relief society christmas party 2020

we had the most beautiful christmas activity for the relief society sisters this year. low key and really personal, talking about traditions and focusing solely on the birth of christ.

i was so thrilled, because i was asked if they could use my collection of nativity sets to decorate for the activity and i have a lot! it was stunning, so simple, but effective the entire room was decorated with the sets all about the place on every surface.

we had a choice of lots of lovely food for supper and then after a game it was time to go. we each chose a wrapped gift from a basket of them and then passed them around between us, depending on the instructions read aloud. they were mostly gag items and i ended up with a lovely pump bottle of hand sanitiser. haha. perfect for the current world situation i guess.

some of the nativities in the set up. the back two are mine and the one on the left is new this year, after i came across it at the local salvation army store a few weeks ago.

and our family favourite - this hand carved one we brought home from samoa.

somhow i managed to make it into a photo this year, with (one of my sil's best friends haha) gayle dowe.

we are so lucky to have a relief society presidency in our ward who makes so much effort with activities. i remember firsthand (from being relief society president and the additional meetings co-ordinator, including both at the same time when we had someone who chose not to fulfill their calling!) how stressful it was to plan the activities and then worry that people would not attend them! it is for this reason that i make a special effort to be at each one. it is not only sustaining those in a calling, but treating others as you would want to be treated. 

it was a truly lovely evening spent with other sisters in our ward and the spirit was beautiful!

lite 'n easy christmas party

every year dougs mums work puts on a christmas party for the kids (and grandkids) of the workers, so naturally we get an invite. normally this is planned weeks in advance, but this year was thrown together last minute due to a couple of issues at their workplace.

never mind that! we still had a good time, the kids did a kids exercise program in the work gym, then did arts and crafts in the board room, before getting a little lunch pack to take home.

and as though they knew it would make madeline's life 100% better than any other normal day - hooray! there was a face painter! i wish i could upload a video here to show you, but the painter did such a good job - when she raised her eyebrows up and down, it looked as though the gingerbread man was flapping about. we could not stop laughing!

no matter where these kids go - they will find some fun... thanks for the day out lite n easy! 

ward christmas party

what a cracker of a ward christmas party we had this year! the bishopric went all out on the fun - and organised a giant inflatable waterslide (which we found out was even big enough for adults when our mate hamish decided to give it a go - so good!), a petting zoo and a food truck that served breakfast burgers, sausages in buns and snow cones. we were set!

it took a while to get joseph on there (he can be so shy and hesitant about things) but once he had a go, you couldn't stop him and the kids were having the time of their lives.

it was a super hot day, so they were glad to be getting wet and slurping down ice afterwards.

baby alex spent most of the morning cuddling with ashley, but was thrilled to have a feed under a nice damp towel when it was super hot. i always feel sorry for babies, they don't seem to heat and cool the same way adults do, but he made it through okay.

emily and i were in fits of laughter when we saw the petting zoo had goats, we have had a long standing joke about goats between our families, so we decided that getting some pics with the goats was an absolute must and we loved every minute of it. seriously, look at our faces - and that was when we had finally calmed down enough to take the photo!

awwww baby goats!

and one more for luck. awww. ♥

we even managed to get doug there - and he even looks like he's having a good time too haha.

when the heat got too much for anyone, the cultural hall had been set up kind of like a cafe, with gift wrapped tables (i wish i had have gotten a picture of that, they covered them with wrapping paper for a tablecloth and put a bow in the middle, with some christmas trees set up too, including a gingerbread tree, which you could of course eat the ornaments off. yummmm. i love gingerbread - and this stuff was delicious!

we had such a fun morning, i love that so many people in our ward make so much effort to make sure that people want to come to activites, because they look cool, they have great food and they are super fun. how lucky are we? 

merry christmas ellenbrook ward!

christmas party activities

as promised... here are our christmas activities from the relief society party last night!

1. a nativity embroidery. 

this was so easy to do. we went online and found a simple nativity outline and printed it out in a size that would fit a standard 4x6" frame. i made the outline heavier with a permanent marker then traced them on to calico with a washable fabric marker. 

each of the sisters started with embroidery thread and a needle, doing a simple back stitch... and we had ziplock bags on hand so they could finish at home. once done, all you do is spray to get rid of the blue marker, iron flat and whack it in your frame! 

