Archives for December 2011

Today for Random Acts of Kindness Advent we were supposed to be paying for someone’s Santa pictures.  Turns out Santa is not there all day and when we went he was a no show.  Super bummed.

So we had to improvise.  Tonight we took Cooper and Campbell Christmas shopping for my SIL Jen.  We always split up girls and guys.  Harper, Campbell and I headed to Hobby Lobby and Josh, Coop, Huddy and Sol headed to Target.

After our shopping we all met back up for some Sweet Cece’s.

Everyone enjoyed their ice cream…we took up quite a few seats, but we so love Sweet Cece’s and the cashier tonight was especially nice to our little group of kiddos.

After talking it over, we decided today’s kindness act should be to leave a fairly large tip in our “oh so sweet” cashiers tip bucket.  He didn’t even suspect us.  I hope it blessed his socks off.

Tomorrow we will be…

leaving a special little something for our trash guy.

Can’t wait!

PS:  12 Months Waiting Art Giveaway ends in oh, about 2 hours.  Check it out!

Today for Random Acts of Kindness Advent we bought a gift card at a restaurant and gave it to the next person behind us checking out.  We were in the mood for some breakfast tonight so we headed right down the road to Cracker Barrel.

Today was not the best day, so it was pancakes and chocolate milk all around.

We bought our gift card and decided to give it to the person behind us.

We got a hug.  I like hugs a lot.

Tomorrow we will be…

paying for someone’s Santa picture at the mall.  This one should be so interesting.

Today was an interesting day.  We finally got around to throwing out our Halloween pumpkins.  What, were we the only ones that still had our pumpkins hanging around and completely not rotted?

Harper and I spent a good chunk of the day drawing on our sidewalk.

I just like her a lot!

I personally love the party hats on the Mary and Joseph monsters…since it was Jesus’ birthday, it only makes sense.

And this is just lovely…lovely, lovely, triple lovely.  I completely adore them both.

And how about 2 irrational grief issues I’ve had recently:

#1 I cried over Ozzy Osbourne’s song Mama, I’m Coming Home in the car the other day.  Really?  Yes, really.  Josh laughed.  I am completely aware that it is crazy.  Do I like Ozzy’s music?  No offense Oz, but not really.  Am I semi-irrational?  Heck yes.

#2  I may have become a little foul mouthed over the past month’s happenings…I’m working on it.  Today I went out to pick up a few last things to finish our Christmas shopping.  One of those being a set of extra fine tipped Sharpie pens for my niece Campbell.  I love her!

As I was walking down all these Christmas aisles at different stores I just thought, “This sucks.  Wow does this ever suck.”  Like I’m pretty sure I want to participate zero in Christmas this year.  As I went in Walgreens, the last place on my list to look for Campbell’s pens, I almost yelled profanity in the store 🙂  Like top of my lungs.  I even went so far to think, “I wonder how long it would take for the employees to ask me to leave.”  “Or would they even ask me to leave…would I be ushered from the store.”  “Would they throw me out on my butt like they do in old gangster movies.”

I told my cousin Rebecca about my crazy mind cursing…she thought how funny would it have been once the words had left my mouth if a small child said, “Mommy that’s the nice lady who gave me a balloon the other day.”  I laughed so hard.

So my grief craziness lately has been irrational crying over Ozzy Orbourne songs and almost-public use of profanity 🙂

There I said it.  Grief can make you do funny things.

And don’t forget our 12 Months Waiting Art Giveaway ends tomorrow night at midnight.  You could win this 11×14 canvas.  CLICK HERE to enter to win or scroll down to the December 9th + Giveaway post.

“God is good, the world He made is extraordinary and His comfort is like nothing else on earth.”

Coping Technique #103:  If you are grieving, Funfetti cake can take the edge off…especially really late at night.  God bless Josh Kelley who made and iced a Funfetti cake for me yesterday…he gets me 🙂  Turns out Funfetti works for more than just celebrations.

And sweet little Sol has joined Team Nebulizer.  Sweet boy.  The winter is going to be a beast.

