Daughter of a King

So again, I LOVE MY CHURCH CALLING.

I am the Activity Days leader at our ward & I just adore working with the 8-12 year old girls.  We do activities twice a month & most of the activities follow the outline of the "Faith in God" booklet that the girls get when they get baptized.

In November we celebrated a fabulous year in Activity Days.  We had a year in review evening where the girls invited all their parents, the Primary Presidency, & the Bishopric to come & see the goals they've accomplished this year.  You know me & themes, so I dedicated the evening to the theme:

Daughters of a King

God is our Heavenly Father.  He is the King of everything & we are his children.  I wanted these girls to know that they really are princesses. . . real princesses.  They are of noble birthright.  They are destined to become queens.  They are important.  They are loved.  They are children of God.

I decorated the gym with lots of stars & pink princess crowns.  I had a food table with a princess tablecloth, princess napkins, cups, & plates, & little pink jewels that I scattered all over the table.  A bunch of pink foam princess crowns were scattered on the wall behind the refreshment table to add some fun.  We served 3 different types of frosting on pink strawberry cupcakes: bubble gum frosting, strawberry frosting, & pink vanilla frosting.  We also had lots of cookies & brownies. . . & water to drink.

(I was actually so busy I didn't take very many pictures that night & I'm SO SAD I didn't.  So imagine in your mind if you will.)

At the front of the gym I had 2 large tables on the stage covered in white tablecloths.  For each of the girls I made a pink photo frame with this quote inside:

"You are truly royal spirit daughters of Almighty God.

You are princesses destined to become queens.

Your own wondrous story has already begun.

Your 'once upon a time' is NOW."

~Dieter Uchtdorf

In front of the frames were princess crowns for each girl.

On the floor in front of the stage we had 8 small tables set up.  Each of the girls came early & set up their table to display things about themselves as well as some things that represented some of the goals they set & accomplished this year in Activity Days.  The girls did a great job making their tables look nice.

We began with a prayer & I opened the night with a 5 minute talk on what it meant to be a daughter of a king.  I bawled my eyes out like usual.  Next we had the girls come up to the front & sing 

"I Am A Child of God"

for everyone.  This helped to pass off one of their goals for the year as well.

Next, the other Activity Days leader in our ward, aka my partner in crime, got up to explain the "Faith in God" booklet to the parents & encourage them to work on goals with their girls at home.

After she was finished, we allowed each girl to come to the front of the room & present her table for the audience.  The girls were SO nervous, but they did great.  They talked a little about themselves, showed us what goals they passed off this year.  Some even recited some Articles of Faith that they had memorized.  It was really great.  Each girl took about 3-5 minutes for their presentations.

My little Lorien is a talker.  She spoke for a good 7 minutes.  Little stinker.  I really am proud of her though.  She gets so nervous up there.  She was able to recite 2 Articles of Faith & I enjoyed hearing her testimony about getting baptized & receiving the Holy Ghost earlier this year.

 

My other daughter, Cadence, is a pro at public speaking.  She loves getting up there.  She spoke for about 4 minutes & I loved how she not only told us what goals she accomplished this year, but also what goals she wants to achieve next year.  (She's my planner for sure.)  She did a great job.

After the girls presented their tables, I got up & shared the quote by Uchtdorf & explained what it means to be princesses every day.  Finally, we called the girls up & crowned them princesses & presented them with their quotes as a gift for the end of the year.

The girls were pretty excited about those crowns which cracked me up.  I've got the best group of activity days girls in the world.  They are wonderful & amazing & smart & talented.  I just love them.

After the presentations, I put together a slide show of all the pictures I had from all the activities this year.  The girls LOVED it.  They were giggling at all the pictures from the daddy daughter date & the mother daughter makeover activity.  I'm SO glad I took pictures during the year at all our activities.  It really made the evening fun to see them all again.

After the slideshow, we had a closing prayer & then had refreshments.  I also took pictures of each of the girls with their tables.  They all did such a fabulous job.