YW In Excellence (Take 1)

I've been a part of the Young Women's program in our church for only two months now. For those of you who don't exactly know what I'm talking about or what that means, allow me to explain:
Our church leadership is run solely on a volunteer basis. Although our bishop and bishopric members extend specific "callings" (responsibilities) to individual members, the acceptance of these callings is not required and all callings are fulfilled without pay. These callings could be anything from leading the music in a sacrament meeting, to teaching Sunday School, to in my case, working with the youth, specifically the teenage girls ages 12-18.

One of the main purposes of the Young Women's program in our church is something called Personal Progress. Throughout their time in Young Women's, the girls work through projects and experiences dealing with 8 different life values: faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity and virtue. The projects and experiences could be anything from reading certain scriptures and writing down your thoughts on them... to doing 10hrs of service in the community... With 8 values, each requiring you to complete a number of experiences and a final "value project", it took me a few years to complete my Personal Progress when I was in Young Women's as a girl.

Each year, the Young Women's program puts on a YW In Excellence night, where the girls come (with their parents) and showcase an experience or project that they worked on that year. Some girls learned how to cook with their mother's, so they brought her favorite snack samples for everyone to try; some learned the intricacies of family history work and were able to showcase all the names they were able to find and index; others shared journal excerpts or artwork...

Just as boy scouts are rewarded with merit badges for archery or swimming, Young Women are honored for their knowledge and testimonies gained in all the important life values needed to live a successful, fulfilling life as a daughter of God.

As part of the YW presidency, I offered to spearhead the YW In Excellence night. I had the girls pick out a theme for the event - they chose the Dr. Seuss book "Oh the Places You'll Go!" and I ran with it. Pinterest was my crutch through the whole thing, but I am living proof that some Pinterest projects WILL succeed! I probably took on way too much, because I'm horrible when it comes to delegating, but I don't regret a thing because it turned out perfectly and all the girls loved it :)

Straws from Target for the BOMB punch: recipe here

I had the girls make the tissue paper pom poms for our YW activity last Wednesday. We put them on wooden dowels and poured sand around them to get them to stay in the little metal pails - the perfect Truffala tree!

I found these 'sprinkle' balloons here - they were perfect for the theme. We cut out tons of tissue paper confetti and stuffed it into the balloons before blowing them up. Extra confetti was sprinkled on the tables...it was too cute to waste :)

The best snickerdoodles in all the land: recipe here

One of my most favorite snacks is popcorn. And some of the most delicious popcorn is found at Garrett's in Chicago. They're known for their caramel-cheddar mix...so I tried to mock it. It turned out a lot better than expected, so I was pleased. 

Recipe here

Yurtle Turtles: recipe here

& rainbow Jello cubes: recipe here

& obviously rainbow candy galore!

They had their choice of paper bag or little plastic bowl to dish their snacks into

The invite - I made this in Adobe Illustrator using free Dr. Seuss fonts found here

One of my favorite decorations of the night were these Dr. Seuss 'value quotes' that I made in Illustrator and had printed for the value tables the girls set their projects up on. Each color indicates the specific value the quote is associated with. White (gray): Faith / Red: Individual Worth / Green: Knowledge / Gold: Virtue

Orange: Choice and Accountability / Blue: Divine Nature / Purple: Integrity / Yellow: Good Works

The program - made in Adobe Illustrator

Invites, program, and all value quote prints are available in my Etsy shop! Made-to-order for you and your ward! Willing to negotiate based on need (ie. for Girls Camp rather than YW in Excellence or New Beginnings).

Wife of the year...or not

Oh how I love this sweet man of mine. 

I'm fairly certain Texas is just playing a big trick on us this week, but we've had perfect weather these last three days and I am welcoming fall with arms   w i d e  o p e n   

Since Nate's started school back up, life has been super crazy. When he's not working or in class, he's working on applications for fellowships. It's been an insane few weeks and I'm so ready for all these applications to be done with - mostly for Nathan's sake. 

He was so stressed at one point that he jokingly asked me to write his cover letter for him. Wellllll I kind of took him seriously one night while I was home alone. ++awesome wife points++

Unfortunately, those bonus points were quickly rejected when I ruined TWO pairs of Nate's pants. Pretty great, huh? It started when I forgot to tell Nate NOT to wash a pair of new jeans that I had hanging over the edge of the laundry hamper. Alas, as we were switching that load over to the dryer, we noticed way too many items of our clothing stained with blue dye. 

