Plans for 2013

Our first meeting we discussed goals.  I based our goal setting lesson on Luke 2:52.
"And Jesus increased in wisdom, and stature, and in favor with God and man."

To be a well rounded person we need to develop all areas of our life, "wisdom" or intellectual goals, "stature" or physical goals, "favor with God" are our spiritual goals, and
"[favor] with man are social goals.

We talked about how to met a goal by planning action steps.  Little things that take us towards the result or goal we want.

A couple of my goals are to rework and write our Faithgirls curriculum.  I put this goal under wisdom.  My action steps are gather my information, format my material, and share with the girls.  Another is memorize 100 Bible verses in a year.  I bet you know where this goal is located...that's right a spiritual goal.  My action steps are I joined the FB group, write out each verse, review each verse, and "art journal" the verses.

We also played some fun getting to know you games.

We will be starting a unit on sewing.  Our next meeting we will be making pillowcases.
The other projects I thinking about are, pot holder/oven mitt, 9 patch pillow, a stuffed owl,and maybe a tote bag.

Since our church has recently opened a clothing closet ministry I would like to teach the girls how to repurpose some of the clothing items that are not appropriate to give out.  This will be so helpful with their own families' wardrobes and we can then give these items back to the clothing closet to give away.

Fall 2012

We made grape jelly and mixed berry jam in September.

We did "Baking with Pumpkin" in October.  We baked pumpkin muffins and also learned a bit about spices.  We also did pumpkin pasties, which is a hand held pie.

November we made a "Master Baking Mix" and bagged it up for our church food pantry to give out with a list of recipes.

December we had our Christmas Party.  We made easy toffee,  pictionary style games, and gift exchange.

quick review 2011-2012

We spent most of the year trying to crochet plastic sleeping mats.  This wasn't very sucessful.
We did have a Christmas Slumber Party and made 2 huge trays of cookies for the police and fire departments.

Faithgirls 2010-11

This digital scrapbooking design generated with Smilebox

Mac and Cheese

Only had 5 girls show up last night, and 3 of them were mine. But that's OK, my older girls know how to make a rue and cheese sauce so the younger girls were able to do it all. It tasted yummy. In real life, I don't follow a recipe very closely, might not be the best method to teach girls how to cook, if they don't know how to follow a recipe. I'll have to work on that.

Making a Rue.

If you can make a rue you can make lots of things, white sauce, "Cream of" sauces, (no more canned soups) Cheese sauce, gravy-both white/milk and brown,

and cheese soup just to name a few.

Macaroni boiling

Getting the lumps out. A whisk, in this case a balloon whisk, is the best

tool for the job.

Cooking in the Spring

We have been working on cooking skills, we have made deviled eggs, egg in a hole, french toast, & 2 different jello salads.

We will continue cooking skills the spring. Some of the items we will be making are Rice Crispy Treats, Macaroni and Cheese, Potato Salad, Spaghetti with meat sauce, and Potato Corn Chowder.

We will also be working on meal etiquette, setting a table, serving food, and table manners.

We will also be learning about Prayer.

We will be meeting on the following dates:

April 12- Mac and Cheese

April 26- Potato Salad

May 10- Spaghetti with meat sauce

May 24- Potato Corn Chowder

Organization

We did a short detour in February learning about Organization/Orderliness.

We organized a storage room, where the AWANA game supplies, Shoebox ministry and the Master's Business supplies are stored. The girls also went through the food pantry, organizing, rotating the stock & pulling out of date goods.

Blankets Delivered

The Faithgirls made fleece blankets as a mission project instead of a gift exchange this year.



Emilie, Olivia, Bella and I took the blankets to Ms. Eileen to personally deliver the blankets.




Ms Eileen has a heart for children, especially abused children. She volunteers at Helping Hands Home as a story reader and is a sort of "adopted grandmother" to all the children there. She gives each child Christmas presents picked out personally for them by herself. It was a joy to meet and visit with her. She recently had surgery and we are praying for her fast recovery.




~Letter From Ms. Eileen~

Dear Faithgirls of New Boston Faith Baptist Church,

Yesterday was a day that truly warmed my heart. Along with their Great Grandma Laurel Lea and their Grandma Carla Cay, Ms. Marni and Emilie, Olivia, and Izzie visited me at my home in Austin, Texas. As they walked thru my front door, they presented me with a “Huge Santa Bag” that was filled with the most loving, kind, heartfelt gifts.

When I peeked inside the huge bag, I found four beautiful, warm, cozy fleece blankets. As I touched the blankets, I could feel the love and kindness that went into each one. I immediately put my “imagination cap” on and could see each of you working so hard on creating these wonderful ‘gifts of love’. I could feel the love you felt in your hearts as your selected the fabrics and tied and tied and tied all the fringes till each blanket was perfectly completed.

As you know, these blankets will all be going to children who live in foster homes or residential treatment centers – another term for orphanage. The children who will be receiving them have been removed from their homes, their parents, their siblings, their pets, and the beds, pillows, and blankets that once belonged to them. There are no words that could possibly express the happiness these children will feel when they receive this precious gift. The warmth and love each child will feel as they snuggle into their new cozy blanket will bring the sweetest smiles and joy … this is something that they do not have too much of in their young lives.

I personally wish to thank each of you with all my heart for your hard work and your heartfelt kindness as you have reached out to touch the heart of another child – a child who has so little in his or her life. The sweet little tag that is attached to each blanket says it all: “This blanket was made especially for you with love.” Thank you so very very much.

