Gospel ABC Book

I put this children's picture book together for our Relief Society's Old Fashioned Homemaking activity.  I received a similar book a few years ago from my mother-in-law (who also did this book at a Relief Society activity).  My kids love looking at it during Sacrament meeting.  So since I was in charge of coming up with an idea for our own activity, I thought this would be a great idea to do.  It is a great gift for kids or grandkids, for Christmas or for those you visit teach.

I printed all of the pictures as 4x6's.  I found photo books at walmart for a $1.  (They came with 24 pages, so I put the letter A in the back of the front cover and Z in the front of the back cover so I could fit all 26 pages in).  Then I brought all of the pictures and photo books to the activity and the sisters put the pictures in the books.  It was a great and easy project that only took a few minutes to complete.

Not only do I love having another quiet book for my kids to look at at Church, but I love that they're learning important Gospel principles.  (And I tried to keep the text simple for young children to read).

Here is the link to download the pictures- Gospel ABC Book

Gospel Art came from the Media library on lds.org.  For personal use only.

Ward Activity- Septemberfest

Once there was a girl who was obsessed with bratwursts.  And when this girl (who happened to be very hungry at the time) was assigned to come up with an idea for her ward's fall social, she decided to come up with an idea that would center around her love for brats.  :)  And so Septemberfest was born!  

...That really sums up how I came up with the idea for Septemberfest- a desire to eat brats and drink rootbeer- what could be better? :) 

We used similar themes and decorations of Oktoberfest- lots of good German food, blue and white decorations, but our biggest difference- homemade rootbeer instead of alcoholic beverages.  In general, we highlighted the German themes of Oktoberfest rather than the drinking, and since it took place in September (not October), we called it Septemberfest.

Here are the details (and again my apologies for lack of pictures!  I was in the nursery so I forgot to sneak in and take pictures)...

Who: All adults (*Provided a nursery, details below)

Dinner: Brats (my fave, but unfortunately expensive!  So we cut the brats in half which helped them go farther and was also nice for people who had never tried them before and just wanted a small taste), supplemented the brats with a tender Oktoberfest pork roast that turned out great and was much cheaper!  Also German potato salad, sauerkraut, soft pretzels, stroodle, and a chocolate sauerkraut cake (sounds disgusting, but it was actually a big hit and no one believed there was sauerkraut in it!) And last, but not least- homemade root beer.  Click here for some of the recipes.

Entertainment:  There was a short comical, German melodrama performed with ward members.  Also had fun German music playing in the background.

Decorations: Hung up blue and white streamers (popular colors of Oktoberfest).  Also had fall pumpkins and leaves as centerpieces.  Kept it fairly simple since we were focusing more on the food.

Nursery: We really wanted to get as many adults to come as possible!  So we heavily advertised that we would be having a nursery with snacks and fun activities so that way- adults with kids wouldn't feel inconvenienced and the kids wouldn't feel left out.  So we brought some of the themes from the activity to the nursery!  We hung a few streamers up in the nursery and the kids already felt like it was a party.  (Love how easily amused kids are!) :)  We started the evening with the kids by showing them a globe and briefly talking about how Jesus created the earth and how there are countries all around the world.  I loved the kids' responses when I asked them if anyone could tell me the name of a country.  I think there was one legitimate response intermixed with others such as Texas, Utah, and Disneyland. :)  We talked about Germany (since that was the theme of the adults' party.  Again, this was all very brief, no more than 5 minutes).  Then we gave each kid a piece of paper and crayons with the instructions to come up with their own country name and design a flag for their country.  When they were done, we let each kid show off their flag.  Then we had everyone represent their country in our own mini olympics.  We had the shotput (throwing cottonballs), the javelin (throwing straws), diving (standing on a chair and dropping a lego minifigure into a cup).  And last, but not least, the pedometer race.  We tied pedometers onto each child's head and gave them 30 seconds to see who could get the highest number.  This was classic to watch.  :)

The kids loved the little activities.  They kept asking to do each event multiple times.  After our Olympic events, we took it easy and watched the beginning of a movie and ate snacks.  

Our Septemberfest fall social was great!  The food was delicious and I was a happy girl eating my brats! :)

Relief Society Garden Party

Our ward recently celebrated the Relief Society's birthday by throwing a garden party.  (Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the actual event, sorry!) Here is what we did:

Who: Not only did we invite all of the women in our Relief Society, but we also extended the invitation to all young women in the ward ages 8 and up.  Everyone was encouraged to wear a hat.

Decorations: We had a bright, spring theme with lots of yellow.  We purchased a few spring decorations from the dollar store and had fresh flowers on each table.

Food: Cucumber sandwiches, ham sandwiches, chicken wings, tortilla wraps, vegetable plate, lemonade, herbal tea, water, cookies, baby cupcakes, cream puffs.

Activities: We mainly ate and talked.  There were also a few door prizes (having to do with our garden theme- gardening gloves, tools, flowers, etc).  We had paper hearts on each table and asked everyone to write one thing they loved about Relief Society.  (We later used these hearts to decorate our Relief Society bulletin board).

Handout: I made each of the women this magnet- something bright and yellow and optimistic to go with our theme- with one of my favorite quotes: "In all of living, have much fun and laughter.  Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured." (By Gordon B. Hinckley).

I printed these as 4x6's (2 fit on a page since they are 3"x3").

I would recommend printing one to start off with to make sure the coloring is right.  At the first store I printed them at, the yellow was too dark, so I made a lighter version as well. 

I ordered this adhesive magnetic sheet that worked great to apply the prints too and was perfect for the size of the prints (fit 28 on one sheet, possibly could have fit 32 but I was little conservative).  Also fyi- the magnetic sheet comes rolled in a small tube, so I would suggest sticking it to your fridge for a few hours to flatten it.

Feel free to use this print for your own personal use!  It makes a great little gift!

Hillbilly Hoedown

This made for a great theme at a church party.  Here's what we did-

Decorations- Clothesline with flannel shirts, overalls, and jeans hanging up, hay barrels, stacks of old tires, plaid table cloths, sunflowers in mason jars with twine tied around the jar

Dinner- Chili cook off contest, rolls, salad, potato bar

Dessert- Asked people to bring "apple" desserts.  They could use apples as creatively as they wanted in their desserts.  We also had one person make a roadkill cake (a cake that looks like an animal that got ran over with jelly guts coming out) 

Activities- Horseshoes with toilet seats, racing tires through obstacle course, rubber band gun shooting range, potato derby contest (made cars out of potatoes and washers and raced them down a track).  We also encouraged everyone to dress up like a hillbilly and gave a prize for the best dressed hillbilly.