Paint Your World in Personal Progress

"Many ordinary, individual brushstrokes work together to create a
captivating and beautiful painting."
Elder David A. Bednar 

 

My role in our Young Women presidency - besides being the crier in my Sunday lessons - is to come up with the ideas for the "big" events each year like YW in Excellence and New Beginnings. We'd been chastised a bit from the Stake for not being better examples of doing Personal Progress. And I'd been trying to encourage my other leaders to plan at least one activity each month that directly tied to a value activity the girls are supposed to do. But sometimes my ideas don't get executed the way I'd envisioned. Hmmm... that seems in all aspects of my life.

So in my searching for some inspiration, I stumbled across this blog post. Thank heavens for naturally creative women in this world! Because they sure help out us women whose motto is "steal, steal, steal and give credit where credit is due!" I thought her decorations were so cute!  I had a grander vision for the decorations {even a little painting project that night} but after a crazy work schedule, kids, dog, and a hungry husband, I just couldn't do it. I event took the entire day off to get everything ready for the evening. Oh well. Throw a bunch of paint brushes, paint packs, paint cans, and paint chips around and the girls got the idea.

I also found an article called, "Five Reasons to Love Personal Progress" by Jan Pinborough. I really liked the article so I decided to mush the two ideas together. Each of the leaders divided out the five reasons and shared with the girls what they were and if we had any personal insight to add to the article. The girls sang a song we'd been practicing for weeks. And our Secretary put together a slideshow of pictures from all of our activities from the year. It made me tear up... I love the Young Women's program!

Check out these super cute programs! You pulled on the paintbrush to see the program. Loved them!

Each of the girls had a display in our art gallery. It was really amazing to see all of their talents! And I think they were pretty excited to FINALLY see the pictures I took of them during one of my lessons months ago. {The lesson was on using good language and I was supposed to emphasize not taking the name of the Lord in vain and using clean, good language. But I just kept thinking that the girls already know that...they needed to be reminded that if they aren't speaking kind, clean, and good words about themselves, it doesn't really matter what actually comes out of their mouths. So I spent the entire lesson, having each girl stand with her back to the chalkboard while the rest of us wrote something we loved or admired about her on the chalkboard. Then they turned around and read what their friends, peers, and leaders had written about them. It was pretty amazing to see their smiles!}

Miss Hannah. She is very artistic. She takes her favorite song lyrics and transposes them onto canvas. Love this idea!

Ashlee. I had a few of these girls in Primary - including Ashlee - and to see how much they've grown up and accomplished is just super awesome! Ashlee was so incredibly shy, she would cry in class when I asked her to read a scripture or do anything. And now she's playing her violin in front of everyone and bearing her testimony in sacrament meeting. She is a beautiful girl.

Love Kristen. I think she is just stunning. 

Sassy Brittany. This girl! She is such a good girl, but has a definite streak of sass in her.

Sam. She reminds me of another ridiculously studious teenager... myself. I keep telling her to remember to have some fun in between studying.

Miss Sarah who is always so observant of everyone around her and makes sure to compliment you. She makes me feel like I might not be hopelessly frumpy... yet. And she sewed that cute sock monkey!

And Jade. Jade isn't LDS and has an incredibly difficult home life. She's technically not in YW anymore because she is 19 but we keep dragging her back because she is just awesome! Plus, she will take home all of our leftover treats which saves me on the calories. 

Teenagers are pretty amazing {and they keep this old lady young}, really!

And then the highlight! Dessert! The girls were so impressed by my ability to poke sticks into pre-made Rice Krispie treats and then dip them in candy coating. Our girls aren't big treats fans so we went kind of light, with Rice Krispie paint brushes, fresh fruit, and water. It was simple and delicious. A perfect end to a fun, exhausting, humbling evening. I hope I never get sent back to Relief Society!

For a little gift to remember the evening, the girls got to take home their framed chalkboard art, a pack of paints, and then this super cool swirly image to paint in the value colors.

This swirl was the inspiration I found and begged our Secretary to re-create.

Huge shout out to our Secretary, Sariah over at motherhoodtrade.com, and her mad graphic design skills for making my vision of the girls' chalkboard art, programs, and swirly value paintings amazing!

Thanksgiving dinner assigment

We were supposed to spend Thanksgiving in the booming metropolis of Malad, Idaho at Jeff's brother's house. There was just one, small problem.

Roy forgot to tell Cindy he had invited everyone over.

So we ended up at Jeff's parent's house instead. I think it's charming how Jeff's mom uses her nice silver and decorative paper plates, napkins, and cups. I'm serious. I love it! Easy clean up, gives me a laugh, and the kids like all the turkeys. And we serve things buffet style. Yum.

We haven't seen much of Jeff's nephew, Ty, for a few years. We were happy to have him around again! Even if it scares the crap out of me how much he looks and acts like his dad... my Redneck brother-in-law.

Love this adorable little boy of mine! And he was the only one who actually looked at the camera. Apparently fear of having important milestones and memories documented runs in Jeff's family because not a one of them would look at me or smile. 

Love this adorable big boy of mine too.

 

See? See! Not a single one of them would look at me! Roy tells me I can get a picture of him in his casket. 

Thanksgiving tradition. Uncle Roy squirts whipped cream in all the kids' mouths until they start giggling or choking... inevitably leading to them spitting that whipped cream all over the place. Or me. Not only did Pearl get whipped cream in my hair but Jeff started choking and laughing so hard he spit it all over my pants. It was pretty fun and I did get a nice apology, whipped cream tasting kiss out of him. From Jeff. Not Roy. I wanted to make that clear:) 

My assignment was pies. I went with an apple pie and a pecan pie. Pies are a funny thing. I actually really like making pies. They smell good. They look beautiful. It's kind of relaxing rolling pie crusts. And it reminds me of my Grandma Peacock. But I don't really like eating pies. Unless they are covered in ice cream. Then I like pies... a lot.

Jeff likes pies though. Especially pecan pies. 

I spent hours searching for the perfect pecan pie recipe to try. The pressure was on to not disappoint Jeff. Or his brother. Or mom. They all like pecan pie. 

It came down to The Pioneer Woman's recipe or  Cook's Country Old Fashioned Pecan Pie. I went with Cook's Country. A friend who sent me the recipe is an amazing cook and after comparing pecan pie recipes, I decided all of the corn syrup and sugar most recipes called for just sounded overly sickening sweet. The only problem I ran into was trying to figure out just how jiggly a pecan pie is supposed to be when it's done baking. 

I did pretty good. Except I over baked it. Not burned... just not as ooey-gooey as Jeff likes his pecan pie. But man it sure was pretty and the taste was sweet but not sickening sweet. Especially when balanced out with some ice cream or whipped cream.

 

 The kids prefer their pie with just ice cream. No pie.

My first try at pecan pie must have gone OK because there wasn't much left on Jeff's plate. 

The faces of thanksgiving

I think it's clear that Pearl doesn't like me taking pictures of her. I think it's more her way of rebelling rather than not wanting her actual picture taken.

Anyway... for school, she had a Thanksgiving feast. The kids were encouraged to dress up as pilgrims or Indians for the day. Luckily my Mom had an Indian costume from when I was a kid that we were able to talk her into wearing. 

She was thrilled about the idea.

So thrilled in fact, she covered her face... 

To hide tears...

She did humor me with trying to smile...

But then she was upset that her eyes were going to be red and when she got to school, her friends would know she'd been crying. It probably didn't help that I was laughing at her...

Trying really hard to smile through gritted teeth for her mother...

That's a little better.

And I'm still laughing about this!