Search Results for: kindness advent

Ferrero Rocher Sprouts

In the midst of craziness and lostness and overwhelmedness there is always a chance of laughter.  Always.  It keeps us sane and afloat.  It’s joy.  Over the past month or so Josh Kelley has taken on a facial hair transformation.  He now has a full on mustache.  See exhibit A, B and C.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

While his new mustache growth has taken me some getting use to others are praising it…especially high school boys at Zaxby’s who say things like “Sweet stache man.”  Also since his facial hair revolution has really come into its’ own Josh’s great ideas have gone to a whole new level.  Don’t get me wrong Josh Kelley has always been quite the master mind…the dude is crazy smart.  He arranges furniture in our house like I never could have dreamed up, his jokes are off tha hizzy and he is the one who came up with our most infamous kindness advent which has lived on year after year…surprising someone with a Christmas inflatable…on their front porch.

One night while watching TV a Ferrero Rocher chocolate commercial flashed across the screen and so an amazing idea was birthed forth from the stache.   “Wouldn’t it be funny to buy those chocolates and fill them with brussels sprouts?”  Why yes, yes it would indeed.

In the Kelley family whammy gifts have been given on and off throughout the entire 21 years I’ve known the Kelley family.  Josh and I like to take the whammy to new and different levels like randomly filling Easter eggs for our annual Easter egg hunt with things like rocks, rotten strawberries and used bandaids.  There’s nothing like hearing a 6-year-old exclaim “I got a cigarette butt” while cracking open those plastic eggs.  I kid.  We’ve never used a cigarette butt, but I’m tucking that idea away for next year.

I digress.  So we purchased a Christmas box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and proceeded to surgically remove each chocolate and enjoy each one over about 2 weeks time.  We kept every last paper until it was just a few days before Christmas and time to execute our plan.

Then we bought a bag of brussels sprouts and loaded each little tinfoil wrapper with a tasty, green sprout.

This is obviously the only tutorial you will ever need again in your life so pin away friends, pin away.

The coconut chocolates had clear covers so we had to get a little creative with these, but nothing some white acrylic paint, hot glue and shaved coconut couldn’t fix.  Why yes, yes I did paint some brussel sprouts white and hot glue coconut all over them.  When we’re in, we’re all in.

We left two regular chocolates in the pack to try and bait people in.  I thought it looked pretty legit when we were done.

In the end 5 people tried our chocolates.  My brother dug into a coconut one, but noticed the bottom resembled a plant before actually eating it 🙂  One of my SILs picked up one of the two regular chocolates in the mixed, popped it in her mouth and said how good they were.  One of our nieces picked out the other legit chocolate and ate it up.  Our crew died a little knowing the full on the laughter we had just missed out on.  Then Josh’s dad late on Christmas night opened one of the coconut brussels sprouts and popped it straight into his mouth and started to chew.  His sudden death from white acrylic paint and hot glue poisoning flashed before my eyes and I immediately started yelling, “Stop chewing.  Don’t eat it.  Stop.  Stop.”  It was the funniest thing in all the lands and well, well worth all our stupid hard work.  Then there was Amon who knew about the joke, watched the joke go down with Big Daddy and then proceeded to open up a Ferrero Rocher Sprout and yell, “Awe, you guys got me.”  I die.

Moral of the whole story:  Mustaches give you better ideas.  Josh Kelley and I might have too much time on our hands OR are evil geniuses.  And Amon, well I could just squeeze him into pieces.

Happy Tuesday.

Wonky Feeling Christmas

This Christmas was rather weird and wonky and heavy.  I feel like I have about zero words lately…hence my absence around these parts.  I just don’t know what all to write, but I miss this space.  I miss you guys.  I miss pecking at these keys.

So how was your Christmas?  I hope it was grand and magical and lovely.  If it didn’t feel like those things, I feel ya and we’re going to make it and survive and maybe even more because God sent this baby and He changed everything.  Like everything everything.  This is the good news.  This is the hope.

