Relief Society Activities Committee Planner

This is my most recent calling at church as you can probably tell by my latest posts. I love this calling! I love planning events and this calling fulfills me. On the other hand, my life is also SUPER BUSY. I have 4 kids and they are all still young and have many needs for me to attend to. I also have my relationship with my husband that I need to devote time to. I just find these days my time needs to be used wisely so that its not being taken away from the people I love most.

For this reason, I was hoping our meetings would be efficient and our committee has met those expectations. They are so awesome! For our planning our meetings we meet an hour exactly. We come on time, we end on time, and I just love it :) We have learned to be super productive in our meetings and this agenda will only help maximize our time together.

I was able to whip this up really quick. It has everything we need and nothing more. It is four pages front and back, has a lovely cover and a monthly activity planner page for each month.

It also has a page where you can list Sister needs that the RS Presidency and the Bishop have shared with you, followed by a space to keep a list of activity ideas you have. AND there is a page that has a checklist of things that you can go through for each activity to make sure you've planned all the details, and haven't missed anything.

Thank you for your interest in this design, if you do decide to use this awesome design please share this post on your social media so others can use it too. You can get this PRINTABLE by clicking the words Please Share :) Just print the file double sided front and back, and then fold in half. Hope you love it and thanks for dropping by! While you are planning check out two of our ideas!

SERIVE AUCTION - while I have been to many, I enjoyed our version the BEST!

A NIGHT WITH THE PATRIARCH - What a beautiful and spiritual night

Frozen Party - 2 years old

FROZEN BIRTHDAY PARTY

I was recently clearing my computer and I found my daughters 2nd Birthday Party. I thought it was worth the share. Of course it was Frozen theme, she love the movie and the soundtrack was either playing or being enacted in our house constantly :) 2nd birthdays are my favorite because they get so excited about everything! and appreciate all the simple things. I knew this theme would put her over the moon and I was rewarded with so many fun memories from this day

INVITATION

For the invite I found this blank Frozen Ticket that I filled in. I liked all the spaces they had for information. I was easily able to fit everything on. Here is the Link to this adorable invite.

DECORATION

For the Decor we tried to use what we had around the house. I got some Sticks from outside and spray painted them white. Then we used Coffee Filters to make the perfect Snow Flakes. We filled up a few Balloons and hung them with some Tissue Paper Balls I made. I just crumpled up some newspaper wrapped some tape around it so it would keep its shape and hot glued tissue paper to it! SO EASY!!! I used a plastic table cloth as a table runner and set the food out. I also love my Chalkboard, it is fun for all occasions and can be used at any party or event. I was lucky to find that frame at a thrift store. I took the picture out, spray painted the frame Gold, and then spray painted the backing with Chalk Board Spray. It was cheap and well worth it :)




FOOD

We had so much fun with the food, we had TWO requirements...
1) enough to feed us all of Lunch,

2) food my kids like, especially the birthday girl

We found lots of good food ideas online and made up a few have fun scrolling through :)

       

For the cake I went simple I found those figurines, printed off some pictures and slapped on two Candles. She couldn't have been more thrilled with the end product!

and I'll leave these special moments right here, eating cake, opening presents, and 

most important, saying THANK YOU to our guests

Thanks for Stopping by :) come again!

Service Auction - Relief Society Activity

For our Relief Society activity we decided to do a Service Auction, and it was so much fun that I had to share it with everyone!

We had the woman in our group earn points the weeks before our activity. This is the sheet we used

Everyone also donated service. Some people Donated Baked Goods - Rolls, Cookies, Cupcakes, and Cheesecake which took the top bid. Other things donate were....

Cleaning Bathrooms

Babysitting

Girls Night out

Family History Help

Dinner

Photography Session

Chinese Lessons

FHE Message

I have the certificates we used below along with the sheet we used

to sign up for donations AND later we used it to record who took everything

After we recorded who received all the service. We passed the sheet around a few weeks after the activity so that everyone could get in contact with each other. 

Also that night, after we gave the woman who were on time their points, we had them total their points and just subtracted their points when they came up to get their certificate.

THE KEY to a successful night is to find a fun Auctioneer and Vanna White. 

Vanna White should model all the items even if it is just the certificate and help the Auctioneer see people who are less aggressive bidders

The Auctioneer should keep the night lively, fun, and moving.

Our Auctioneer was Witty and fun and made our night a HUGE success!

HERE IS ANOTHER IDEA WE DID A NIGHT WITH THE PATRIARCH

Click for more details

http://sclifeasawife.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-night-with-patriarch.html

AND ARE YOU IN CHARGE OF PLANNING?

Here is my RS Activities Committee Planner

How to host a Ball-Jane Austen Style

Do you love Pride and Prejudice or Downtown Abbey? or have you seen Austenland? Do you, like me, love Mr Darcy and the whole Regency Era, and wish for just one night you could experience the magic of this era?!

Well keep reading, because I am going to tell you how I threw my own Regency Era Ball and pulled off my most successful parties yet....

