We had our New Beginnings last night. It was a fun casual night. The theme of our Night was Adventure Awaits... Come see what the YW will be "UP" to in 2013 We will be using this theme along with the Stand in Holy places throughout the year. I Love President Monsons Talk Your Celestial Journey I thought it went perfect with our Adventure theme. Gaze upward, Look inward- This is where I introduced the YW values and the purpose of Personal Progress Reach outward, and Press forward. Jane found a bunch of these old suit cases at a local thrift shop. We painted the outside and then modpodged cute scrapbook paper on the inside. This is where everyone first came in. The suitcase had the program for the night, and also a little packet of what is going on in 2013. For our SKIT- We had one of the Laurels dress like Russell from the movie up. She had a little sash. The other laurels each talked about a YW value. She would then pin that value on "russells" sash. I just let each Laurel decide what she was going to do for her Value. They were really cute and some of them were pretty dang funny. I wish I had a script of what they said! I had this globe that I thought would work perfect for our year. I put on sticker letters and then spray painted the globe white. Peeled off the stickers then to reveal the stand in holy places. I put this globe out every Sunday. The girls sign in with things that they have done throughout the week to "stand in Holy Places" it has been fun to see what they have written on it. (Seminary, Sports, FHE, Temple attendance, activities with friends etc...) I used 2 build-a-bear boxes for my UP house. I cut one in half to do the porch side of the house. I then covered it with Scrapbook paper I had on hand. (build-a-bear was so nice and just gave me the 2 boxes for free) I forgot to take a picture of our cute food table until it was almost gone... We had cute little make your own fruit pizza's. We had fruit in all the YW value colors (Pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, mandarin oranges, blueberries, purple grapes, golden bananas, and the frosting was white) For the new beehives coming in 2013 we gave a cute little 7-up (original idea found at Marci Coombs blog), and UP2You gum. We had each laurel "interview" a new girl asking her simple questions like her favorite color, subject in school, what kind of animal she would be, what she's most looking forward to about YW etc... We are giving the girls these cute little bottle cap necklaces for their birthdays this year. They are like the cute lil bottle cap pin Ellie gives Carl in the Movie UP. I found them at Hobby Lobby and just used metal stamps to put their initial In my talk I talked about how anywhere we stand can be a holy place. (which is the general YW theme this year) We gave each girl her own lil adventure book. We challenged them to fill it up this year with all their adventures. A place they could put little handouts, pictures of YW activities, notes from lessons, anything that reminds them of all the places they "STAND". My Bishop in his closing remarks talked about the Adventure book in the movie. He said that in the beginning they put the picture of Where they thought their adventure would be. But at the end of the movie Carl finally sees that Ellie had put the adventures of their everyday lives. He said we should make everyday good and something we are proud of. I thought it was cute he Tied in the movie with his remarks (: I got these smash books on such a good clearance sale at twopeasinabucket.  We added alittle pocket in the front where the girls can put handouts if they'd like. Here is an outline of our program Here are a few things we put in their little packet. Things we will be "UP" to this next year And here are the invites incase you missed the previous post. We rolled them up and attached them to balloons!