When Christmas break kicked off we enjoyed some solo dates with Kelley kids.  Last year everyone chose Josh to go out with except one kiddo.  This year I got picked twice.  My odds are getting better. Harper and I got her hair cut, shopped for her siblings at Target, ate Mexican food and desserted (it’s a real world) on Starbucks cake pops and cookies.

Solomon and I ate an appetizer’s only meal which included cheesesticks, pot stickers with slaw and mini sliders.  He got a fruity bright blue drink to wash it all down.  We shopped at TJ Maxx for his peeps and went with ice cream from Sonic for dessert because it was only 24 degrees outside.

Amon and Hudson chose Josh… Traitors! 🙂  Our littlest is well, too little to do any sort of shopping.

We spent the rest of our days leading up to Christmas doing our kindness advent, baking, watching movies, suffering through crazy cold temps, working a bajillion puzzles including a 1000 piece snow one that Josh Kelley finally abandoned because #ALLTHOSEWHITEPIECES  We ate yummy food, Christmas partied with friends, stayed up way too late and wavered between joy and sadness…resting in His peace and questioning everything.

Christmas Eve arrived and the temps spiked and our kids wore shorts and tees.  It was 64 degrees last night and 70 degrees now.  Not exactly the white Christmas we were dreaming of…break out the Bermuda shorts.  We saw every single cousin in less than 24 hours.  We opened Santa presents with our littlest’ family early in the Christmas morning hours and chatted over sausage balls and canned cinnamon rolls.  Then we ate, ate and ate some more with Josh’s family.  I broke into tears while trying to decide between fudge or buttermilk pie and filled out a giant pile of new adoption paperwork.  I emailed our caseworker and the grant supervisor who is overseeing one of our grants we received…wishing them a Merry Christmas, asking questions and not expecting a reply at all, but I left my in-laws house feeling a sense of accomplishment along with another giant stack of papers ready for the mail.

This morning after my workout I was driving home and caught the sky in my rearview mirror.  I turned around and headed to the Kroger parking lot and then just sat and watched the sky.  Things feel really messy right now on so many different levels.  My stress level can skyrocket with simple thoughts like realizing 2017 is just 5 days away which puts me and our little guy another full year apart…another full year I completely missed.  To put it simply, I feel like a mess.  A jacked up, messed up, wonky mess.

And as I sat there and watched the sky change minute-by-minute and thought about the past few days and the days ahead…when I thought about all those feelings and emotions and downfalls…When I thought about how undeserving I am of pretty much everything…I was reminded of how God sent Jesus for my wonkyness, my brokenness and just my messed-upness in general.  I’m so thankful He shared Jesus with us all, but first with a bunch of messy misfits.

“Now where would your send your splendid choir?  To a big cover hall maybe?  Or a palace perhaps?  God send his to a little hillside, outside a little town, in the middle of the night.  He sent all those angels to sing for a raggedy bunch of shepherds watching their sheep outside Bethlehem.”  -The Jesus Storybook Bible

And that feels like hope.  Big, lovely, messy, gracious hope.

Happy Monday!

The Weary World Rejoices

Life just feels so messy and rough right now.  We’ve got a lot going on in the Kelley house plus the world feels very hard and sad.  We’re working through loss and major tantrums and big decisions and questions and a sweet boy oceans away who needs heart surgeries.  This Christmas season has been speckled with sadness and joy.  I read somewhere years ago…I can’t even remember where now…that joy and grief can co-exist.  I wrote that in a card just this week to friends missing a loved one this season.  And tonight I whispered it to Harper as she cried over Aleppo in her top bunk.  Joy and grief can dance…they can take hold of one another and preform a beautiful, magnificant dance together.

I first talked to our kids about Aleppo a few weeks ago.  I was so overwhelmed by it.  I found myself just reading and sobbing and reading some more.  I felt it necessary to tell them.  Did I show them pictures that might have been too graphic?  Yep.  Did Hudson and I cry together while driving to school?  Yes we did.  Good decision?…Bad decision?…the jury is still out, but I’m starting to think maybe not my worst parenting moment.  I don’t want them to turn their eyes away from the brokenness and sadness of the world.  Instead I want them to turn towards it and then reach out their hands and cry with the world.  We need other people’s pain to become our own.  We need to feel deep compassion and empathy which moves us to action.