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2. cookie decorating

one of our lovely sisters baked 200 cookies, so we could have 4 each (we had worked on 50 sisters attending the evening) to decorate. we had icing ready to go, ziplock bags to use for piping and a stack of fun things to use for decorating (christmas m&m's, peppermint crisp, sprinkles etc)

once done, they were placed on a paper plate to dry (with each persons name written on the side) and collected at the end of the night

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3. christmas pass the parcel

this was hilarious. we had a pre-wrapped parcel and a dice for each of the three groups ready to go. when someone rolled a 6, they had to put on a santa hat, coat and oven mitts, then try to remove a piece of the wrapping.  if someone else rolled a 6 in the meantime, they had to grab everything from that person and so on until someone got to the middle. kind of a christmas take on the chocolate game, but with a parcel. 

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such a fun night!

relief society christmas party: australian style

\we had our ward relief society christmas party tonight and it was a hit! i have been so lucky to have so many people who helped out and worked so hard for it to be a success. i wanted something a little different from the ordinary christmas decorations being that we are celebrating christmas in australia and it's hot! so i had my lovely mum bring some gum tree branches from the farm, which we placed up and down our tables. it looked incredible and smelled amazing too!

we were also able to borrow some white chair covers and red sashes from some sisters in the ward, which really allowed us to make things look elegant and festive.

we began the evening with my two councilors and then myself sharing a christmas tradition from our home. mine was that my father used to read the christmas story (luke 2:1-20) to us on christmas eve before we went to bed. i then had our bishop step in and read it to our sisters before sharing his testimony and leaving a christmas wish with us all. it was a lovely moment for us all as he's not been bishop for long and it gave him a chance to address most of our wards sisters at once.

we had three activities (a nativity embroidery, cookie decorating and a christmas version of pass the parcel) for the sisters to do on the evening in a round robin (15-20 minutes per station) and i could hear lots of laughter and fun as i walked around the building. i'll cover them in my next blog post which you can read here. 

we ended the evening with the introduction of our ward relief society program for 2018 "light our world" (full credit to the lovely heather taylor from the facebook group lds relief society presidencies for generously allowing us and others to use her beautiful handouts) enclosed in sweet journals we purchased for all of the sisters. see here for more details

we finished with the "light the world 2017" video a closing prayer and supper. (we had all of our sisters bring a favourite treat to share and there was plenty to go around!)

drinks were water with frozen strawberries and mint, and a fruit punch.

it was such a wonderful night. i am so lucky to be serving in relief society and for the joy it brings to me and others. 

merry christmas to all... and to all a good night! ♥

kringle mingle

today we had part one of our relief society activities for the christmas season. our activities co-ordinator came up with an idea of doing something called host or coast, which enables 4 sisters to host an activity during a chosen week, which in turn allows more sisters to attend an activity as they are all on a different date and time. hence the name host or coast, as we can either host an activity or coast between them as we choose. each this time had a christmas activity (the one i attended had a pass the parcel, each layer had a piece from a nativity set - and whoever opened each piece, got to tell what that piece meant to the christmas story. that was a lovely way to spend some time together.

after that, we had an amazing lunch, full of goodies we had all brought along  and some extra special dishes prepped by the ghergori team for us. it was so good! as you can see, it made us all pretty happy (and full)!

lastly, we exchanged our secret gifts. the instructions on the invitation had said to bring along one of your favourite things wrapped in brown paper. i took some of my handmade earrings (totally allowed, earrings are definitely one of my favourite things!) and ended up with two mangoes. i was completely stoked!

it was a lovely morning spent with some of the sisters from our ward. such a great idea and a lot of fun.

ellenbrook ward christmas party

tonight we had our ward christmas party at the chapel... it was an excellent night, organised by the young single adults from the ward, entitled "the night before christmas"

they had the stage set up as a family room, which looked amazing, but the evening made me so happy, as one of my fondest memories as child was sitting on the back verandah of my parents house one christmas eve, holding candles, reading the christmas story in luke chapter 2 and singing the carols from the hymn book... and that's exactly what we did tonight. plus, for added fun, we all had to wear our pyjamas. hahaha.

