Sunday, March 9, 2014

Taste the Rainbow...Savor the Blessings

Shortly after we moved into the Willows Ward; I was called to be the Young Women's Personal Progress Leader and Girls Camp Director.  Part of Personal Progress is planning New Beginnings. I have never planned anything like this on my own before and so I went forward with trepidation, but I found out how much fun it is!!

I chose "Taste the Rainbow...Savor the Blessings" as the theme and there were so many fun ideas out there to go along with it!

I was supposed to have surgery in mid February and so I started planning at the end of January so I could have everything set and ready for the March 9th date.

I started with these save the date cards and 
handed them out at church on Jan. 26

Then I started working on the cake ball ice cream cones that I saw online and knew it would take time to do.  I wanted to have them all finished before my surgery and cake balls freeze well!

After I started that; I put together these little goodie bags to give 
each of the Young Women after the New Beginnings program.

And here is the invitation

Once I figured out that I wasn't going to have the surgery after all, I wasn't so panicked and started slowly working on everything else....like the program!  

We decided to do a value themed fashion show.  8 young women volunteered to represent each value and wore a solid colored dress that matched their chosen value color.  They were given a simple script that went something like this:
"Hi, my name is ____ and I chose the value [Faith].  The color that represents [Faith] is [white].  I have tasted of this value and savored the blessings by ______."  
They were asked to share a personal experience about that value.  I wish I had thought to snap a couple pictures during the presentation.  The girls all looked so cute and they did an amazing job!!  

The whole program went off better than I could have possibly planned it.  I am sincerely so pleased with everyone that participated and so grateful to the parents that took the time to come and support their young women and this incredible personal progress program!

I made 6 different white cupcake mixes and colored them with food coloring paste.
I mixed each standard size cupcake with about a Tbls of cream cheese frosting (I cheated and used  the Betty Crocker brand)
Then I froze all the cake balls overnight.  
Next I sliced one of each colored balls into 6 slices and mix and matched the slices to get one of each color into the ball.  I rolled them between my hands to get a ball shape and froze them again overnight.
I dipped the top of a sugar cone into melted Wilton's White Candy Melts and immediately held a frozen rainbow cake ball to the dipped cone and held it for about 30 seconds to let the candy melts harden a bit.  Then I placed them onto wax paper lined cookie sheets and put them back into the freezer.
I dipped each cake ball cone into the melted Wilton's White Candy Melts and immediately sprinkled with the rainbow colored candy sprinkles and used a red hot for the "cherry".

These were such a huge hit and from what I hear they tasted pretty good, too!  I'm sad I couldn't sample them.. :(

Dipped Chocolate and Vanilla Oreos with a rice paper rainbow on top 

White candy melts and Fruity Pebbles Pretzel Rods 

Our fabulous YW President made these tissue ball poms for me! 










Fruit dip as the clouds  


We gave each of the incoming Beehives a gift bag with their
Personal Progress booklets, their YW flame logo pendant
necklaces and gold book marks.  We also included a
For Strength of Youth Pamphlet. 

The inside of the cake balls... So pretty!! 







Saturday, March 8, 2014

Twelves

When we moved into this ward, Brinlee joined a primary class of 5 other girls that will be turning 12 this year.  The crazy part about that is that all but one of them turn 12 in March.  The one turned 12 on Feb 19. Then one on March 9;  two on March 20; one on March 21 and Brinlee on the 22nd.  AND they all get along with each other really well!!  (We commented how they were all probably waiting in heaven together before birth and knew they would all find each other again someday... Another great reason why we needed to move to Vegas!!)

So we moms got together and decided that it would be fun to do something with all 6 of them together rather than 6 individual parties.  We got them a limo and took them to the strip to see and do all kinds of fun and crazy stuff!















Walking to the White's house

We got them all matching shirts with their 
names around the #12 and then they each
personalized theirs.

Started at the White's house for presents

Halley White, Kim Millich, Sam Giesea, Alyse Burke, Ashlyn Henriod and Brinlee

Cups filled with chocolates and a gift card to Golden Spoon
from Brinlee!


The ride!

Yeah we cool like that.

Traci and Sam Giesea - Alisa and Kim Millich - Kristy and Brinlee
Kristi and Alyse Burke - Paulette and Ashlynn Henriod - Jenn and Halley White



"MOM. It's huge!!"

Superstars

"Cool. They have sparkling cider."

Firehouse Subs for dinner

That's how hott they are...

Kristy and Traci

Fremont St light show first

During the light show

Bubbly

Having fun


The moms livin it up, too!

Jenn, Traci, Paulette, Alisa

Kristi and Kristy

Alisa

Hanging out  the windows...
Sam and Alyse

Kim, Halley, Ashlynn and Brinlee

"We gave out a pass along card!!"  
(They were handing them out the window
of the limo. LOL!)

They glow! (Brinlee's shoes)

Limo Selfie!! haha

"Oh mom."
(Kristy and Jenn)

This guy is free standing in that position. He didn't move a 
muscle for at least 20 minutes or more!!

Eiffel Tower at The Paris Hotel

Sugar Factory at The Paris for dessert

Inside Sugar Factory

Waiting patiently for our order...
(Gold "love" bracelet and ring were gifts from Sam;
hat from Alyse; glow bracelets and lei from Kim)

King Kong Ice Cream Sundae
SIXTEEN scoops!!

Jenn has a connection to the owners of The Sugar Factory and they agreed to reserve us a special section on this extremely busy Saturday.  We were so grateful, but the generosity didn't stop there.. The waiter came and told us that they wanted give us TWO King Kong Sundaes ($49.95 value EACH).  We were so surprised and decided that one would be plenty.  (We didn't want to waste and they didn't even finish the one.)   
So we decided to order some food and other desserts so that we weren't just freeloading, especially since it was Saturday and SO busy with a waiting line. 
I couldn't eat a sub at Firehouse (gluten free blah blah)  So I ordered a bunless burger and fries because I was starving and couldn't eat ice cream or any of the 3 fondue for 2 sets we ordered (sugar and dairy free...yada yada...BOO).
When I asked for my check for the burger; the waiter said "Oh. No, everything has been taken care of for you."  !!!  Seriously..what?!  We had ordered a bunch of extra stuff just to be nice and paying customers and it was all on their tab anyway!!  LOL Oops..if we had known we wouldn't have ordered so much extra or anything else for that matter...  (The total bill would have come to about $160. YIKES!)  So surprised and overwhelmed at the generosity. 
(AND btw, Jenn has hookups for EVERYTHING! She got us a smokin deal on the limo too!)

Dig in

Candyland at Sugar Factory

"Please, mom?"

Minions

The Gardens at Bellagio

NY NY Roller Coaster

Waiting for the roller coaster

We survived the wild ride!!

And the night ended here at 11:45pm
WHEW!  It was a blast and will probably never be
duplicated...  My other children will be so disappointed! lol