Youth Fun in 2013

Youth group has been so much fun these first few months of the year! From Dodgeball games to joint worship nights with other youth groups, to dinners together, the teens are always a joy to spend time with and invest in! Along with all of this fun, we have also been fundraising for our summer missions trip to Grand Rapids, MI. 

Game faces on and ready to go for the Dodgeball game against the young adults! 

Team Northminster! We rocked it and beat the young adults! 

Celebrating Kenzie's birthday at Chic-Fil-A with balloon animals and my favorite teens!

The best hiding spot ever during sardines: the elevator! Had so much fun with all my kids during "Parents' Night Out" in February. 

A late night movie adventure with all my girls to see "Safe Haven." 

Superbowl Party with the youth. 

Beautiful middle school girls watching the Superbowl! 

McKayla was amazing in her high school production of "Les Miserables." 

Loved the opportunity to see Ashley and Emily dance at the Green expo.  These girls rocked it!

Girls' Night at my apartment and the girls straightened my hair! 

Northminster Ninjas ready to dominate in Dodgeball: Round 2

Love these girls oh so much! 

We may not have won, but we most definitely looked intimidating! 

Loved watching Lauren in her school variety show production with Anna! 

Easter Sunday with my beautiful girls! 

2013 has been a blast so far and we are looking forward to a summer full of fun, service, sunshine, and growing in Christ together! 

Easter Eggstravaganza

Easter Eggstravaganza was such a fun outreach event for the community! The kids loved decorating their bunny bags, making cross and empty tomb crafts, the egg hunt, and learning about the reason we celebrate Easter: the resurrection of Jesus Christ! 

Decorating their bunny bags!

Finding eggs all over the church! 

Some of the kids and me after the event! 

One of the fun activities we did. The kids each got an egg filled with colored jelly beans and this poem:

Yellow is for the sun so bright,

Orange is for the edge of night,

Green is for the grass He made,

Red is for the blood He gave.

From our sins we have been saved!

Purple is for His hour of sorrow, 

Pink is for our new tomorrow! 

The day was full of joy, laughter, and little voices singing out to our Savior in worship and praise! The event definitely lived up to our name:

Joyotic: finding the joy of Jesus in the chaos of life. 

2012 Turkey Olympics

On Sunday November 25th 14 brave youth kiddos headed to fellowship hall unprepared for the tasks that Lindsey had planned the evening. Since the removal of our wisdom teeth, both James and I were not as brave but more irritable and out of it, so I resorted to taking pictures of this great event!!!

Event 1: Blow a Bubble

After the teams split into girls and boys two girls and two boys sat down in front of a plate of whip cream with a surprise inside! The goal of this round was to find the bubble gum, chew it and blow a bubble. The first person to complete the task won first place.

Event 2: All The Leftovers

What do you do with all of the left overs from Thanksgiving? Well the logical idea would be eat them, right? Wrong, when Lindsey asked everyone to bring any Thanksgiving left overs we had none of us expected to be taking a trip to vom city. Lindsey mixed all of the canned food, stuffing, turkey, potatoes and all the other junk together with Mr. and Mrs. Potato head. She gave each team a picture of the potato head they needed to build and all of the pieces were in the gross tub of leftover Thanksgiving food. What ever team built their potato exactly like the picture first won.  

Winners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                                                                Good try boys!!!!!!

Event 3: Candy Corn Catch

The goal of this game was pretty simple... one person throws the candy corn and the other person catches it in their mouth. The more pieces of corn you caught the father back we would have to move. We had a few good catchers but I think we can all agree most of the candy corn ended up on the ground!

Event 4: Turkey Bowling

Just like a game of bowling the lanes except for the fact that we were bowling with a frozen turkey, and soap to knock over bottles of maple syrup. We had to improvise with the things we had people! All the pictures I took did no justice to how much fun this final event was, so I have a video instead!!!   

It was a fun, exciting and a little bit of a smelly event but everyone had a fantastic time!!!

Youth Group Fun

After a fun-filled summer, the youth were excited to get things going this fall!  We started the school year out hanging out together at Starbucks and Handel's the Sunday after school started.  We then officially kicked-off Joyotic Youth a couple of weeks later with a super fun Progressive Dinner!  

Lauren, Ashley, Derek, and Kenzie Grace enjoying their ice cream!

Sunny, James, and Derek hanging out by James' new truck and enjoying their milkshakes!

 Hoover-Louisville football game after a fun evening of Tailgating at the church! Unfortunately the Leopards got crushed by the Vikings. 

James, Sunny, and Nathan on the boat at the choir kick-off party!

The girls with Nathan and Ava on the boat.

  

Progressive Dinner salad stop at the Hirschman's! 

Second stop: Appetizers at the Morris house!

Spaghetti bar at the McKelvey's!

Brownie Sundaes for dessert at Pastor Matt's and Vanessa's! 

This picture is proof I have the best job ever. 

McKayla and her friend Molly came with me to a Mount Union football game. 

Race Against Time games at youth group as we learned the value of spending time each day with God.

Dollar Menu Dinner Nights are my favorite.  I love just hanging out with the teens, sharing a meal, and catching up on life together. 

The amazing youth group kids hung out while I was on my missions trip to the Middle East and they sent me and Pastor Matt this!  It's says Miss You!  

 Me and Miss Mariah volunteering at a Farmer's Market for the Stark County Hunger Task Force at Gervasi Vineyard.

The youth wrote reasons we have to praise during our night of prayer at youth group.

"10,000 reasons for my heart to sing" <3

And that's what we've been up to this fall! Lots of fun, spending time together, and growing closer to God as we journey together.  Again, I have the best job ever, and am so thankful and so blessed to be working with these amazing teens!