All My Love,
Ms. Eileen

Christmas Celebration!

Christmas Party Celebration

December 7, at 7:00

Our Hostess is Mrs. Danna

•••☆.•*´¨`*••♥╰☆╮¤°.¸¸.·´¯`»♥«´¯`·.¸¸.°¤╰☆╮♥••*´¨`*•.☆•••

Playing Catch Up

We had our award presentation at the annual Ladies Tea.

Over the summer we attempted to play volleyball, but we all were really bad. We did learn the basics of how to play, bumping and serving.We started a unit on Kindness also during the summer.

We had a slumber party at the beginning of September.

This fall we are continuing Kindness, by going through Mean Girls, by Hayley DiMarco

We started Personal Journal. We spent that meeting decorating our journals.

In October and November we made deviled eggs, and jello salads. The girls had to bring something to the church Thanksgiving Potluck.

Tonight we are going to make gifts in a jar. They can either make Bath Salts, Brownie mix, or both.

December we will meet just one time for our Christmas party. Instead of a gift exchange each girls is asked to bring 1 1/5 yards of fleece. We will be making fleece blankets as a mission project.

May 11, 2010

We worked on putting our Missionaries to Know lapbook together.

Back to Bikes

For our first meeting on bikes we talked about bike safety, what to wear, hand signals & why it is important to use hand signals.We talked about rules of the road, and safety/traffic signs, what they mean, how to obey them, and what the colors mean. We went over the parts of a bike. We used this worksheet. I just found this worksheet which I like better. I gave the girls several handouts for their notebooks.

Then they had a quiz on the safety rules and road signs, and I'd call them up one by one asking them to point out a certain part on the bike. I can't find the quiz I used for safety rules, but there are a lot of them online. The quiz for the road signs was on the back of the poster.

Our next meeting my husband will teach the girls how to change a flat tire, how to put the chain back on, where to lube the bike, and other stuff like that.

April 13, 2010

We started our unit on Bicycle unit.

We read and did our lapbook elements about George Muller. George Muller was a great man of simple childlike faith. He prayed about everything expecting God to answer with exactly what he needed. George Muller has been my personal favorite missionary during this study.

March 23, 2010

We decorated flip-flops and shared verses about feet and walking.

March 9 , 2010

We did decoupage. I forgot the camera, but lots of creativity was being used!
I read about Amy Carmichael.

Mother/Daughter Event

Several moms and daughters from church will be attending a mother/daughter conference.
You and Your Girl with Vicki Courtney



We all made tie-dye shirts to wear tomorrow. That was fun, we all enjoyed it and will probably make tie-dye again as a Faithgirls project.

I hope to update this blog soon!

February 23

Pizza night!
My mother was sort of stuck here do to bad weather in Austin Texas, so she made 2 batches of pizza dough in my bread machine. The other girls brought favorite pizza toppings, I think nearly everyone brought pepperoni!

The girls were divided into 4 groups and they made their pizzas. My mom came along to see the Faith Girls program in action and was a big help showing the girls how to work the dough on the cookie sheets. (when I grow up I hope I'm like her ☺) While the pizza where in the oven, the girls and I started our lesson.

We studied about David Livingstone, Missionary/Explorer in Africa.

While telling the African people about the Gospel and establishing mission bases for other missionaries, Dr. Livingstone explored Africa and made maps of the unknown wilderness. He was also a medical doctor and an abolishonist, working to end the slave trade.

Dr. Livingstone faced many dangers, disease, cannibals, wild animal attacks just to name a few.
Statue of Livingstone being attacked by a lion. This attack left his arm nearly useless the rest of his life.
I of course knew the famous line "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" and that Dr Livingstone was an explorer of the continent of Africa, but what I was not taught in school was that the whole reason he was in Africa to begin with was to minister to the people of Africa and tell them about Jesus.

Dr Livingstone remained faithful to his calling to share the love of Jesus to all people and nations.

February 9

We made brownies!
We used the recipe that I learned in 4H back in the 70's
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup melted butter/margerine
2 eggs
1/3 cup cocoa
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup nuts, or chocolate chips or other candy ( we used M&Ms)

Mix sugar into melted margerine, add eggs, vanilla and then the dry ingredients. You can add the extra goodies in the batter or sprinkle on top. Bake for 25 minutes at 350.

We finished our study on Gladys Aylward. Gladys did many dangerous things in her life, but she always looked to the Lord for her guidance and protection. She is a very good role model for our girls.


We will finish our baking unit February 23. I've changed the lesson plans- we will finish with pizza!

January 26

We made yellow cake from scratch. Was tasty, but the church oven isn't all that great and the bottom burned.

We continued our study of Gladys Aylward. Gladys was determined to spread the good news of Jesus wherever she found herself.

Christmas Party!

We had our Faithgirls Christmas Party at our December 9th meeting.

The girls learned several new games.
We call this one the "Chair Game". The person in the center says a statment that is true about them, if it is true about you, you have to jump up and run to another seat. The person left without a chair is the center person. It is lots of fun.

We had a craft time where the girls made Christmas ornaments.



We played another game where the girls would draw a slip of paper that had an action on it, they would have to perform it. The next person would draw an action and perform the first persons action and their action. It goes on until the last person has to perform them all. I thought it sounded like fun, but it wasn't as much fun as the chair game.

I premade cut out sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies and the other moms brought frosting and sprinkles for decorating.
The girls decorated cookies for thier refreshments.

We played "Queenie Queenie who has the Ball"
We had a book exchange as the gift exchange.

What a lovely group of young ladies!