And for today’s Random Act of Kindness Advent we gave away books to kids.

We picked up some of our favorite books yesterday and then headed to Kroger this evening to give them away to kiddos shopping with their parents.

Huddy wasn’t feeling up to the task tonight, so Harper and Sol were my only little sidekicks.  But they rocked.

They rocked hard.  They were delighted to scour Kroger for kids.  And compared to the balloons, parents definitely prefer us to give their children books VS. balloons…I get that 🙂  Balloons are just another thing to keep up with…not let escape.  The little recipients loved it.

Tomorrow we will be…

giving a family eating at a restaurant a gift card for that restaurant.

I think this one will be fun.

And don’t forget our 12 Months Waiting Art Giveaway will end this Monday at midnight.  CLICK HERE or scroll to the post below to enter to win this 11×14 canvas.

“God is good, the world He made is extraordinary and His comfort is like nothing else on earth.”

PS:  This would have been posted earlier if my internet hadn’t been so squirrely.

For today’s Random Act of Kindness Advent were suppose to be shopping for a family for Christmas.  We actually did our shopping earlier this week.  Before Josh and I had kiddos we would always pick a kiddo from the Angel tree, but then about 4 years ago we started helping a family at my SIL Jen’s school.  We love Jen’s school and we felt honored to be able to help a local family out at Christmas.  My mom would always help with this as well, so we definitely wanted to keep up the tradition.

I love in the picture above how it looks like Chad is cutting Huddy and Jen is very surprised by his choice to do so 🙂

Last night we had a little wrapping party with Jen, Chad, Cooper and Campbell and we got our wrap on.  I even gave Cooper Wrapping 101.  He did pretty well.

And today we delivered all the goods.  Again, I was impressed with Huddy’s upper body strength.

Tomorrow we will be…

giving away books.  We purchased some of our most favorite books today…some holiday, some not and we will be giving them away to some kiddos tomorrow.

Also today we are finally having our 12 Months Waiting Art Giveaway.  We have a giveaway each month on the 15th to celebrate another month being on the wait list for our sweet boy.  We had to delay our November 15th giveaway due to my mom’s health.

  This is the first piece I have created in about 4 weeks.  That is quite a long time for me.  I miss my mom terribly and it has changed my feelings and emotions and even my personality on some levels.  I canceled all orders that were still waiting to be created because I just didn’t know when I would be up for it.  I finally got the itch the other day and it needed to be scratched.

This piece is a 11×14 canvas with a quote from Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist.  I read this book a little before my mom died and this quote stuck with me…hard.  I adore it.  God was definitely preparing my heart for what was to come when I read this book.  Such an amazing read…I highly recommend it.

God is good, the world He made is extraordinary and His comfort is like nothing else on earth.

I made this piece not only with our little boy in mind, but my mom also and the current state of my heart.

So here’s how to enter.

Please leave a separate comment on this post for each entry.

Entry #1 Leave a comment…any ole’ comment will do.

Entry #2 Leave a comment about something you are currently hopeful for or something you are anticipating.

Entry #3 Share the giveaway on your Facebook status

Entry #4 Share the giveaway on your Twitter status

Again, please leave a separate comment on this post for each entry.

Giveaway will end Monday, December 12th at midnight and I will announce the winner on Tuesday.

I added this last part “Make A Difference” because of my mom.  I can’t even begin to explain the outpouring of people who have sent texts and emails and Facebook messages and letters and cards about how my mom touched their life.  It has floored me.  I knew she was good…I knew it, but my word, the amount of others that knew it too has blown me away.  I want to be that person too and I want to encourage others to do the same.

Happy weekend!

**GIVEAWAY CLOSED**

For today’s Random Acts of Kindness Advent we were supposed to be paying for someone’s Starbucks coffee, but we made a change.

The more I thought about it, I just never go to Starbucks and I kind of wanted to buy someones breakfast, so we jumped in line at McDonalds instead.

My mom had recently given me a coupon for a peppermint hot chocolate from McDonalds, so I cashed it in.  It’s things like that coupon that are my everyday reminders of her.  She was just too good to me.  The BEST mom ever.

