Sweet Service with Candy Posters

Okay, all you Young Women Leaders!  Activity Day Leaders!
And MOMS needing a fun service-oriented Family Home Evening!
Get ready for some SWEET SERVICE.

Here is a fanstaticaly FUN service activity!  That won't seem boring at all.  (And yea, sometimes youth think service is boring.  But it's not!  And this is a great way to spark some interest in reaching out and uplifting others.)

Make CANDY GRAMS.  Here's how.  

1) Buy 10 Candy Bars (or how every many you like) and 2 large posters.
2) Divide the girls into two groups.
3) Tell the girls they are in charge of creating a "Candy Gram" for a person in the neighborhood.  Choose someone who is in particular need of an uplift.  Perhaps someone having health issues, or just in need of a little encouragement.  It can even be someone who needs a "sweet" thank you!  Or someone who just had a new baby.
4)  Give each group 5 or more candy bars, depending on how many you bought.
4)  Challenge the groups to write a "Candy Gram" message using the candy bars as words, as seen below.
5)  Set a timer so there is an element of racing against the clock.
6)  With markers, have the groups write their message on a poster board and glue the candy bars in the right spots.
4)  Deliver the "Candy Grams"!!!  And feel the sweet spirit of service!!!

Making Candy Bar posters is a tradition at my house.  Birthdays.  Fathers Day.  Congratulations.  Inspiration. Believe me! I can make a Candy Gram for any occasion!  Here is one of them we made for neighbor who had cancer. My kids really enjoy making them.  :))

This next one, I didn't make, but loved it!  It is a congratulations to a young women who finished her personal progress.  So fun!

To check out this one, CLICK HERE.  It's a graduation Candy Gram.  

For more ideas visit Sugardoodle   And enjoy your SWEET SERVICE!  

The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews

My Elevator Doesn't Seem To Reach The Top Floor

I spent the weekend with my two teenage daughters at Time Out for Women and Girls (a fantastic mother-daughter bonding weekend by the way!).  We arrived Friday evening at our hotel, parked in the garage, and rode the elevator up to the main lobby.  When the elevator doors opened, I rolled my suitcase behind me, calling out to the girls, "Let's go find the elevator so we can find our room."

"Uh, mom."  The girls stopped in a dead heat.  

"Ya? Let's hurry so we have time for dinner."  I turned around to see their stunned faces.  

"Uh, we just got off the elevator." There voices said in tandem.

Time stood still.  My eyes focused on the green-lit arrow button above the elevator doors from which we had emerged    

"Oh.  Well.  We found it."  I replied, rolling my bag back to the elevator doors.  As I pushed the up button, I pretended I was completely in charge and knew exactly what I was doing.  Funny thing is, the older I get the less I know exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.  Seriously? My over-forty brain just keeps surprising me.  That same week, I came home, after three hours, expecting to smell chicken roasting in my crockpot.  But, I smelled nothing.  So, into the kitchen I went, only to find, as I lifted the lid an empty, burning hot crockpot was no chicken inside.  And guess what the first thought into my brain was?  

"Someone stole my poultry."  

One second later, my brain corrected itself.  "Nobody steals poultry.  You never put the chicken in the crockpot to begin with!"  

I opened the fridge to find my nicely, washed chicken staring back at me as if to say, "Lady, your elevator doesn't go all the way to the top!"

And the truth is...some days it just doesn't.