With the recent news of Aleppo we dove back into conversations today and more pictures which ended with lots of tears and donations being made to Preemptive Love to help provide food, water and sleeping bags.  We talked about what we could do and they compiled a list.

1.  Give.

2.  Pray.

3.  Go to Aleppo.

4.  Send toys.

5.  Remember.

I want them to take ownership in how we can love those around us.  We talked about how we couldn’t go to Aleppo right now and how toys probably aren’t the best thing to send currently, but how we could do 1, 2 and 5 regularly.  We talked about choosing gratefulness and remembering the people of Aleppo.  We talked about how fighting over pretzels (which had just happened) seemed small and silly when we think about our brothers and sisters in need.  We talked about how we can still celebrate this season, but also remember those in such dire need and how we would do what we could.

If we take the stance “We can’t do anything.  We can’t make a difference.” then we absolutely won’t.  But if we choose to know we can make a difference, then we absolutely will.  When we rally together…when we stand together…we can make a difference.  I want our kids to always know they are world changers.  Jesus calls all of us into it.

A friend was asking me some things about foster care this week.  I told her one of the reasons we are a foster family is because my mind can’t even go to the place of thinking about having my children removed from our home because of a mistake I made…no matter how big or small…or how bad or not so bad…and then placed in a stranger’s home.  I cannot fathom how I would even begin to feel because just starting to think about it makes me want to throw up.  We are foster parents because if the roles were reversed we would want someone fighting for us and loving our children madly.  We would want someone in our corner saying “You can do this.  And we’re here to help you.”  We are foster parents because we want to treat people how we would want to be treated.  This goes for Aleppo too.  And every other situation for that matter.  We are called to treat people as we want to be treated.  To love others how we want to be loved.

When we read about Aleppo in history books years from now, I don’t want to think about how our family did nothing.  I don’t want to think about how our family turned our heads the other way.  I want to know we treated the people of Aleppo how we would want to be treated if we we’re the family running for our lives and trying to protect & feed our babies.

Harper was still pretty upset about it all tonight after she went to bed.  I ended up snuggled in her top bunk under her covers next to her.  We cried together and hashed things out.  I told her how one of the main reasons I love our kindness advent is because God planted it on my heart in such a desolate moment of my life.  I was so sad…so grieved…so hopeless feeling after losing Mom and there in the grief and sadness God planted this piece of joy.  I still remember reading a photo copied devotion my friend Sandra gave me about how even when we don’t know what to do for ourselves, we can always do for others.  I told Harper how even in our most hopeless of moments God can do wondrous things.  He can bring joy in the midst of sadness. He can bring hope and peace in the midst of war and heartache.  He can make things new and beautiful even when they seem far too broken.  That’s what He does.  That’s the jaw dropping, redemptive beauty of our God.  Beauty from ashes.

We ended our bed chat/cryfest talking about how O Holy Night is one of our favorite Christmas songs because of one line “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”  God never told us not to be sad.  God never said to not take on our neighbor’s pain.  We can still be weary and downtrodden and rejoice.  We can be sad and have our breath taken away by the thrill of hope we find in Him alone.  Joy and grief can dance.  So that’s our plan for the rest of the Christmas season.  We’re remembering Aleppo…and other’s in our lives and around us who are facing hard things…we’re choosing kindness and generosity…we’re looking towards the pain…we’re feeling it…and we’re rejoicing in the hope of Jesus.

 *If you would like to donate directly to aid on the ground in Aleppo GO HERE.

*Great read about Aleppo HERE.

*Shannan always says it 10x better than I every could.

*See Beyond Despair in Aleppo is a must read.

*7 real things you can do right now about the catastrophe in Aleppo

Hello Monday!

One of our last kindness advent activities was encouraging sticky notes left in a public bathroom.  Harper went the extra mile this year by also sticky noting the toilet paper dispensers and the back of the stall doors.  Girl goes all out 🙂

We ended this year’s kindness advent with flowers.  Amon, Solomon and I eat a ton of pickles.  I made this pact with myself once I realized how many jars of pickles we were tearing through that I would fill every empty jar with flowers and give them away.  Josh Kelley said something had to give when I had stock piled 7 jars, but I had a plan.

