Girls's Retreat 2012 (part 1)

I have got so many good thoughts, ideas, plans and experiences from this past weekend. It's almost scary to type them out for all of the world to see. Makes it feel a bit more final. But, as all the ladies kept reminding me, there's going to be another one next year and the planning starts today.

 

The topic of the retreat was WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
My first note after that is...It comes down to trust.

They started the weekend with a getting-to-know-you session. All the girls had to answer a question from the slip of paper from their table. One was, "What would you like your name to be if you could change it?"Another was, "What's the nicest thing someone has said/done for you?" Another was, "If you could ask God one question, what would it be?" And the most inspiring one to me was, "Who inspires/encourages your faith the most?" When the one girl answered, "my mom..." I set that to memory. I want to be that mom to my girls. I want them to be able to say that I encouraged and helped strengthen their faith.

We had a session on Doubt and being dry spiritually. The girls compiled a list of things that has/could cause them to doubt. Then the leader showed them all of the amazing people in the Bible that doubted and what God still did with them (Abraham, Moses, Job, Elijah, Thomas, David, Peter). Face your doubts. If you're certain of something, there's no need for faith. You shouldn't doubt alone. It takes work to overcome doubt and you should tap into the accumulated wisdom of people who've been there and done that. There will always be things in this world that you do not understand and you're not supposed to. That's where faith steps in. Jesus is the bridge between God and us. He doesn't just love the "good" people. No matter what we do, we can be forgiven. No matter who we are, we can be transformed. Doubt can keep us from being gullible.

"Everyone saw Jesus in the room. He is in the room."

It's hard to believe that you can have as big an impact on the world as Jesus did because He was chosen. (but so are you) What would happen if I truly believed what God said and I stepped out of the boat. If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

The girls were challenged to come up with a local level charity and a national charity that they would like to sponsor or create with $30,000. There were five sets of girls with at least five girls to a table. They were led to believe that the money was real. Half of the girls believed and the other half had doubts. The catch was that they all had to wear labels on their heads (that I spent two days working with, it was good therapy) telling the others at their table how to treat them. Half of the labels had negative reactions like, ignore, second guess, put down, talk over. The other half had positive reactions like, encourage, compliment, be attentive to. It was amazing how after 20 minutes of being treated in these manners that the girls started acting in those ways. The ones that were put down, started to shut down. The ones that were encouraged (and weren't used to it), felt over whelmed. The girls were instructed to close their eyes and all pray together about seeing others as God sees them. The lights were turned off and the black lights were turned on. When the girls opened their eyes, the whole room inhaled by the awesomeness of it all. Everyone's name tags now said, loved, daughter, saint, empowered, highly favored, beloved.

They worked to pull the ones that were knocked down back up and the choices they had to made were done in under 10 minutes. Then they were told that it was just a story and that there really wasn't any money. But they were encouraged to take these ideas that they were passionate about and run with them. They were told that their projects are worth following. The girls at my table wanted to do the parachute drop of Bibles that I had participated in back during Christmas time and to find a was to get medical expertise in a small country that is in need. They also wanted to find a way to support St Jude's and to set up a local disaster relief program (after living through the tornadoes here last year).  The girls were told that nothing spoken over you can have control unless you allow it to. That they need to label people with love and build them up. That we want to behave as God sees them. The girls shared stories that they connected to in their daily lives. How they will be able to relate to people better. They realized that you need support in decisions and that it's hard to do it all by yourself. And that you are not what others say you are. The labels we put on ourselves weigh us down and can turn us into someone we don't want to be. After a while, we start labeling ourselves before the people in our lives can even try to put a label on us. Until you believe what God has said, you will never get out of the boat. The devil will continue to distract us with smoke and mirrors. We have to give our labels away in order to do what we were put on this earth to do. We need to keep praying for God to remind us who we are to Him.

The last session of that night was mine. I got to be the leader of the crafts again. We covered composition notebooks and filled them with phrases that were going to be used throughout the whole weekend. I printed off all kinds of cool fonted words for them to use. We gathered papers, cloth, ribbons, lace, pens, markers, googly eyes, and everything else we stumbled onto. I printed off this picture of the notebooks I had made last year (or was it two).

We inspired the girls to build their own. They were amazing. They hardly needed any help with them and they all turned out so differently.

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

We finally shuffled them off to bed just after midnight. They ladies finally made me go to bed just after one. My brain had shut down about two hours earlier and my body had started to shut down. I snuggled up in front of the fireplace and slept for 6 hours...well...not completely. My darn brain wouldn't stop talking about all of the great stuff that I had experienced and learned that evening and how excited I was for all that was going to be coming tomorrow.

