Summer youth temple trip

7/29/11 I got to go to the Orlando temple with the youth from our church.  Aren't they so beautiful?!

 This is the bishop, as usual.

 Here's an attempt at a jumping photo.

Madeline Pittman took this beautiful photo that day. 

Isn't the temple so pretty?  It's where Steven and I were married almost 9 years ago.  

 The bishop and his wife took us all out to eat at Chevy's.  There were two long tables like this - we had a great turn out for the temple trip.  (I stole both of these photos from Sandra.)

CaR wAsH!

5/21/11
My kids and I helped the youth in our church with their free car wash.  It was a fund raiser so the boys and girls can each go to camp this summer. 

my kids helped

 my car got washed, of course.

 Most kids got soaked! 

 Dylan took his shirt off, naturally.

On the way out, my brother was holding a sign, and a sign holder holding another sign.  I'm so glad I have such awesome counselors so I only had to take the first shift and none of us had to stay all day! 

We raised enough money for the kids to all go to camp!  Hooray!

quick pic (aka procrastination irony)

The church Young Women lesson tomorrow is on wise use of leisure time.

The teacher always learns more than the student,

 so of course I'm the one teaching the group tomorrow:) 

I have some fun object lessons - I have been married long enough that I can stand in one place in my kitchen and can do a 360 degree turn and find somethings for an object lesson.  I'm not sure if that's good or if that's sad.  But it's my style and I'm going with it:) 

I did have Steven go buy the chocolate nuggets while I was at the youth dance tonight - I didn't have that handy. 

I know that presentation can make or break part of the lesson, but I like to keep things simple.  I'll borrow the treasure box from the Primary room for this:) 

Hey, at least I'm not cutting out "keys to prevent procrastination" in Sunday School this time! 

Oh, and no pics of my boys today b/c I didn't really get to see them.  They had fun with Steven at a farm though!  He took them to feed goats, wear a snake, see an escaped 6 foot iguana, ride a pony, and ride a tractor behind "a real farmer" according to Isaac.  I had taken both cameras with me. 

I ♥ church youth

I'm loving having the excuse to do so many fun and good and quality things because of my calling at church. 

I got to go to the beautiful Orlando temple (where Steven and I got married) and got to ride in my own comfy mini van listening to uplifting iPod music thanks to one of my YW girls.  (That's a plus because I also got to go running in the morning instead of going on the bus with the rest of our congregation.) We're planning fun activities doing things like salsa dancing and cupcake decorating and good scripture reading programs.  This is getting better all the time:)

Look how cute these kids are.  It's funny that all of the color is on the right. 

This is our bishop.  He's the best.  He really cares about the youth at any cost.  He spends so much time to make sure that everything runs smoothly, including paying for this whole group to go to a yummy dinner at Chevy's on our way to Lakeland. 

Here we are at the youth dance.  It's fun to dance, I don't dance enough, most people don't I think. 

Here's my brother, doing his dance with some glasses some girl put on him.  I love him:)  And so do the other youth.  He is friends with everybody, so other kids circle around him.  Or maybe they think he's weird. 

Either way, I hope you kids all have a fun first day at school in the morning!  I can't wait to hear about it! 

Recognizing 3 of my Young Women

8/4/10
Three of my Young Women earned their Young Womanhood Awards, so we had a Young Womanhood Recognition ceremony for them.  We planned it in about 10 days, but I think it went well.  I'm so grateful for my counselors and the Bishopric.  I'm surrounded by such selfless thoughtful smart people.  I am so well pleased with Madeline, Karen, and Sydney.  It's similar to earning an Eagle Scout award like all of my brothers have earned. 

Speaking of which, our ceremony was followed by a Scout Court of Honor. 

My mom was a big behind-the-scenes person in that. 

She does a lot that I don't even know about.

I'll go put the other photos on Facebook for the families now.

My Birthday (even though it was last month)

Steven woke me up with french toast from Perkins:)  Also with scrambled eggs and OJ. My mom came over to bring me my present, another external hard drive (that I needed!!)  Steven had to go to work, but that's OK. Later, Jonathan and Don came over to bring me my birthday crown and another batch of home-made (by JT) french toast:)

He spelled my name with the french toast, and included fruit!  Quite the presentation.

 I thought about all of the places we could go, just the 3 of us, but Dylan picked our own pool, and I was content with that too.  No stress:)

Steven came home early and brought us lunch!  I love the Close Talker from Moe's.