We bought several different bunches of flowers and then assembled them into all the jars.  Christmas Day we gave all the jars away to neighbors, friends and family.  And our kindness advent ended on a colorful note.

The weather has been insane in Tennessee.  Super warm, shorts and tees and tornados.  Crazy town for Christmas weather.  And the weather has taken a serious tole on the allergic/asthma kid variety…which is Hudson Kelley.  Pour kid has been hitting his peace pipe like crazy.  He goes into his “ahhhhh, I can finally breath zone” when he does his treatments.  Cracks us up.

We’re game people around our house.  We like games and our kids like games and they totally love to learn new games.  This Christmas we’ve played old and new favorites.  Harper and Sol are playing speed and slap jack everyday now which is fun…except when one of them schools me.  I’m their mother…I’m suppose to beat them every time.

In Josh’s family we all draw names so everyone gets one present.  Josh asked for the Pie Face game and a new pocket knife.  This game really is as fun as it looks.  We played and all just howled with laughter.  Amon was the best because he went nutso crazy with excitement every time he got pied and then broke down into tears when he didn’t.  He also wanted high-5s every time he got pied.  So much fun!!!

I have the absolute funniest video ever of littlest getting pied.  It is hilarious and I so wish I could share it.  Just imagine the cutest little one with whip cream all over one eye with the grandest smile in all the land.  It’s the best.  She also has started feeding herself with a spoon, so I’ll sub in this picture of her finishing off whatever is in her bowl.

Holidays always put me out of sorts a bit.  Things are all over the place and mixed up and busy and we fall out of our routine.  I struggle with what things should really look like…how should our Christmas really go down each year.  Every year I find my heart in turmoil, but always land on we just have to do our best…we just have to try and love like Jesus did.  This Christmas proved to be very different than last year’s and quite emotional.  I’m so glad it was different though…different is good.  Different proved to be crazy beautiful.  So thankful I get to do this messy wild life with Josh Kelley.  His heart you guys, ahhhhh, crazy good and humble.

I’m super excited for the New Year.  I am already praying over 2016 and all it may hold.  I am asking God for big things…for more grace and love and redemption and restoration.  I cannot wait to see what He has in store.

Happy Monday!

Catching Up

Hi!  I’ve been missing you guys, but life is just crazy-to-the-town lately.  We’re trying to be flexible and roll with it, but man, sometimes it’s just hard.  I don’t even know where I left off here on our kindness advent.  I really like to give you guys ideas to use or change or adjust for your own families.  We were suppose to paint rocks and leave them at the park/sidewalks one day.  The kids love this one.  Instead of rocks, this year I asked my FIL to cut some slices of wood for the kids to paint.  I might never go back to rocks again.  So crazy cute.

The kids wrote Christmasy notes one day, taped gift cards to the back and then left them in shopping carts.  I loved this one because they did it all and when it was time to drop them in carts I seriously just drove around the parking lot, opened the van door and children would hop in and out doing their drop offs.

We took Josh’s dad…aka Big Daddy…out to the movies.  Big Daddy is always treating everyone else so we treated him.  And let me just say how flippin’ fantastic the new Star Wars is!!!!  You guys, if you have not seen it yet, oh my.  It’s crazy crazy good.  Everyone loved it…big and small.  We then proceeded to talk about the movie for hours after it was over.  Ahhhhhh, we all want to see it again.

Tonight we’re doing our surprise yard inflatable.  Josh Kelley had a stroke of genius last year when he added this to our list.  It has become a fast favorite.  Last year they chose a 7ft tall polar bear, but this year then went smaller.  Santa Yoda…yes, please.  They are super pumped.

Tomorrow we are buying someone’s lunch.

We’ve been taking the kids on solo dates to do their shopping for their siblings.  Last year Harper was the only one who chose me.  Wah wah.  This year Hudson is the only one who chose me.  Clearly Josh Kelley is a fan favorite.  Hudson is also the only kid who picked breakfast and a Krispy Kreme breakfast at that.  Not a bad deal on my part.  Oh man I like that kid.

