Sleepover Weekend

This was a sleepover weekend. My Sunday School girls were over Friday night and the junior/senior high girls were over Sunday night (actually, it's Monday morning as I type and they are still getting picked up (side note; the parents are great about picking up the girls by 11:00)). It was a good weekend (thanks to some good naps). The younger group only had 3 girls and they were pretty low key and asleep by 11:30. The older group had 8 girls (a smaller group than last time; no one had to sleep under the dining room table or in the entryway).

It was a quieter sleepover in many ways. We've started doing crafts at sleepovers; the girls enjoy them and it keeps them more settled. Last night included some rock animals, painting, and a lot of friendship bracelets. We did watch some movies: RV and The Princess Diaries. Later, when they were starting to fade but wanted another movie, we put on The Sound of Music; by intermission they were almost all asleep so I turned it off.

When they decided to start talking about boys I took control. It actually started with them talking about what they would do if they had a baby when they were teens: raise it or give it up for adoption (which actually came from one of them mentioning that her cousin, who had a baby at 17, was pregnant again). From there we moved to how to avoid teen pregnancy (I had to convince them that "only date nice Christian boys" was not a guarantee). They I steered them to what they should be looking for in a potential husband and then to what they needed to be as well. We talked about fear of the Lord, wisdom, discernment, and integrity as well as the negatives: not abusive, not quarrelsome, not a gossip. There was a lot more as well. (I relied on God's Wisdom in Proverbs as a guide because there was no way I'd remember everything on my own and I wanted them to think about this Biblically and the Proverbs book conveniently provides Scripture references). Anyway, it was a really good talk, one that I plan to repeat as often as possible to keep them thinking properly about relationships (and not just dating; we talked about what these characteristics had to do with  being a good friend and child as well).

This morning they cleaned up (and they are very good about doing most of the tidying up; there was only a bit left for me, plus things like taking down the garbage and then vacuuming). Then, after breakfast, we watched Tim Hawkins and they all went home (they're all gone now). One mom brought me coffee from Timmies, so I'm happy. The only thing left to decide is whether I should vacuum before or after nap time!