Encouragement Consequences Night

We had so much fun last night.
Encouragement Night with a bit of a fun twist:-)

We all loved our goody party bags with a few extra surprises inside and each turned up with a small gift for each other and had written a verse or some things down about how we that person encourages us.
I was very blessed to get a lovely candle, some dusky pink icing colouring and some lovely notelets! I also had some very encouraging words written down to go with each gift, that I will treasure, use and try and put the words of life into good practise in my life!
After we had shared our gifts and verses and thoughts with each other - and eaten cake and drunk tea - we played our game of consequences - with an encouraging twist!
We each wrote one line or so to answer each question and then folded it over and then passed it on to do the next. We wrote each of our names on the bottom of the paper so that we didn't write on our own!

There was a lot of sniggering, laughter, giggles shared, exchanged and enjoyed.
Here is the list of the questions we did for our Encouraging Consequences Night!
1. what qualities and strengths does this person have
2. name a funny moment you had with them
3. describe this person in 3 words
4. what famous person does this person remind you of
5. what colour do they remind you of
6. how does this person make you happy
7. what animal would they be
8. what would you say this spiritual gifts are
9. what flavour cupcake would they be
10.If you could spend a day with them, what would you do
11.say something random about them
12. if they were a sport what would they be
13. write the first object that reminds you of them, that comes to your mind.
I have some amazingly encouraging friends, do you?
How do you encourage your friends?
Maybe you would like to encourage one of your friends...?
Have fun playing Encouragement Consequences!
I did x

The Gift Revealed - Yummy!

I promised that I would reveal the surprise Christmas gift that arrived from my friend Bethany who lives in the Cayman Islands. She sent the gift to me for the girly chicks and I have kept it HIDDEN....until last night.... so, now I can reveal to you what was in the box!

How fabulous is that!
Thursday night is our groovy girly chicks night and it was our first meeting after Christmas... yummy!
We used some of these things to help eat the chocolate fondue.

Thank you Bethany - we loved the excuse to eat lots of chocolate too!!!

We all find it very funny that Bethany sent us this - she really knows us well - and it is also bvery funny because when she lived over here in the UK she was studying in dit and nutritian!!!
It was all yummy, Bethany! Thank You.... such a generous and lovely surprise!
and to be honest....I can hardly wait to do it all over again....the sooner the better, really!

Oh dear! Endings and New Beginnings.

Today I left my job!
2 weeks ago I had just got the email about the job I will start in 2 weeks time, when school starts in the New Year.
It has been a mad few days since being offered the job 3 days ago.
I was offered my new job, hoping to start my new one in January on the basis that we could find someone to replace me.
Someone "just happened" to come in to work, asking if there were any opportunities to gain some experience, whilst they do some training. Often, courses won't accept you on their training programmes without the experience.
So I have spent the last 3 morning sessions in school, with this lady working alongside me as part of a brilliant and timely hand over.
Perfect, these "just happened" moments, aren't they?

On Wednesday afternoon, I was asked to teach 3 classes as a supply teacher, which was great for me. The 3 classes of 9, 10 and 11 year olds seemed to like it too. I taught each class for 45 minutes. I made, or they made, or we made these:cute aren't they?
They are cute, made with baby sized up to adult sized hands and feet!

I got the idea from my niece, a few years ago.
If you haven't made them before, simply draw round one foot and left and right hands.
The foot becomes the reindeer head, the hands, the antleers!
We did this on brown paper and stuck it all onto card, for strength.
Use a black marker pen to draw round the outline to make it bold.
Write a message and the date, so it can become a keepsake memory.
We drew round a small coin in red card for the noses and stuck on googly eyes.
Some children chose one big and one small eye size, to make their reindeer have more character!
They then went round the edge of the hands/antlers to make them a bit sparkly and ooh ahh with colourful glitter glue.
Some used glitter very creatively!
Some children were able to build their reindeer at the sticking brown paper onto card stage, others stuck each of the 3 brown paper parts onto the card as separate pieces, to cut out and re-assemble later.
This was because they struggled with the cutting out skills with the fingers for the antlers, so we did it in stages.
All 3 classes loved it and many thought they might make a family of reindeer at home with their families!
Hole punch 2 holes for some thread to hang your "dear" festive creations!
My niece does it each year with her children and hangs them in a garland so you can see them get bigger each year!
I think she also sticks a photo of the children in the middle of the foot too.

Today was my last day in this job. Not every day was easy. One of the children I worked with could be quite aggressive and volatile towards me and other children. Some days at 8.50am would seem like very long days. Other days, would hold some rewards and breakthroughs, where we would make great progress, in attitudes, choices and learning. I also had the chance to invest and hopefully impact several other young lives throughout the school, helping them in their social and emotional development too.
It is the end of the last 2 years and my colleagues have been a really kind and supportive staff to work alongside. I will miss them but am pleased to have made some friends too. They very generously gave me this beautiful bouquet of flowers and a lovely necklace to wish me well in my new job.