 Our shopping is all done.  Kids are wrapping presents and we still have a few to wrap as well.  I also have 2 things left to make…I do this every year.  Procrastination is my game.  I can’t believe Christmas is almost here.  Hope you’re ready.

See you tomorrow.

Happy Tuesday.

A Mess

Our kindness advent it still moving along.  Tuesday we left a note and treat for our trash man.  We’ve done this every year and this year the big kids decided to skip the whole angst of whether or not he would see it or dump it and just run it out to him themselves. And then it was time for school and he still had not come by.  So I waited with the two littles.  Amon started screaming and cheering when he picked up the treat.  Success.

Yesterday we left a note and treat for our mailman.  We’ve got some amazing people in our lives who are just doing their job well and kind and with joy.  A kid’s thank you note, cookies and a Cracker Barrel gift card can simply say “Thank you”.

Today we took treats and goodies to our pediatrician’s office.  This one always makes me a tad emotional and lately I’ve been a lost cause anyways.  Our doctors and nurses and administration always take such great care of all our kids, but I always think about Amon and his special heart.  Geez.  Being kind and nice can have such an impact on someone’s life.  Choosing to be compassionate and empathetic can change the world.  This special office has done all of that.  Our pediatrician knew Mom and still talks about her.  “I was thinking about your mom just this morning.  She always did ______”  Do you know what that does for one’s heart?!?!  Amazing things.  We are crazy blessed with accessible health care and good, kind and caring professionals who look after us.

Here’s what I ended up making…Smores BarkCaramel Pretzel Magic Bars, (Josh Kelley was not a fan, but I was) Crockpot Candy, Christmas Candy Bark, Saltine Cracker Toffee (this is basically like crack…WOW!!!) and Andes Mint Cookies.  You can see all the recipes collectively HERE.

Tomorrow we are leaving notes with gift cards in shopping carts.

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The past 7 days has been wild for us.  We’re sitting with a lot of big emotions and feelings lately and sometimes you have to simply hold on.  We’re adjusting back into a family of 7.  Things are just hard and complicated sometimes.  I have a thousand thoughts and feelings I have sat down multiple times to type and then I just close my computer because I couldn’t quite make sense of everything.  And I still can’t.  I thought “How do I connect 5000 thoughts that somehow make it into my head and heart and mull around all together?”  I still don’t know so I’m just going to keep typing.

*I’ve decided I’m a mess.  And our family is a mess.  And if I had to guess you might be a mess too…maybe.  I think about the disaster I turn into everyday.  Sin after sin after sin.  I get so pissed off about things I really should be giving compassion and mercy and grace to.  I put my sins on repeat and continue to fall on my face.  I let my pride win and I think I have it all figured out.  I think my way is the best way and don’t even think about offering me a different route.  I think I know better than Jesus most days.  Josh Kelley gets my worst.  My kids get my worst.  I find myself holding tight to grace when it should fall freely from my hands because I am #1 in line who needs it desperately.  You guys I’ve got nothing figured out and every night I think, “Okay God.  Let’s give this another go tomorrow.”

*God has been teaching me about how valuable and important people’s stories are.  For over a year now I’ve been trying to lean into people’s stories.  I can be so quick to judge, but when I shove my know-it-all-self aside and choose to listen and be curious and invest, sometimes people share and it’s one of the greatest honors ever.  I then begin to understand others and their lives and how they arrived to the place where they are.  I begin to see how impactful our stories are on others and who we are now and who we are becoming.  Our stories shape and mold us into who we are…they are valuable and deserve a listening ear and an empathetic heart.  It’s easy to make judgments from the outside…from the surface of what I think I know, but when I get to digging and people share, I get a glimpse into the truth of people’s hearts and lives.  I keep thinking about how I want my own heart and story to be handled by others, so in turn, how will I respond and handle the stories of others who share with me.  I can’t help but feel this is such a crucial decision…I want to be so careful.

