Now that I have had approximately 136 hours of sleep — which leaves me needing only 52 more to be back to my pre-MSW (Massive Sleepover Week) self — I am ready to give you a full re-cap of this past week.  Using, of course, pictures.  Because pictures are worth a thousand words.  And me?  I have not a thousand words.  In fact, I have not much a voice left.  This is what happens when you spend a few hours repeatedly yelling “Quit climbing up that banister!  You are not a monkey!” and “If I have to tell you one more time to stop dropping it like it is hot, I’m gonna drop you… on your head.”

Princess Patience of Sleepover Kingdom, I am not.

Ahem.  Moving on.

Here’s how the week went down:

One of the things I feel strongly about in Starlite is trying to focus on details — seeing if there isn’t a way we can make everything we do have just a bit more personalization for the girls.  So, we try to add that extra touch — whether it be ribbon, a handwritten note or whatever time and resources will allow.

For example, our invitations to the sleepover:

We found this cute paper at Target a few months ago and bought them out of it at three different stores.  Over the past few weeks, we have been printing invitations to the sleepover out (we do about a third of the total needed in our office; the rest are done at a local copy and print center).  For this event, we did a little over 1,700 invitations.  We separate them into packets for each of our middle schools and the rest is history.  We also use past event records and current program records to make a whole lot of phone calls encouraging the girls to come to the event as well as sending handwritten note cards to the homes of girls who we haven’t seen in awhile.  The pink and black paper dots that you see beside the invitations were being punched out to add some flair to the girl’s breakfast bags that they’d receive on their way out the door Saturday morning.  We add a little “Good morning, princess!” note to the front of the bags and presto!  You’ve got a sweet note to leave the sleepover on — and something good to eat on the way home.

For the little girl’s party, we spent plenty of time getting little treats together for them.  After it was over, we had a couple of extra cups left and I took the miniature containers of Play-Dough out and kept them for myself.  What can I say?  There have to be some perks to being in charge.

In addition to having a huge team that goes out to the schools each week to actually work with the girls, we have a great group of girls who volunteer their time in our office to help with all the details.  Tiffany is our very own Wonder Woman of Event Signs.

Her sign was attached along with these lovely V-Day decorations to help parents find our office since this was the first time we’ve held a Twinkle event there.  I’m thinking it was hard for them to miss the hot pink everything.

The lovely Laura worked tirelessly to help decorate for the event and was surprised by an impromptu V-day visit from her boyfriend, Chris.  He literally swept her off her feet.  Laura had decided, with Chris’ blessing, to spend her V-day night helping us with the Twinkle party at the office.  Little did she know that Chris and I had already worked out a sweet little surprise for her later that evening — more on that in a bit.

However that wasn’t my only Cupid-assisting role of the day.  Early V-day morning, I got up and unlocked the townhouse my roomie Katie and I live in so that her boyfriend, Eric, could sneak in and create a V-day display of l-u-v.  Eric had written out a TON of things that he loves about Katie and spread them throughout the first floor of our place.  I, being the sneaky yet helpful roommate, captured the moment on camera so Katie would have the pictures later.  Oh, and I drank a whole lot of this:

Because Sunny Delight?  It is my friend.  I love it more than I love my favorite pair of rain boots.  And, if you know me well at all, you know what a strong statement I just made.  There was no one I’d rather spend my V-day morning with that Mr. Delight.  He and I are just meant to be together.

Back to Katie.  While sipping away at my morning goodness, I read through some of Eric’s sentimental thoughts about his longtime girlfriend.  I was so touched by one in particular that I just had to share it with the interlings:

The only thing that would make my mornings better would be if this sign was taped to my bottle of Sunny Delight each day.  But alas, Mr. Delight can’t exactly write.  And so, I console myself with the fact that his true feelings towards me will remain hidden at this time.

Ahem.  Back to the ministry portion of the week.

