Grace

On May 16th my oldest turned 10!  It is a wonderful blessing to have been privileged to see this little girl grow and change and become a young women.  Josh and I wanted to celebrate this time in her life and the transition from girlhood to womanhood.  As moms it is hard to know when and how to begin sharing and walking our daughters through this transition with our little girls.   As Josh and I  prayed, read the Word and did some reading into this topic of girls to womanhood we came across some great resources.  At the end of this blog you can read an excerpt from one of the websites that we read and some of the reasons for what we did. 

Our Special Over Night Date-

We surprised Grace and by showing up at a nice hotel in downtown Zacatecas the afternoon before her 10th birthday. I had packed her bags and prepared the schedule.

 I handed her a piece of paper with our planned events and away we went.  We started with her picking her favorite restaurant to eat at downtown.  Being in downtown and withing walking distance of lots of options added to the relaxation of just being together and talking. 

Grace

At the Restaurant

We went to eat and during the meal I had 4 pages of getting to know you questions.
(I attached the questions as a PDF on the bottom of this article)

 I asked the questions and Grace answered.  This was a time all about her.  She loved it and it was fun for me to hear her heart in the answers she gave.  It was awesome to here her her answer to the question about what do you want to do one day?  Her reply was quick and confident in her desire to be a missionary and work with kids hopefully in a kids home/orphanage in China. 

Yummy Treats

We then headed out and went for dessert. She decided to be thrifty and we went for McDonald's fried apple pies and mini-mart coffee.  It sounds silly but it felt good for both of us to have fun and be wise about our resources.  We were then able to go back to the hotel and go out on the roof balcony to enjoy or treats. (and it really was yummy)  We spent the next hour on the roof snacking and doing a bible study. 

 

We started with the book Beautiful Girlhood.  We read a chapter called Making Yourself Beautiful.  I wanted to start with a focus on our beauty as girls and how we need to care for our bodies and be modest.  We then moved to a Bible study from the book Becoming God's True Women.  We did the first study and will continue to do these studies weekly for the next year together.

Little Notebooks

I made two little notebooks to go along with this study as I want to use the book again with Hattie in the future. 

Study in God' Word

After this time we had a prayer time and then headed to the bedroom for "girl talk"  We finished the night with a classic movie "My Fair Lady."



Shower time:)

Movie Time

















"Girl Time"



In the morning we packed up and went to breakfast.  We spent time there talking about prayer and the prayer journal that I had made to go with the Bible Study.  The focus of our time together was getting to know Grace, being in the Word of God and Prayer.  It was a great time and a blessing to see my little girl growing up and desiring to walk with the Lord in all she does.   

This from the Secret Keeper Girl website- secretkeepergirl.com
What is a Secret Keeper Girl? "Well, she’s a lot of things. And she’s NOT a lot of things. She’s NOT a mean girl. She’s a girl whose friendships are full of kindness. She’s NOT boy crazy. Moms, can I get an Amen? She a girl who knows she can share all of her heart-secrets with her mom at any time. She’s also a girl who embraces modesty. Why? Because she knows that she is a masterpiece created by God. She strives to keep the deepest secrets of her authentic beauty a secret! The statistics show that tweens who are exposed to basic, age-appropriate, Bible-based value systems as they connect to their moms between the ages of 8-12 tend to be less likely to engage in early sexual activity, substance abuse, and violence. They are also more likely to have healthy friendships, excel academically, and become positive social contributors in their communities.
It’s not rocket science. It’s social science paired with a lot of prayer and Bible study. By applying factual information in our interactions with our girls, we can raise them to be strong and confident of their beauty and value. And a girl who values herself doesn’t do things she’ll one day regret!Secret Keeper Girl live events and resources including our signature 8 Great Date books exist to help a mom have intentional conversations and interactions with her tween girl she she’ll know just how precious she really is in God’s eyes…and in moms!"

Getting to know you