1) INVITES- I bought special wax and a stamp from Michaels, but I am sure there are other craft stores that supply them and a great selection on the internet. I designed an invite, I will attach the format HERE, and printed it on tan card stock.  As I folded my husband stamped the seals on, he turned to me on the final one and said "This is the main reason I agreed to this party." It was fun watching his enthusiasm in making the perfect wax seal on each envelope. In hopes to have people be serious about this party also included Dress Suggestions at the bottom of the invite.

2) DELIVERING THE INVITES- To show people the seriousness I had for this party, I had the invites delivered on a silver tray by my son. It added to everyones anticipation and started to set the mood for the party

3) SERVERS- I hired some youth to be the "Help" for the evening, after all what type of Regency Era Dinner and Ball would it be without servants? They were amazing! So proper and helpful, defiantly earned their wages.

4) ANNOUNCING GUESTS AS THEY ARRIVE- I tied off all the other entrances to the gym except for one which had a sign on the door that said "to wait for the help to take their coats, fill out an announcing card and the help would walk them in and announce them" I also had an instruction card at the table on that showed them how to fill out the announcement cards

Announcing is my favorite part, I rush over to couple and thank them for coming and shower them with compliments on their ward robe. Then I introduce them in my best British accent to all the other company and take them to an area to have their picture taken.

5) PICTURES - You probably aren't going to get good pictures indoors at night unless you have studio lighting but a "mmmeeehhh" picture is better then no picture. Your guests have worked so hard to get ready for the night you should take a second to take a picture of them even if it is a quick snap with your phone.

6) DANCING- for finding dances to teach I use a combination of this YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/RegencyDancesOrg and this website http://regencydances.org/dancelist.php I would suggest hiring someone to teach the dances unless you have past dance experience and are comfortable teaching large groups. I also send my guests a link through email or facebook in case my guests want to watch the dances before they attend.
My favorites that I would suggest are first Corn Rig for a very easy and lively Dance
and second Ramsgate Assembly for a little bit harder but more romantic dance.

7) DINNER- I only had a dinner at one of my Balls, because a 5 course meal for a large group is expensive! but it was wonderful having dinner with the group. I set the table with place cards, and a menu. I also placed conversational facts about the Regency Era under their plates. During the dinner guests would take turns reading their facts loudly to the group. The facts really kept the laughter and conversation alive during dinner and helped us interact as a group and not just the people by us.

8) CARD PLAYING - at my second ball we did card game and the "help" served light refreshments, instead of doing a full dinner. We played a modified version of this game http://www.janeausten.co.uk/the-game-of-loo/ if I did this again I would have placed the rules at each table and taught the "help" how to play so that they could answer questions and settle disputes. I think it would also have been fun to do a tournament!

There is always an overwhelming response of how fun these balls are and that we should make it a tradition, which as you can see we have! I highly recommend this party to all my readers. It's a romantic evening to be remembered!

And may I add some of the Men put up quite a fuss but end up having the most fun!

Please comment with any ideas that would add to this party theme, or if you have any questions.
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9 tips on how to Cook Every Day and save $ Money $

Cooking our meals at home has done two things. First saved us a ton of money and Second has kept us eating healthy. BUT it is not easy to make every meal at home, it is easier to pick up a pizza, do take out, or swing by a fast-food joint or a restaurant. It took practice and living on a low income to train myself and this is how I've accomplished it.

Find these RECIPES HERE

Have a Meal Plan-if you don't have a plan, dinner time will sneak up on you and you won't know what to cook and you will most likely go out to eat

Only plan meals that you want to eat- if you are dreading something on your meal plan then you can bet you are going to skip it and go out to eat

Try new things- I noticed I need to have variety in my meal plans so I don't get sick of my own cooking. I watch cooking shows, surf pinterest's food section, and thumb through cook books at the library. Variety gives me something to look forward to.

Have a few easy quick meals on your meal plan- have easy meals for busy days. I have freezer meals I prep days or months ahead, crockpot meals, something for my husband to grill, or something that is just super fast to put together.

Keep your house stocked with food- take your meal plan, write out all the ingredients and have them in the house, if you don't have an ingredient to make your meal, you might be tempted to go out and eat instead of go to the store and cook.

Prep for the next day- for example when I am cooking dinner I pull the meat out of the freezer to defrost for tomorrows meal, and if I am chopping onions and I also need chopped onions for tomorrows meal I will chop them at the same time and reserve the rest for the next day

Give yourself time to cook- Don't wait until everyone is starving to start dinner. Give yourself time enough time to cook.

Have a back up plan- I have a back up plan in place for the times when dinner just didn't get done, or if dinner gets burned (sad, but it does happen) On our back up plan we can have sandwiches or eggs and pancakes, which are things I always have at our house for breakfast and lunch.

Give yourself a day off- Once a week I have a day where I don't have to cook dinner. On that day we either have a church or community event that is offering free food, or I make a bit extra throughout the week and we have leftovers.  It helps me from getting burned out.

Just so you don't think we are crazy, we do go out to eat every now and then! but we don't depend on that for our meals :)

What are your tips for cooking?

and if any of those dishes up top look good, find the recipes here