I have a beautiful daughter who will be 12 this year. (Mercy, did I say TWELVE?? How old AM I?)

Our journey into the “tween” year is but a couple of calendar pages away and we are wanting to be as prepared as possible, if that’s at all possible.

My husband, JT and I, have had numerous discussions about our young girls moving into this stage. Honestly, you don’t really think it’s going to happen, but as it turns out, it is! She is slowly changing and moving into that stage that I’ve heard enough good and bad to be both excited and frightened. I’d rather just be excited!

So, my amazing husband, being the future thinking father he is, has come up with a plan: a year of mentoring, discipling, teaching and purposeful dating with his soon to be TWELVE year old daughter .

One of the things we are going to do over the summer, gearing up for her 12th birthday, is prepare for her a (way cool, it’s gotta be cool) personal Tween Notebook. I haven’t hashed out the whole thing and still need to build it, but basically, she’ll have a year to get through her notebook.

What’s gonna be inside? you ask. Well, here are some of my thoughts……

(oh and I better title these with cool names)

Goals– Maybe name it, “Stuff I Gotta Do”. We’ll set goals for her and help her reach them. Not sure what those are but they’ll be very purposeful.

Scripture– ummm, “God Talk” LOTS of scripture to learn and read and ingest.

Mentors– “People My Parents Want Me to Hang Out With” okay, I’ll work on that one. Basically, over the year, she will go out with some really amazing women and they will pour into her little life some sweet nugget of truth. She won’t get all her discipling from us and I don’t want her to. There is a huge world of wonderful leaders I want her to be directly influenced by.

Reading– “Sweet Books and Magazines” Going to get some of Vicki Courtney “Between” magabooks that she will have to work through. I’ll find others too.

Events– “Out on the Town” — dates with dad or mom. Events with mom. Dates with grandparents, etc. I want so badly to take her to one of Vicki Courtney’s events called “You and Your Girl”. Got to work out the details.

Hubs– help her keep character first and boys….last? Something like that. And, this will begin her thinking about a future hubs.

Character — “Inside Beauty” Basically, bah, you get the idea.

Those are the initial ideas. As soon as I get it all done, I’ll post it with picture so you can make your daughter one too! I can’t wait for JT to take her out on a date and present this to her in September!!!

Oh, I guess you could make one for your son, but make sure it has skateboards on it or something. Dirt? I dunno.