I love Isaac's laugh from the card from Sarah that sings. 

(Here's a picture from the next day - another cake from Dr. Brayer!  And her kids and husband were there for cake too - which makes it a fun 5 min lunch-break-party:))

For my birthday, since it was a big one, I had initially wanted to do something significant.  I didn't necessarily want to spend money, but rather time with close friends and family.  My idea was to all work on a Habitat for Humanity house together.  My brother tagged along when my school did it once, and it was so fun doing things "the Gille way" and being efficient and making it fun. 

I knew that July would be too hot, so I brought it up before, in the colder months, but I decided against the idea after just one friend thought aloud, "well YOU can do that . . ." I didn't want to pout my friends through something that they wouldn't think was fun, so I dropped it. 

Then, on my birthday, there was already a service project on the Young Women calendar.  We were going to clean an apartment for a family who had moved and didn't have time to clean up after the movers so they could get their deposit back.  It was actually for my friend, and I decided not to let her know that it was my birthday.  She paid the Young Women organization what she would have paid a professional cleaning service. 

Anyway, I wasn't excited for spending my thirtieth birthday cleaning at first, but as we were there, the girls brought me a balloon, M&Ms, and cupcakes for us all!  And they were good workers.  I mean, 3 girls took the third floor, 3 took the 2nd floor, and the other leader and I took the first floor and garage.  They did it all in an hour, even cleaning out the fridge.  They were happy to work.  That's exactly what I needed.  What a blessing in disguise:)

Here's the elegant cake that Steven and my boys got for me for after our Young Women (YW) service project activity.

We set the camera on self-timer to take 10 pictures in a row just for fun.

Here are some of them.

and again when my mom got there after a meeting.

but didn't after Don got there again after his meeting.  Busy people.  I feel loved:)

Young Women Values

I'm the new Young Women president again, but for Seminole Ward this time.  That's the church youth group leader for girls 12-18. 

The first week, I was thrown into camp. 

I went to the talk by Lori Emery, the faith walk, and testimony meeting.  I wore a skirt and casual sandals (yes with a heel).  I came home at like 11 or 12 smelling like camp.  I love that I got to be there for that though. 

Next is Youth Conference.  There's a lot to organize and plan.  The real thing I am excited about though, is getting to know these girls.  I'm getting lots of good ideas and am so happy to be able to just go out and do them!  For our first activity, we made blankets.  Another idea I had the fist day was this photo.  I found out that there's another value added to the regular seven.  So, I wanted an updated something for our facebook page-to-be. 

I had the girls bring nail polish and borrowed my babysitter's. 

Here's my final product that I kept changing.  It makes me happy:

I wish so badly that all of our girls had been there.  SO badly, but it's still a fun group of girls that came to paint toes, then to set up for the church party. 

I didn't give our babysitter her nail polish back.

Isaac found it and asked if I would paint his thumb (like I do for Dylan's thumb w/ yucky polish so he doesn't suck it at nights).

I said yes to one toe nail.

He asked again.

I said yes.

He asked again, then again. 

I don't know if I should say that "real men wear nail polish" or that I'm ready for a baby girl.  He's so cute:)  I do want a baby girl, but just not any time soon.  It's fun to think about. 
Oh, and yes we did return the nail polish:)

Little Chef

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't cook dinner. Sometimes I cook breakfast, but that's more fun. It's still a rare thing.

Steven and/or I usually get home pretty late so we fend for ourselves. I haven't found where it's cost effective to make food at home. If I had a big family, I could see it.

I buy food then it goes bad before I have a free evening to cook it or once we eat it once, it sits in the fridge and the left overs get looked over.

Enough about me. Danielle is a good cook and had the idea that we should cook food for the missionaries in our area. We have 6, so we made 3 sets of each: meatloaf, greenbean caserole, mashed potatoes, rolls, and brownies. We did this as a service project for the girls youth group that we're over. I had fun learning how easy it is to make this yummy food. Dylan was so cute sprinkling the Frenchy's Onions on the tops of the green beans. He's observant and wanted to help. He didn't even know they were edible until the end when I put one in his mouth.

So this was Dylan's 1st service project.

I made the same dinner last night for Steven. It cost more than going out to eat would have b/c I don't have any ingredients on hand and didn't even have a bread pan. It was good practice I guess. I wish we had invited someone over to eat with us, but we don't have a dining room table still, and I didn't know if it would be tasty enough to share or not. Next time maybe.