Doing the little things

Ellie is in her AWANA program for the 3rd year now. AWANA is a Bible-based program that emphasizes memorizing scripture. They do lots of fun things in the classes and this is Ellie's second year as a Sparkie. As in our old town, this AWANA program has fun nights each week. I have to admit to you.....ever since moving here, I have not particularly made this program a priority. She attends every week, but it is rare that she knows more than 1 section and we rarely if ever do the fun nights. Some night she goes without her vest because she never put it away and we run out of time looking for it......every other week she does not even have her book. OK, this is humbling. Now you know the truth about our house........:)

This Sunday I was able to step in and see the last section of Children's Church and the children's pastor and a helper were doing a small skit about AWANA. They must have mentioned 15 times that the theme this week was "Hawaiian Night." I am sure that was to drill into the kids brains the theme so they would be prepared! But it worked on me!

I had to wrack my brain to come up with a Hawaiian costume for El. We did not have even a cheap lei or a flowery shirt. So, Wednesday while she was in school I made a trip to the dollar store to pick up something cheap that would suffice.....and I found nothing!!!!!! As I am walking around the store, I finally came up with a plan.....tear apart the tacky artificial flowers and fashion a costume!

After about 10 minutes of doing a little of this:

and a little of this:

my little girl was thrilled when she came home from school and immediately changed into her garb!

I honestly do not remember the last time she was THIS excited over something small like this. I heard about it all night long until AWANA and then all night afterwards. The most telling statement was "I am so excited to have my outfit in the theme! I didn't have anything for sports night or for the potato decorating night.....but now I have the best outfit of them all and I get to go on the stage!"

I felt about "this big." It is because of me that my little girl is hardly ever able to go onto the stage......and though she has never complained, it struck me that with just the tiniest bit of effort, I was able to make her heart so happy. So, I am going to try harder to go just a bit beyond what is expected just to make my daughter's memories sweet.

NO, I am not perfect.....but I do hope that when Ellie looks back at me as a mom her memories are filled with all the love and care that I could possibly muster......