And the peppermint hot chocolate was delicious.  I will be going back…for sure.

I got up to the window, payed for mine and then told the lady I wanted to pay for the truck’s order behind me.  I asked her to tell them it was just a random act of kindness.  She smiled.

I soon realized that the big truck behind me had two young guys in it.  I then got nervous because the thought hit me that they probably assumed I was trying to hit on them.  As I drove off they both hung out the windows and hooped and hollared at me.  It made me laugh.  I guess we will mark this one as a Random Act of Attempt Pick-up.  I guess they didn’t notice all the car seats in my car 🙂

Tomorrow we were supposed to be…

buying Christmas presents for a family.  We actually have already done the buying, so we will be doing the delivering tomorrow instead.  This is one of my most favorites.

Also tomorrow we will be having our 12 Months Waiting Art Giveaway.  This was originally going to be on November 15th, like we do every month while we wait for our next son, but this last month my mom was having brain surgery, so it was postponed.  I finally finished the canvas and it will be up for grabs tomorrow.

Check back tomorrow to enter to win.

It feels great to be back at creating 🙂

Today for Random Acts of Kindness Advent we delivered some goodies to our local library workers.

Not too long ago I was tipped off by my SIL Kim about a yummy cookie mix she always finds at Aldis.  The day she posted about it on Facebook I went out and bought two boxes.  I was pleasantly surprised that each box makes 6 dozen cookies…yes, that is a lot of cookies.

Last night Harper and I got busy making up some of these quite tasty little treats.

And today when we headed out to story time at our library we added a little note to our cookies.

My kiddos walked proudly into the library with a plate of cookies in hand.

The fun thing about this advent is that my kids have caught the kindness fever.  Each morning they ask in anticipation about what we are going to be doing today.  I am just as excited as they are…it makes my heart happy that they are ‘getting’ it.

Tomorrow we will be…

surprising someone in line at Starbucks by purchasing their order.

Who doesn’t want free coffee?  Well, except me…I would dig free hot chocolate though 🙂

And how about some random Kelley tidbits.

Winter has come and that equals nebulizer time for Huddy.  Huddy is our weezy, asthma, allergic to everything kind of kid.  He does get to enjoy a solid 20 minutes of TV though which as a-okay with him.

Harper delights my heart and breaks it all at once…does anyone else’s kids do that?

She misses her Grammy like crazy and is terrified she is going to forget her.  She asks me almost everyday “What are you going to do to make sure I don’t forget her?”  She even got down to the nitty gritty by asking, “What are you specifically going to do to make sure I don’t forget her?”  Wowzers…pressure is on for sure.

So I have to reassure her almost everyday that we will always talk about Grammy and think about all the things we remember about her.  I had pictures printed of Harper and mom and she placed them in her room…two being pinned to her headboard.  I lean towards that being a little on the creepy side, but it was really important to her for them to be there 🙂  Funny thing is…I worry about the same thing…the not forgetting.  I’m currently writing things down everytime I think about something specific or someone tells me a story about her.  I don’t want to forget either.

Looks as if we will be celebrating another Christmas with out our next little boy…maybe God has a big surprise for us, but maybe it’s just not His timing yet.

Today I was reminded of how important my kids kinship and love for each other is.  We had a special lunch at a new McDonalds that opened and the small Kelleys were beside themselves with excitement over the new play area.  After eating they were enjoying playing when another little boy joined them.  This kid was cute and even dressed in a white turtle neck and Christmas vest…like he just walked out of a Christmas card.  Turns out he was a bit on the spunky side…aka a bit rough with my kids.

Harper slid down the slide and Christmas boy grabbed Harper’s arm and squeezed.  I watched this look come over Harper’s face…like, “Okay, Christmas kid is squeezing the heck out of my arm…what to do, what to do.”  Then I saw Huddy.  Sweet little Huddy.  He saw what was happening as well.  He turned around so fast and started wagging his little finger all up in Christmas boy’s face and gave that kid a very stern, mannerly tongue lashing…”KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF AND OFF OF MY SISTER.”  I completely busted into laughter…they were far enough away not to notice me.  I was one proud momma!  Made me glad they love each other.  I CANNOT wait for our next little guy to get here.  The brotherly and sisterly love is waiting for him.

