Hooray for Hollywood!

I mentioned the Young Women in Excellence that Patty and I were planning, and I'm finally posting about it (sorry, Patters!). Like I said, it was an Oscar-themed party, and we worked really hard to make it a special event. I took some pre-party pictures of the decorations. I didn't use my flash, because I wanted to catch the ambience of the room. My sweet, sweet mom lent us the decorations she had used for my sister, Brianna's, wedding - they have turned out to be the best investment. Mom has used them over and over again:

The big, round mirrors, the glass vases, and the pebbles are my mom's. Patty provided the candles (which we aren't allowed to light in the church. Sad...) and the star garland stuff. Here's a far-away shot, with our beautiful white Christmas lights in the background:

You can see the champagne glasses - filled with apple juice and sprite, of course! Before the program started, I kept draining my champagne glass and getting more, and one of my girl's moms was like, "Dude, you look like a lush!" It was funny. I was just so thirsty and hungry! I hadn't had time to eat. Luckily, we had hors d'ouvres on each table to snack on, so I wolfed on those when I could.

We borrowed a bunch of fake trees from people we knew and had the girls wrap lights around them. This is Noelle, one of my Laurels:

She came early to help decorate, and I'm so glad, because she also staggered the lights along the woodwork, which added more light. Here's a shot of Whitney, one of my other Laurels, with the pretty lighting in the background:

We asked all the girls to dress in formals for this. As you can see from the shot of Noelle, not all girls decided to do it, but most did, as you can see above, with Whitney(another Laurel), and below, with my third Laurel, Aubrey:

A few of the girls wore tennis shoes and flip-flops under their dresses. I don't know how anyone can stand to wear flip-flops in this weather!! I was planning to wear this dress (this picture was taken at Brianna's wedding in the summer of 2006):

Wow! Chubba-wubba! Anyways, my mom had donated my pretty bridesmaid dress to the girls in her ward for their camp fundraiser. I was so sad! Because I love purple, and that dress actually would have fit me. As you can see, it didn't fit so well in 2006, but I'd like to think I've lost a few pounds since then, and it actually might have fit me this time. Sigh. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. My friend, Cat, had some dresses from her proms in high school that could fit me, but Karlene, the Beehive advisor, called dibs on the prettiest one of all. Here she is, in blue, with the 1st counselor, Diane:

Cat had another dress that looked much like the one I wore to my sister's wedding - short sleeved, light purple - and Noelle called dibs on that one, but then she didn't wear it! If I had known she wouldn't wear it, I would have swiped it for myself! So I got Cat's Chinese dress, which is pretty in and of itself, but it made me look like I was a pregnant football player:

Patty brought over some dresses for me to try on a few days before the program, and as I was trying them on, I was like, "Wow, these remind me of the eighties. Maybe people in Pittsburgh have a different sense of style..." One dress had a cape, even!! It reminded me of those SuperNanny capes. But then I came to find out that those were Patty's mom's dresses, not Patty's dresses! Phew! Those all made me look pregnant, too. Sad. Patty wore her mom's awesome gold pants-and-shirt outfit, plus a fur coat and a wig:

So awesome!! If I had known dressing silly was an option, I would have worn the cape getup. When I was trying it on, Dylan said, "Mom, you look like a superhero!" By the way, note the pretty silver and gold stars hanging from the ceiling. A nice touch.

First, we had a speaker, and then Patty and I gave each girl an award for her YW in Excellence project. Here are the awards:

Then, instead of an acceptance speech, each girl gave a little speech on what her project was. We gave awards like, "most likely to use in the future," "most colorful," etc., depending on what each girl's project was. When we were presenting each girl with her award, we said some cute things about her, while Colette, the YW president:

and her husband, Lynn, did a slideshow thingey:

Then we did this "lifetime achievement" award for Noelle, because she got her Young Womahood Recognition award. So it's like those lifetime achievement awards they give at the Oscars. So that was really cute. And then a member of the bishopric spoke, and we were done! Here I am, taking down all those dang stars:

The girls stuck around to help clean up, and of course, they found the helium balloons and had a good time sucking on them and talking. Shannon, our sole Mia Maid, kept sucking the balloons, and then saying in a chipmunk voice, "Edward Cullen is sooooo dreamy..." Patty was having a bit too much fun with the balloons, as well:

Karlene let me take the rest of the balloons home for my kids to play with, and Dylan desperately wanted to decorate his room with them. He arranged them on his bunkbed, and then he made a bunch of stars by tracing around the stars I had taken down (I saved them for Nat, who is doing the same theme for her YW in Excellence in a week or so) and coloring them. Then he arranged those on his bunkbed, as well. The result:

The kid is so creative. He even staggered the balloons. A very artistic touch.

The night turned out to be so special and fun, and I'm glad we worked hard on it, because I think the girls feel more loved when you put work into their activities. I'm glad it's done, because I had like four days of dishes piled up in the sink - I had been so busy! But you know, I always have four days of dishes piled up in my sink, anyways. Not too big of a difference, really.