A new beginning.

Children in Need Day!

Yes, it is that time of year again, where the people of the UK prove themselves to have a generous heart once again by giving to Children in Need to benefit so many charities working with children. Pudsey bear, their mascot, will feature, special shows on telly with links across the nation running into the small wee hours and people doing amazing feats to raise money. My friend Rachel got these very cute Pudsey bear cupcake holders and gave me some of them. I made 2 batches of chocolate cupcakes yesterday and took them into work today, for the staff to enjoy and to make a donation for Children in Need.I was reading this morning, this verse from Isaiah1 v 16/17: "work for justice, help the down and out, stand up for the homeless, go to bat for the defenseless."
It reminded me of some of the lyrics we used to sing and dance to on outreaches over the years in YWAM:
I will speak out for those who have no voices,
I will stand up for the rights of all the oppressed,
I will speak truth and justice,
I'll defend the poor and the needy,
I will lift up the weak in Jesus' name.
It is a great day to rmember those charities who need help and donations for them to stay functioning and to develop and grow.
Why not give something to a charity or to Children in Need today?

Remember to be thankful for encouragements!

Last week at girlie cake chicks we tried to encourage Rachel, as it was her birthday! Here is how we did it:
1. During the week, we each prayed for Rachel and asked God to remind us of a quality,skill, talent or gift that we have seen and loved in her and that we appreciate her for.
2. We then thought of a verse form the Bible to go with this.(God is a really big help here too, in helping us find just the right verse!)
3. Then we thought of a gift to help illustrate this for her - it could be handmade, shop bought or something that we already had that we could give to her.
4. We then wrote out the verse on a funky card and wrapped the gift and brought it along to our girlie chick cake group!
5. We had loads of fun watching her open her gifts in turn and reading out the encouragements we had for her.
She was really encouraged, but she did also cry too!
It is such a blessing to encourage others in really fun and creative ways.
Sometimes we put all the gifts together, individually wrapped in between layers to make a really big parcel and pass it round, listening to music. When the music stops, you take off a layer to reveal each prize/gift/parcel. In England, this would typically be a childhood game called pass the parcel!
We, as groovy girlie cake chicks, love it!
Last week, to save time in wrapping, we each brought separate gifts for Rachel to unwrap.
Here are some of the things we gave her and the encouragements. I hope it inspires you to encourage someone today in a creative and fun way!



The chocolate lollipop and some tulip bulbs to plant went with this:Ephesians 3:16-19Prayer for an ever growing faith and that Rach would remain firmly rooted in the love and knowledge of Jesus because it is what really really makes her special and cherished. And she is a fab, loving and faithful woman of God.
The funky red mug went with an encouragement for Rachel to continue finding quality time, just for her - especially she just had her 2nd baby a few weeks ago!
My encouragement to Rachel was Daniel 12 v 3 about being a star, because she is!!!
she has so many pearls of wisdom for us,in such a natural and non-bossy way! So my prayer for her is to continue to grow in righteousness and wisdom.
Who will you encourage today?
enjoy being blessed to be a blessing to someone else today x

Remember to be thankful for a gift!

When Rachel, one of my girly cake chick friends, had her birthday this week we decided to encourage her with a card expressing either the qualities we see and enjoy in her or a verse from the Bible. We decided that we would give her a gift that could be bought or handmade or something we already have that we wanted to give her, preferably connected in some way to the encouraging words we had for her!
Choosing the gift for her was the easy part,for me.
Bread. I would make bread.
Rachel recently and generously gave me her bread maker and I just love it. Everyone did laugh, however, when I made my first loaf: chocolate bread!
So I made chocolate bread for Rachel, with chocolate chips! Yummy. (Her 2 year old son thinks I am very clever to make chocolate bread!)
Simple: I followed a recipe!
There are loads of bread recipes to find on the Internet, just follow your own manufacturers guidelines for the order you put the ingredients in the pan.
Here is the basic recipe I use... and then a Luci adaptation for chocolate Mocha bread that is also proving popular.
chocolate bread recipe for 1 1/2 lb loaf:
1 cup water
1 egg beaten
1 tbsp skimmed milk powder
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
2 1/8 cups strong white flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp dry yeast
add 1/4 cup chocolate chips, part way through the cycle - my machine goes beep!!!

For the creative Luci adaptation.... Chocolate Mocha bread:
replace strong coffee for water. I use strong coffee from my cafetiere.
Enjoy!

I wrapped the bread once cool, in parchment/greaseproof paper and then brown paper, tied it up with string and put it in a used gift bag I had. The gift bag had the name of the store on it, so I tore 2 strips of gift wrap and stuck it on the 2 edges of the bag. a great way to re-cycle those lovely paper gift bags from shopping trips!