You've been RAK'd!

Random Acts of Kindness, I LOVE it!

A random act of kindness every day seemed overwhelming to me. I want to WANT to do these, not be thinking all day every day that I have failed if I don't get it done. I decided we would do 3 a week. I went through a few lists and picked out the following random acts of kindness. Here's my list and the reason I picked these particular acts. Some are purely to give, some are for fun and some are to inspire others to perform random acts of kindness.

 1.) Take treats to the fire station: Firemen don't get paid enough for the danger they put themselves in every day. Krispy Kreme doughnuts should make it better, right? We did this today. A lady called them upstairs and said a little girl wanted to give them some doughnuts. It may have been the fastest anyone has ever come down a flight of stairs :)


2.)  Take treats to the police station: Policemen don't get paid enough either. I had planned to take them doughnuts until I realized the irony...maybe cookies instead.

3.) Make treats for the mailman: In my neighborhood, the mailboxes are on the houses. Our mailman walks his route in the sweltering heat of summer and in the freezing cold of winter. He deserves a little something, don't you think? Maybe a gift card and some cookies.

3.) Make treats for anyone else who may come by the house: The meter man, city workers, garbage collectors, UPS, Fed Ex, etc. I was thinking a little bag of cookies with a note.

4.) Pay for the person behind you in the drive thru: I love this one! How fun to watch the disbelief that someone they don't know did something nice for them. I would be so excited if this happened to me...it's the little things :)

5.) Give the guy at Publix who takes your cart to your car a gift card: I'm so excited for this one too. This one older man always takes my cart to the car and I always feel sad that a.) He doesn't accept tips and b.) I never have cash to tip him anyway.

6.) Put 3 new toys in the Public toy donation box: I noticed they had a box yesterday and I have lots of toy coupons that I can't use on my kids. They have too much already!!!

7.) Donate food items to a local food bank: Donating food goes hand in hand with BOGO at Publix. One for me, one for you. Hopefully, it will help a few more people have a hot meal over the holidays.

8.) Give away a good item on Facebook: There is a great FB page where I sell the kids things when we are done with them. I'm just going to pick one of the things I have and give it away for free.

9.) Donate to an international charity: I kind of cheated on this one because we have already done this, but I figured if I can't get my all 3 things done one week I'll use this one in its place.

Stay tuned for updates...

Giving.

This year, for whatever reason, I couldn't find the energy or motivation to do my Operation Christmas Child boxes. I don't have any shoe boxes, I don't have a whole lot of kid free time and looking for appropriate items while keeping the 8 month old and the 3 year old in check seems impossible, etc. Excuses, excuses, I know. Luckily, online donating is available!

Here is the link. They have gifts for every budget. You can even gift a goat or help stock a fish pond!

https://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/Giving/gift_catalog/

Merry Christmas!!!

OH, THE AGONY!

For whatever reason I had a really hard time this year with Christmas gifts for Finley. You would think it would be easy because she is 3 1/2 and told me exactly what she wanted Santa Claus to bring her. All she asked for was a kitchen and a dollhouse kitchen. The dollhouse kitchen was this thing...

She saw this in Target months ago and she was locked in. She hasn't stopped talking about it since. She wants Santa Claus to bring her a dollhouse kitchen. I didn't want to get it for her. It has a million little pieces and it was $50 (a lot for this little thing in my opinion). I told Joey how I felt and he made the good point that it was one of 2 things she asked for,  how could we not get it?

She also asked for a kitchen. We got her this one.

I can't wait for her to see it!!! This gift has the "come around the corner on Christmas morning" wow factor I really want for her.

Just a reminder. She had a kitchen that she NEVER played with. It was a really nice one and a friend gave it to us. For free. Well, we got rid of it because she never played with it and that kitchen took up a lot of space in our "getting smaller by the minute" playroom. I feel certain she will play with this one. I think she was just too young at the time for the other kitchen.

We also got her some art supplies, a LeapFrog LeapPad2 Explorer and Perfection. Do you remember that board game? I think Finley will love the suspense of all the pieces flying everywhere. Joey and I are already planning a Perfection match against each other. He has no idea what he's up against. I have incredible hand eye coordination and it's even better when I'm competing against my husband ;)

Sam was much easier. I went online and looked at all the toys for ages 12-24 months and bought the ones with the best reviews. Here is his big gift. It got rave reviews and every time I tell someone that he is getting this they say what a great toy it is and that there 7 year old still plays with it. Yay! The other toys are just things that I thought were cute and that got good reviews from parents. Poor Sam. he has to play with his sisters pink "girl" toys so all he is getting this year is toys that are, if not boyish, at least gender neutral. 

The only gift I have left to buy is Joey's. I have one lame idea of what to get him. He is so hard to buy for. I'm hoping something will come to me in a dream.

I'm thankful for...

I hate to be a Thanksgiving Scrooge, but I was glad to see Thanksgiving marked off the calendar. I can't help but feel anxious for it to be over so we can proceed to the main event...Christmas!!! I outdid myself this year and got my shopping done and Christmas cards addressed, house decorated, gifts wrapped all before Thanksgiving. It's hard to do during the hustle and bustle of fall, but it's so worth it when you are done and can just enjoy the season. I will try to get done by Thanksgiving every year. I will say that the downside is that you have to keep yourself from giving people their gifts early, especially your children. Also, you keep seeing good deals so you keep buying things. As of right now, my kids have a ridiculous amount of gifts for Christmas because I can't resist a good deal. Probably best if I just stay out of stores until Christmas is over. Anyway, here is my Christmas card picture this year. I think I took 70 pictures and this was the only one that was even close to making the cut. As you can see I tried to rake the leaves out of the picture, but I didn't rake far enough. It wasn't enough to make me want to try again though. Getting a good picture of two kids is next to impossible. Lesson learned.

And now I can say to you all, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Thanksgiving 2012

We stayed in Huntsville, I think we had Burger King and we all waited to for the stomach bug to strike again. Sam started vomiting the day before Thanksgiving. We had planned to go to Birmingham, but I couldn't bear the thought of getting sick while we were out of town or worse, giving it to a houseful of people. We decide to stay home. It wasn't too bad. After being at home all day I decided to partake in the Black Friday madness just to get out of the house. Madness is the only way to describe it. So that was our Thanksgiving this year. Exciting, huh?

P.S. No one else got sick so we were thankful.

Breaking Dawn Part II

AMAZING!!!! I'm sad to see The Twilight Saga end, but what a great ending it was :) The ending was brilliant. I never saw it coming. I was horrified like everyone else in the audience and gasped when I realized what had happened. AHHHH, it was so good!  Amanda came to Huntsville for a girls weekend. We had a great time! Joey took the kids to Bham so we could relax at home. Husband of the Year! I hope Finley will want to read the books and see the movies one day. That way I'll have an excuse to read them again. I wonder how I will feel about it in 10 years...

Quick recap...I mean, really quick

Madison Street Festival with the Chatams. Also, it's mine and Katie's 3 year anniversary ;) I always forget to take a picture of the two of us.

Old Baker Farm Pumpkin Patch. I love these girls!!! We had a great time. This is the second year in a row one of my children threw up at the pumpkin patch. Sam came down with the stomach bug which he then passed on to everyone in our family. I don't need to blog about it because I will never forget that week from hell.

 

Halloween! Supergirl and her loyal puppy dog. We went trick or treating with the Schmitzs and had a great time.  Finley was going to be a princess and then she said she didn't want to be a princess so I let her pick out her own costume at Party City and she picked Supergirl. I'm so glad I let her do that because it was so cute!!! Cici and Cat Cat came to visit on Halloween too!