we're having fun, we swear... well i did! it was a night full of lovely memories for me.

our kids had an awesome time too, i barely saw maddie the whole night (a little disappointing seeing as she was dressed in the most adorable hello kitty onesie suit and i didn't even manage to snap a picture) and joseph spent much of the night in theron and emily's laps. so cute!

christmas is coming... and i am so excited!!

invocare christmas party 2014

i technically still have a job. yes, i'm on maternity leave and have been for almost 10 months, but i'm still employed and on the books until i formally resign... so we were invited to the christmas party, held tonight at the hyatt regency in perth city. and as always it was great. lots of laughs, good music (for the first time i can ever actually remember. note to the organiser, keep that dj's number...) and of course great food. our friend kindly had madeline, who rocked the night away with her two girls of a similar age and another friends daughter came to look after joseph. so easy done. i fed him and put him to sleep, then we scooted out the door! win.

and the best bit? i went shopping in a friends wardrobe for the  fabulous dress i have on, wore shoes i'd had for years... and yet another girlfriend came around to do my hair for me. cheap as... so glad to have good friends... made the day run smoothly and everything was ace.

my friend mel and i. one of the best and funniest people i know.

thank goodness for work functions. the one night a year all the stuffy (haha hardly) funeral directors can let their hair down and get the party started. it's always a great night and i know i'll be bummed when the day comes that i'm no longer on the list.

ward christmas party 2014

tonight we had our ward christmas party... an international "destination" christmas. there were a group of stalls around the rec hall with selected countries (featured were australia, england, new zealand, the united states of america, argentina, chile and samoa) and of course i was given samoa (due to my husbands heritage) along with my friend florence who is samoan... and our friend brenda kindly chipped in to help. as people arrived for the evening, they were directed through "customs" where their canned food was confiscated (going to the annual foodbank for people in need over the christmas period), they were given a passport and watched a safety video, before being escorted into the main hall by the air hostesses (our wards young women).

each stall then provided a sample of their national food options (yes... we had chop suey, made lovingly by the girls today while i was out high tea-ing with my girlfriends. legends!) and had some items from their country on display and some music playing in the background. it was such a cool idea and there was lots of questions, comments and satisfied munching. people were also encouraged to wear their national dress and i scored when brenda turned up to our house last night with a puletasi (the samoan dress i am rocking in the above picture). it's the first time i have ever worn one but i loved it... was super cute. maddie is obsessed with hers (was a gift for her before she was even born) and couldn't wait to put it on.  doug's shirt is a 'toa samoa' rugby shirt that we purchased in samoa... and baby joseph was rocking his tribal print shirt from the flea market in apia.

then came the incredible part of the evening... the organisers had arranged for everyone to make their way out into the back lot for 'carols by templelight'. we are so blessed to have it right there in our backyard, and to sing sacred carols in its light was just beautiful and something none of us will forget in a hurry. 'twas a great night!

our little set up, complete with my carved nativity and fale from our recent trip to samoa

invocare christmas party 2013

last night we had our work christmas party at the hyatt hotel in perth city. thanks to my amazing sister-in-law niques for my makeup job, mate jo for my hair and asos for the incredible dress (totally worth the gamble of shopping online)... i had an awesome time! the chicks spent a good part of the afternoon hotting me up and i am eternally grateful - as being 7 months preggers at the work christmas party doesn't really make me feel that hot.

here's me and the bun... 30 weeks, 3/4 of the way through!! bigger than i was with maddie, but still good. 

and a shot of our beautiful family - maddie is so cute and was so happy to be having a family shot... she smiled away and giggled with us - for once making it easy.

we had an awesome night, good times, good music and hanging with mates from work. it was a little sad though, as there's only two weeks left before i go on maternity leave, and then susie will be moving to l.a. with her boyfriend in january, so the three of us will be split up very soon. guess it just means we'll have to take advantage of what time we have left together. :)

the co-ord chicks. love these girls to bits! ♥