November 8, 2010 Meeting

Another great night filled with food, fellowship, and fun! I pray you all have gained some great wisdom from Jennifer Williams on raising your children!

Don't Forget!!!!! December 6th is our Teen Mops Christmas Party!!!! We will meet at the church, drop off our children, and then carpool over to our party location. Please make sure to arrive at the church on time (no later than 6pm) because we want to have as much time with each other as possible!! We look forward to seeing everyone!!

Responding to our Children and Inexpensive Gifts!

What a great Teen Mops meeting we had on October 25th! We'd like to say a big Thank You to the group who provided our meal of chili and also to Stephanie Lyon for speaking such amazing truth to us on how to respond to our children. If you weren't able to attend, Stephanie shared many Bible verses that will really help when raising your little ones:

Proverbs 22:6 - "Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it."

Proverbs 15:1 - "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."

Luke 6:45b - "For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks"

Galatians 5:22 - "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control."

Some practical points to remember:

-Pray daily for yourself and your kids to have Godly responses.

-Sometimes you just need to delay your responses until you've calmed down.

-Instead of shouting, try lowering your voice and get down on their level.

-Humble yourself and apologize to your child when you've been wrong.

-Catch your kids doing good things and praise them for it!

We then had some fun craft time making cork boards:

Blankets:

And Christmas ornaments:

All while our kids were being loved on and cared for:

We are so excited to see you all again this coming Monday, November 8th!!

Inexpensive Gifts!!

This Monday night, October 25th, is our next meeting and we hope you all can come!

Along with dinner and an amazing speaker, we will also be making some inexpensive gifts.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the ideas:

We hope to see you all there!!

Teen Mops Meeting - October 11, 2010

We hope you all enjoyed Monday night! A big thank you to April's small group for the amazing soup and bread dinner!

And we were able to hear some great advice and instruction from Jennifer Williams on finding balance between being an overly permissive parent or an overly controlling parent! The key to finding that balance is having wisdom which can only be found in Jesus. Thank you for taking the time to share with us, Jennifer!

Jennifer mentioned 3 books that would really help us all in raising our children. If you weren't at the meeting or weren't able to write them all down, they are:

Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp

Don't Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Plowman

Toddlerwise by Gary Ezzo

And just a few tips she gave on raising our sweet children:

-Read to your child

-Teach your child to come to you when you call them

-Teach them to say "please" and "thank you"

-Watch your tone of voice when speaking to your child

-Make sure the tasks you give your child are able to be done at their age and make sure they heard you assign the task

-Don't reason with your child

-Love is spelled T-I-M-E and T-A-L-K

A child who is accepted, understood, and unconditionally loved will feel safe!!

Here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying their time playing during our meeting:

We hope to see you all at our next meeting on October 25th!!

Cinnamon Clay Ornaments

For those who missed it or would like to do it at home, here is the recipe to make the ornaments we made that week too!

1 cup ground cinnamon
1 cup applesauce
cookie cutters
drinking straw

Add ground cinnamon to applesauce until the mixture becomes clay-like. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin and have students use their favorite cookie cutter to cut out the ornaments. Use a drinking straw to cut a hole in each ornament for hanging. Allow to dry at least 24 hours, turning occasionally.

When ornaments are dry, have students decorate them by gluing on small candies. Help each student insert a ribbon through the hole to hang from the tree!

Old Fashioned Salt Clay (Play Dough)

Hey there! So I know this is a little late, but I did tell you all that I would post the recipe for the play dough that we made at the last meeting! So here it is:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup corn starch
1/2 cup salt (plain, not iodized)
1/2 cup water
food coloring

Mix the flour cornstarch and salt together in a large bowl. Place a few drops of selected food coloring into the water and add it to the mixture. Knead the dough until it is smooth. Add more flour or water to reach the desired consistency. Store the clay in sealable plastic bags or containers.

The clay can be used again as long as it is stored in a sealable container. Children can mold the clay and then bake their creations at 250 for approximately one hour or until hard. Allow to cool before giving the clay creations to children.

This makes enough clay for 6-8 students.

Photos from 9/27 meeting

We had a lot of fun making play-doh and ornaments (and no allergic reactions)!

Looking forward to seeing all of you at our next meeting on October 11th!

Tonight---6:00!

Teen Mops meeting tonight at 6:00 at North Wake Church!!

Be prepared to eat dinner, listen to a great speaker, and just enjoy time with each other!

We will also be making 2 different easy playdough recipes that you can make with your kids anytime with simple ingredients!

We look forward to seeing you all tonight!