December: Making Christmas Add Up to Jesus

This year we wanted to make sure that our December MOPS focused on the reason for the season...Jesus!  As always, we have to start things right with a wonderful selection of homemade casseroles and treats.  These ladies sure know how to cook!!!  While we ate, the Mentor Moms shared some of their favorite Christmas traditions.  From sugar cookies to stockings, they gave us great ideas that we can use with our own families.

Once everyone enjoyed the food and good conversation, we started off with a fun festive game to get everyone laughing.  Each table contributed a pair of ladies to participate.  In front of them sat a box, wrapping paper, tape and scissors.  Each team had to see who could wrap the gift the fastest using only one hand each.  It sure was entertaining to see these ladies get creative and show they really know how to work together to get the job done.

Next we welcomed Cassie Lusker as our guest speaker.  She gave us great tips to Make Christmas add up to Jesus.  Here are some of the great words of wisdom on how we can spend time with God each day.  She also showed us an easy way to focus when we pray.

 1.  Designate a quiet place where you can daily set aside time uninterrupted to spend with    God.

2.  Try to make it the same place and same time every day so you are more likely to make it a daily routine, but strive not to make it a check off the block kind of thing.  Remember God wants to talk to you and wants to hear from you.

3.  Pray to prepare and quiet your heart so you can hear what God wants to say to you.

4.  Pick a book of the Bible and plan to read 1 chapter a day.  After reading a chapter look for what stood out to you.  Ask questions such as what new thing does God want me to learn, are there any promises or blessings from God for me in the passage, how does it apply to my life,  or is there something God is showing me in my life that I shouldn’t do/sin.

After spending time reading and meditating on the scripture spend some time praying which is just talking to God.  One way to stay focused in prayer is to use the ACTS method.

    A -      Acknowledge who God is, praise Him for being all knowing, all powerful, mighty, merciful, loving, the list can go on and on.

   C -    Confess (admit and agree to turn away from  sin in your life. 

    T -  Thank Him.  Thank Him for all of your blessings.  Thank Him that if you have trusted Jesus Christ  as your Savior He freely forgives.  Thank him for how you have seen Him at work in your life and for answered prayer requests.

    S - Supplication meaning pray for the needs of others as well as for yourself.

    For our craft, we combined it with a service project.  Andrea will be going to Jamaica in a few months, where she will be sharing the word of God with young ladies there.  One way she will be reaching out to them is by making bracelets of many colors.  We made kits consisting of beads, string and an info card.  In each kit we placed six different color beads of Black, Red, White, Blue, Green and Gold.  Black represents sin, Red represents the blood of Jesus, white represents cleansed of sin, Blue represents Baptism, Green represents grow spiritually and Gold represents Heaven.  These bracelets will give these girls in Jamaica something that they can wear and always be reminded of the message.

  

     We ended the meeting with a small group discussion and great conversation.  It was nice to reflect on all of the great Christmas stories and traditions we had heard.  We look forward to seeing you all at the next meeting on January 28th!!!  From all of us here at MOPS of Enterprise, We with you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

November: Safety 101

 With the holidays being a busy and crazy time of year, this month was the perfect month to have a Safety 101 day.  To start things off we had a little purse scavenger hunt, finding items that could be used for something other than its intended purpose. Our ladies are super creative.

Next we had two guys from the Enterprise Police Dept Detective's division came to instruct us on self defense and gave us tips on staying "safe" during the holidays. Our ladies grabbed a partner and practiced some of the moves.

Our craft was making "emergency phone # cards" for the fridge.  

Nellie Walter won the "Tastiest Treat" award with her chocolate truffles.  Way to go Nellie!  

There were several brand new ladies this morning.  We were so glad these new ladies joined us in on the fun. 

Our next MOPS will be Friday, December 10th!  Hope to see you then!!!

October: Parenting 101

This month our topic was Parenting 101.  As always we started off the meeting eating all of the yummy food that everyone had brought.  As moms we don't usually get uninterrupted eating time so it is always nice to sit down and have adult conversation while enjoying the wonderful home cooked food!  It sure is hard to decide who should win the tastiest treat each month.