I immediately called my mom knowing in the back of my mind that this had happened to her once before. She told me to buy a package of color run remover and it would take out the blue dye no problem.

I followed the directions very carefully, but somehow didn't realize that the hot pink shirt I had in with the other items would get ripped of color along with all the spots of blue. Once the cycle was complete, not only were most of the blue stains gone, but all of the pink from the shirt as well....and wanna know where it went? Straight onto two pairs of Nate's pants.

That's right...I turned his pants pink. I was horrified and embarrased and just utterly confused. Surely my mom had the answer? I called her again and she simply said that another package of color remover should do the trick.

Commence cycle #2. In the end - the pink WAS removed, but so was most of the other color (brown) from pants. Instead of them being a nice dark khaki, they were now golden yellow. 

WIFE OF THE YEAR!

               

On a lighter note...I waited a solid year before ordering any wedding prints. And these aren't even prints, it's a book. But to be honestly, I only waited so long because I bought Walter Mitty a couple months ago and I got a free Shutterfly photo book out of it... if that wasn't included in the package, I'd still be photo-less. HA! I'm terrible.

This book turned out WAY better than I was expecting. I couldn't stop staring after I picked up it from the mailbox. So many happy, beautiful memories :)

More good news: NATE AND I WERE FINALLY RELEASED FROM NURSERY!!

Only because apparently I had been on the waiting list to get into Young Women's for like 6 months. Geez. So yes, I was immediately called as the Secretary/Personal Progress lady for YW. Holla!

I have no freakin idea what I'm doing, so feel free to send over any advice you may have. I have a feeling my Type A personality is going to get the best of me in this calling. I already went WAY overboard for a stupid ward party last month and it straight up ruined me. My expectations were on the roof and were very quickly stomped to the ground. Pray that I can make the best of this!! (AKA stop caring if everything is perfect)

Music recommendations as of late:

alt-J: This Is All Yours (album)

Broods: Four Walls (thx Kylie)

Yuna: Lullabies Adventure Club Remix (thx Brooke)

Echosmith: Cool Kids

Hozier: Someone New

Active Child: Silhouette (feat. Ellie Goulding)

Trevor Hall: Chapter Of The Forest (album)

So long sweet summer

Wow it's been a crazy end to summer these last few weeks. Not only has the month of August flown by...but I feel like so much has happened in, what feels like, such a short amount of time.

A few weeks after my last post (YEAR ONE), my bestest friends FINALLY came home from their missions. Bless them for being such valiant missionaries, but man did I miss them! They picked me up from the airport and it's like we picked up right where we left off. Except we had a lot more spirital conversations...since that's all they know how to talk about still... ;) haha. A girls week in California was exactly what I needed after such a long, lonely summer. Being back with my main group made everything feel normal again. Although I have to admit, I didn't feel very married while I was with them. I felt like we were all going to leave the next week and go back to BYU to start another semester at Lanai. Ha. So weird.

Nate finished his internship that same week and met us out in Southern California that weekend. Kaitlin & Aimee didn't get to know him very well before they left for distant lands and we got engaged, so naturally I was very excited to have him around for my final few days visiting them. We ate lots of good food, stayed up way too late, and of course, got the worst sunburns ever after refusing to put sunscreen on at the beach. Oops.

Kaitlin was kind enough to take some pictures of us while we were hanging out in Oxnard at their family's beach house. A big part of me was really sad she wasn't in the states when it was time to get our engagements done last year, so it was super fun pretending like that's what we were doing with her this time. Nate was a really good sport about it :) And as always, they turned out amazing and I still think she's the very best.

It's always hard coming back from a long vacation and having to get back into the swing of work again right away. It honestly took me days to get fully concentrated once I was back in the office.

Nate has plenty of prep work to keep him busy until school starts at the beginning of September. We sat down the other night and made a list of all the hospitals he'd like to apply to for fellowships next year. Most of the applications are due by the end of September, but for positions that won't start until after he graduates in May. It's so exciting and scary to think that we could be somewhere on the complete opposite side of the country this time next year. We just have no idea. What I do know is how grateful I am that no matter where we end up, this guy is gonna be by my side the whole time. The best part of this summer ending is that he's finally back home with me for good. I can't get enough of him :)