And speaking of our 4th little Kelley.  It was inevitable that we were going to have to get a car that would hold all these wee Kelleys, but looks as if we will be a minivan family sooner rather than later.

Nothing says “you have an honest mechanic” more than them telling you your car is going to cost more to fix then what it’s worth.  Josh asked them what he should do and their response was, “Get a new car and until then add a new quart of oil every day.”  I busted out laughing.  So Josh had been doing just that until a few days ago when he put a new quart in before leaving work and just as quick as he was putting it in it was already running out onto the pavement 🙂  Not a good sign, if you ask me.

The car was so bad driving it home and smelled something terrible that he didn’t even pull it in the driveway.  I asked why the car was parked in the front yard and he responded with, “I didn’t want to drive it not one second longer than I had to.”

So now our poor little Honda is stranded in our front yard…waiting to be sold for parts.  Minivan here we come.

And so excited to almost have an art piece completed.  It’s going to be up for grabs to celebrate our delayed 12 Months Waiting Art Giveaway.  I hope you will like it too 🙂  Giveaway will be posted on Friday.

Today I did two pretty important things…

Had lunch with my smallest Kelley.  He is such a sucker for Chick-fil-a and I am such a sucker for him!

I also delivered an elf to my niece Campbell’s school.  Campbell got Buddy the elf a few years ago and since then I have been adding to her collection of elves with old vintage elves I score on Etsy…they are semi creepy.  She can’t touch them or they lose their magic, so this little guy had to be sandwich bagged.

And for today’s Random Acts of Kindness Advent we taped change to a vending machine for thirsty passer-byers.

This was our most uneventful kindness act.  Not much action going on at the Walmart.  I did wonder if someone would get ill that I put packing tape on the machine.  I thought about taping some Goo-Gone on there as well, but I left a little note instead. I wanted whoever to know we weren’t just some vending machine hooligans.

And tonight we are getting our bake on.  Tomorrow we will be…

delivering goodies to our library workers.  Storytime will taste a little bit sweeter tomorrow.

The wee Kelleys can’t wait…neither can I.

Today for our Random Act of Kindness Advent we took food to our local Samaritan Center.

A really fun thing about my mom was she loved a good deal.  And when she found one she would buy lots of extras just to share.  So her pantry was always quite full.

My brother and I decided that we would donate all of mom’s pantry food to a local food bank.  We both are blessed to be able to buy our own groceries, so we wanted to share the abundance of food that mom had bought up.

Today the kids and I headed out to the Samaritan Center to donate all the food.  The kids loved helping unload all the bags of food and I was quite impressed with Huddy’s upper arm strength.

Tomorrow we will be…

taping money to vending machines.  Now I just need to find some vending machines 🙂

And I made another Pinterest recipe and BOY was it a good one…so good I had to share.

I saw these Sweet Mini Monkey Rolls and knew I must make them soon.

These are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!  So crazy delicious and pretty super easy.  This was all that was left.

I even used canned biscuits and just cut those up…I didn’t have any frozen biscuits on hand.

My only disclaimer is to not overload your muffin tin.  I apparently did this and ooey gooey cinnamony goodness oozed all over my friend Susan’s oven…the result was a lot of smoke and a date to clean Susan’s oven 🙂

After talking it over, we decided that next time we should just skip the muffin tin and bake it all in a 9×13 dish.  I think it would be just as good.

My overloading resulted in trashed muffin tins.  Whammo!

So lesson learned and the advice has been passed along.  But you should definitely make these…they are Oh.So.Yummy.

Kelley approved recipe for sure.

And I actually started an art piece today.  It felt great.  Hoping to share it with you this week.

Thanks for all the continued prayers and kind messages.  Cannot say thank you enough!