We started off with an encouraging movie giving tips of advice to us moms, like it is ok to be scared and to get out there to meet other moms.  The mentor moms also spoke to us and gave us great advice.
Next we played a fun game lead by Jennifer.  Each side of the room had a leader who would try and answer the questions for the group.  Jennifer came up with some great questions that only a mom would know like: name all of the "Backyardigans" or Who is Handy Many's neighbor?  It was amazing how many the ladies got correct!

Our guest speaker for this month was perfect to speak on the topic of Parenting 101.  Linda Winwood is the mother of four daughters; Amy, Sarah, Anna, and Katie.  She also is the grandmother of Jesse, Brooklyn, Jakob, Tristan and Neela.  Linda struggled as a child to read and as an adult became a best selling author of Christian Children's books.  Her message was that you can do anything that you set your mind to.  As moms it is easy to get discouraged but as Linda said " If she can come from being a child who couldn't read to becoming a best selling author, we can do anything".  Linda stayed until after the meeting was over to sign her book "Colored Eggs for Jesse"  which is her latest book.  What a treat it was to have Linda speak to our group.

The kids even had fun while we enjoyed the guest speaker.  They got to see, touch, and feel the "yucky" pumpkin seeds and do a cute craft talking about how God takes all of the "yucky" out of our lives.

September: Super Savvy Shopper

If you missed Septembers MOPS meeting you missed out on a ton of fun!  This month we focused on Super Savvy Shopping.  With the economy the way it is and with prices going up, everyone could use a few tips on making their dollar stretch.

We first started off by breaking up into five teams.  Each team was given a bag of items to come up with an outfit that was both fashionable and functional for today's busy moms.  The bag consisted of colorful tissue paper, a roll of toilet paper, and pink duct tape.  All of the teams had to pick a model, design the outfit and construct the outfit on the model before time was called.

The laughter filled the room as the ladies got busy making their fashionable and functional ensemble.  Once time was called the models gathered to walk the catwalk and strut their stuff.  These girls worked it!

The outfits were then described to show off their functionality.  We really have some creative ladies in this group!!!

Margaret Smith was our guest speaker.  She gave us many useful tips on how to save money.  

First step is to work on a budget and meal planning.

Next it was time for what we moms do best... BARGIN SHOPPING!  A few weeks ago an e-mail was sent out asking everyone to bring gently used clothes and accessories to donate.  As people arrived the tables soon filled up with all kinds of awesome clothes, shoes, belts, handbags, and jewelry.

Everyone broke into teams and were allowed to shop for 5 minutes grabbing whatever they wanted and only paying 25 cents per items.  We raised over $100 for Charity!

Everyone had a blast trying on and digging through the piles of donated items.  The money and the left over clothes were donated to The House of Ruth.  With the money raised, we are purchasing diapers and donating to the Always Hope Pregnancy Center.

August:You're Never "Just a Mom" We wear SO MANY HATS!

You're Never "Just a MOM"!

Wow!  What a way to start a new MOPS year!!!  Our first meeting we welcomed 60 ladies, 19 of which were new to MOPS.  It was so nice to see familiar faces as well as so many new ones.  This years theme is "Momology- the Art and Science of Mothering".  The tables were decorated with artist palettes, beakers with flowers and easels displaying the name of each table. 

As always we had some wonderful food to share and started off our meeting with some helpful information for the year ahead and a skit.  As mom's we wear many hats such as chauffeuring around our kids, to nursing boo boo's, to teachers teaching our kids the way.  The skit showed us how much we really do as moms on a day to day basis and gave us a way to find humor in it all.  

Since it was the first meeting to kick off the new MOPS year we played "Speed Friending".  Each table had a list of questions to ask of each of the ladies at their table.  Once the bell rang we had to move to another table to meet another group of ladies and ask the same questions.  What a great time we had learning new information about our friends old and new.  

For the art project we received a new box of crayons just as some of our children did on their first day of school.  We were able to doodle like kids.  It was so fun to see everyone getting creative. 

 Next MOPS will be September 24th.  As always we will meet at Hillcrest Baptist Fellowship Hall from 9-11:30.  Child Care will be provided by a loving staff on site.  Hope to see you there!