Thursday, April 16, 2015

Homemade Pole Stands...

A couple of weeks ago as I was working on some decorations for our upcoming RS activity I casually threw out the comment, "I wish I had some way to hang this banner instead of taping it to the wall..."
I really need to be careful when I use the words, "I wish I had..." because my sweet husband is always trying to find ways to make me happy. By the weekend he had built these amazing pole stands. He even figured out how to make the pole stand perfectly vertical, or off at an angle, because he knows that I like to have options when I decorate... he really is pretty awesome! :)
Here is the unpainted pole stand. I now have 4 of them!


here's the insides...

and while I would never actually put both poles in at the same time, here's a picture of the angle options I have...

and here is a picture of them in use at our activity...


Relief Society Birthday Dinner (2015)

My new calling has been an adventure! I am now in charge of all of the Relief Society activities for our Ward. I have a fabulous committee, and we recently finished our activity to commemorate the 173rd Birthday of the organization of Relief Society. We served dinner and then had a short program.

Our theme was As I Have Loved You...Love One Another. We had a beautiful speaker who briefly talked about the organization of Relief Society and how we are called to follow in the Savior's footsteps, fulfilling the calling that Heavenly Father designed for all his daughters- to love and serve all of His children.




Here is our invite...

and some of our decorations...




We have only been a ward for about 6 months, and we are still getting to know each other. As I prayed about what message we wanted to leave with the Sisters by the end of the meeting, I just really wanted everyone to feel loved. I made this heart banner and made a heart for every sister. 144 in all. It was kind of humbling to realize just how many of us there are and how many less active sisters we need to go meet! At the end of the night, each sister got to take home her heart as a reminder that she is loved, and that she has the opportunity to show that love for others! Several people even snagged the hearts of sisters they visit and took them to them, 

Our tables...


We also borrowed and decorated this awesome photo booth and had fun props (which I neglected to get photos of...) and encouraged the sisters to be silly and get to know each other better and to capture it in photo! It was truly a highlight and I wish I had more photos...

To end the night we each took a piece of paper and an envelope and wrote a letter to either someone on our visiting teaching list that couldn't make it, or to one of our less active sisters. I had the Relief Society president there with a list of names to give people in case they couldn't think of someone on their own. It was really just to reach out and share some love... and then they either stuck it in the mail or hand delivered it that week.