I finished a project!

Not that I don't normally finish a project. It's just that this one has been in the making for almost an entire year. Kept getting pushed around under my desk and put on the back burner. Now I finally decided to tackle it and got it done in less than a day.

 Not sure if I shared this one with you but this was the makings for my purse. Found all of these wonderful items at thrift stores. Believe it cost under $5 for all of it.

And finally it has turned into this:

 

Yes, me in my wonderful jammies modeling the bag at 5am this morning after I got it finished. 

What do you think? My hubby would make some remark about the symmetry of it, but it was my first time free handing a pattern...which I didn't even pattern. I eyeballed the whole thing. 

Now to take it on a test run this weekend on my road trip. Pray for my guests staying with my kids and dog this weekend.

Hello again.

I'm back. Hopefully I'll be able to get back on track and write a couple times a week on here. Even if it's not every day. I'm finding that keeping up with my Violet girl and everything I want to do and need to do, doesn't always go hand in hand.

Since I wrote last...I didn't knock on wood hard enough. The flu raged through our house again. It took me down for almost two whole days and did my system in for a week. Took out the girls again in varying degrees but the hubby didn't get it again. He instead cleaned the entire house...and cleaned is an understatement. It was quite wonderful for the most part. The smells while I was nauseous wasn't so wonderful.

We celebrated Christmas inbetween all of the fluing. The girls all got something that they REALLY wanted which is always a good thing. I think my favorite one (besides the new coat) might be the family trip to the hotel with waterpark. Instead of things...an adventure to remember.

We did a homemade Christmas with my dad and stepmom and assorted children. I had a blast trying to figure out what to give them that we could make and wouldn't automatically go in the trash...not that they would ever do that but I didn't want to burden them with something I would want to throw out.

First up the giant brandy snifters that lived in my cupboard for probably close to 5 years. I found them together on the same shelf and I knew someday that I would create something to this effect with them. 

To hold the small glass in place, I colored some salt red (a little love and to give it a patriotic flair) and placed some white on top of that to make it a winter wonderland. The girls helped me place enough Christmas trees in the snow for each grandkid.

The small glass has dried blue glitter glue and some chestnut snowmen painted white. I imagine that the snowmen jumped in together and created a big splash.

 This is the plastic top of a pie plate with an unknown number of girlie hand prints glued to it to make a frame. We added the heart in the middle because this girlie and grandpa have a special gift exchange going that has to do with hearts. And because I ran out of hands.

A few Radtke Customs SO bookmarks.

A Radtke Customs jingle bell bracelet.

An advent wreath painted by the monkey circus. Plastic cups with flameless candles to make them glow. Forgot to print off the instructions and prayers that I had found to go with. Eh.

I think these were my favorite to make. I found the plastic ornaments for a fantastic deal and had always wanted to do this with the monkey circus. I decided this was going to be the year. We dug out the craft bin that the receivers of this gift gave the girls before my Violet girl was a part of the family yet. We went digging through and started placing an assortment of goodies in each one. Word of warning...dump excess paint out before packaging. The one ornament's paint leaked because it wasn't fully dry yet (bad planning time wise on my part) and it mixed to look like someone poo'd in the bag.

 

 

My Violet girl found a game like this in a Christmas craft book and she was bound and determined to make it. Only the sample in the book was throwing things in Santa's mouth. Good thing I found this picture.

This was a fun one for the girls to do. The body of the angel is their foot and the wings are their hands. Then they each drew a head to attach to the body. They flew around our house for an entire day before I hid them so they wouldn't get ruined.

And lastly, the tree skirt. My Violet girl and I worked on this one together. She picked out the colors for each of her cousins. Amazingly, she picked their favorite colors (I think for all of them) and she had so much fun picking their eye colors and putting on their mittens and buttons. The monkey circus insisted on creating some gingerbread men for my mom as well and she got a set of chestnut snowmen because she was the one who helped them collect the giant bag of chestnuts this fall.

So, that what has been keeping me busy inbetween all of the fluing that's been going through my house. Now to get past the back pain or find a place in the house to sit and create comfortably. May start interviewing this Violet girl of mine for here because some of the things she says is amazing. She's having a green lunch today...key lime yogurt and pickles...not mixed together, just at the same meal.

Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and new year. I finally get to put all of the presents away and start decluttering my house. Hoping to get Christmas down before Valentine's day. Praying I talk to you all again soon.