I wanted to do a little something special for our Starlite leaders (remember, at this time I had no idea that one of them would later deflate my air mattress while I was sleeping on it).  So, I had ordered a little surprise for them from a local bakery:

Please note that not only do the cookies have their first initials on them, but I found the cutest lollipop V-day cards EVER.  I threw one in the box for this picture so that I could share the cuteness with all of the interlings. 

There was, perhaps, one Starlite leader who deserved her cookie more than the others.  About an hour before the Twinkle event began, we realized that we needed another “station” for the girls to do something at since we were doing a rotating party (one group was getting a manicure while another group made a picture frame and so forth).  Desperate and out of time, we decided to have a “puppy petting station.”  In order to do this, however, two little puppies needed a bath.  Jenelle and our adorable office bathtub came to the rescue:

 

Hello, Cuddles.  Mommy is sorry, again, for what you had to go through on Valentine’s Day.  But thank you for sacrificing your peace of mind for the pleasure of 60 little girls petting you.  They, and I, thank you for giving to the Lord.

Before long, we were ready for the girls to begin arriving.

And yes, we do put our leaders in matching outfits down to their scarves and mittens.  We are a girl’s ministry, for goodness sakes.  What did you expect?

Megan, of 3rd grade fame, arrived in style and ready for some fun.  We don’t normally post pictures of any of the girls, but I know Megan’s parents and they gave the okay for her to appear on MinSoFab.  Although “appear” is a strong word, now isn’t it?

Remember Laura, who thought that she was spending V-day away from her boyfriend?  Well, once the girls got there, we stuck Laura doing a menial task and passed out signs to the girls that spelled out “surprise!”.  When Laura came back into the main room, she found her boyfriend and 60 little girls waiting to tell her that she was being whisked away from the madness to go on a lovely date to a fancy restaurant. 

I do believe Cupid, Chris and I pulled off the surprise rather nicely.  After doing so much hard labor for Cupid (and, well, God — don’t forget that somebody had to stay and take care of those little girls), I headed home.  Mere moments later, I went to my door to find a group of Starliters coming with a V-day gift of ice cream and dinner (notice how I listed the ice cream first).  The best part?  Chris, one of our male volunteers, proposed to me.

What is that you’re saying, interlings?  You’re asking if that isn’t just my camera case and not a ring box?  Well, yeah but I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about it.  It was a practice run-through.  I’m determined that Chris has to marry one of our college girls, so I forced let him practice his proposal skills on me.

The fun continued the next day with our massive sleepover.  Here, Kaffa and Chris try to fix a very large pot of spaghetti.  It did not go well.

After we fed the girls dinner, we did a lengthy drama that featured a girl going through different stages of her life.  It begins with her as a young child and follows her up into adulthood.  As she goes through the different stages, the girls got to see how both God and the enemy were working behind the scenes to shape certain experiences she went through.  In the climax, both the Jesus character and the Satan character propose to the girl, leaving her with the choice whose bride she will be.  When she came out in the final scene wearing a full bridal outfit (we’re talking dress, train, veil, etc.) the girls actually gasped.  It was adorable.

The big surprise for the girls came after that though.  We had created miniature wedding veils that they got to wear as they came down the aisle to where the Jesus character stood.  When they reached the front, Jeff (who is a fantastic Jesus-portrayer) tied a blue necklace with a silver ring on it around their necks to symbolize our collective commitment as the bride of Christ.  I, and most of our other volunteers and leaders, cried the entire time as we watched the girls come down the aisle wearing their pajamas and a wedding veil.  Of course, I did catch a couple of girls who don’t exactly look like middle schoolers trying the veils on for themselves:

I’m just glad no one got a picture of me trying on the veils in our office earlier that morning.  Listen, someone had to fulfill her fantasy of wearing a wedding veil make sure they looked right. 

So, interlings, to sum up the week, I think the best way to end this post is by reminding you that they all lived happily ever after.

And perhaps by taking another nap.