/tonight with Grace Call. Cute girl! He ended up finding someone willing to pull a double shift that day at The Crepery so that he could get it off. He worked Friday night and then Saturday morning from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. and then someone took over for him. He was grateful. For their day date they went roller skating in Veyo. For the evening date they went to the Pasta Factory and then to the dance. He had a good time!   

Chinese New Year Celebration!!

Saturday we brought everyone to the Chinese New Years party that the Washington Country School District Chinese Teachers put on. It was held at the Stake Center near us, which we thought was a little strange that they were doing it at a church instead of at a school. They had fun games and activities for the kids including a puppet show and parade.

Panda Express had donated Chinese take-out for everyone who came. Jenna's face paint is supposed to be a pig if you can't tell (I couldn't).  Janelle's friend texted her wanting to hang out today. He used to go to her school but then his family moved out of our area and he was here visiting. So Janelle invited him to join us at the Chinese New Year celebration. Even Rick, Janika, and Brandon came and joined in the fun!