*I sat with a friend for hours yesterday talking about really hard things.  This life is just damn hard.  Sometimes I think “Why God?  Why all that?  Why did you think they we’re strong enough to handle that mess?”  I don’t give Him the credit He deserves and I certainly question His judgement.  I forget we can do crazy hard things because He lives in us.  I’m right we aren’t strong enough, but Christ is.  He can do immeasurably more than we ever imagined.  He brings beauty from the ashes.  He takes our broken selves and makes something incredible.  He does what only He can do.  This world makes zero sense sometimes.  None.  Hebrews has been spot on for me lately.  Just word after word after word….each time just stabbing my heart.  It’s good you guys.

Hebrews 8:9 “…when I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt.”

This verse captured me immediately.  It spoke to the mess I am and the mess everyone else is too.  The Creator of the world…God Himself…will take us by the hand and lead us out of our mess.  It makes me weepy and thankful and humbled.  He comes into our mess, into our brokenness, into our sadness, into our pride, into our judgment, into our hate, into our bitterness, into our sin, into our shortcomings…into anything we can offer up…He is not scared or too good or afraid of exactly as we are.  I am crazy thankful I don’t have to fix myself or clean myself up for Him because I would be in a constant whirlpool…I would never get there and so, instead He comes right down into my mess with me and grabs me by the hand.  Geez.  What a good good God He is.

*I am for sure an emotional mess lately.  I want to claim it’s the holidays, but let’s be real, it’s pretty much all the time.  I have bounced between rock hard and soft mush my entire life and currently I am in a perpetual soft mush emotional state.  I recently cleaned out my office and had a giant pile of stuff I wanted to get rid of.  I let friends and family pilfer through it and then donated what was left.  My friend Ashley stopped by one day…she’s a teacher and a lover of junk…so I told her to come look though my pile.  She took a few things…one being a gallon ziplock bag of wooden thread spools I had covered in different fabrics.  I’m not one to hold onto to things.  I like to think of myself as a minimalist, but for over three years I had held onto those wooden spools because I had sat by Amon’s hospital bed and tried to busy my hands by covering each spool in brightly covered fabric as machines beeped around me and fear and grief had taken a tight grip on my heart over Amon’s heart and the loss of mom.  I was in the bank drive-thru today when she sent me this picture.

She took those wooden spools and made this beautiful wreath for her friend who is a high school sewing teacher.  It made me cry like a giant baby…it made her friend cry too.  I could not get over how amazing it was and how amazing Ashley is.  The simple yet astounding thoughtfulness and love she had put into this wreath made my heart swell.  It’s a testimate to Ashely’s heart and her kindness.  She’s one of the good ones.  And I know so many kind people just like her.  It blew me away.  I ask God all the time to show me His goodness and I found it today in Ashely’s simple love and kindness for her friend.

So that’s the state of my mind and heart currently.  It’s all over the place.  A mess like I said.  And it’s okay to be a mess.  Jesus makes it okay.  What a God we serve who takes us just as we are, meets us in our mess and then uses us despite ourselves.  I might not understand it all and I might question the fire out of God, but how comforting it is to know He not only is okay with me coming to Him just as I am, but that He is there and loves me so fiercely.

2 Christmas Favorites

Last Friday we had the craziest day.  Amon and I ended up at the courthouse at 10am and didn’t get home until almost 5.  The craziest, wildest, emotional kind of day.  That alone knocked out our kindness advent for the day which was shopping for a family for Christmas.  Life happens and you just have to roll along with it.

   Saturday we recouped.  The kids were having friends spend the night so everyone got in on the kindness.  We love Redbox and love to share Redbox movies with others.  You can buy Redbox gift cards or just rental codes on their website which is super fun.  In the past we have done a Redbox bucket/bag with treats and a gift card, but this year we bought several codes, printed them off and then drove around to all our local Redboxes.  Each kiddo got to either tape a code to an empty machine or hand a code to someone waiting in line.  They loved it.  This is the only picture I snagged and Hudson Kelley absolutely perplexes my mind.  I have no clue what he is doing.  Zero, but he is wearing a Santa hat.

Yesterday we handed out Christmas books to kiddos shopping in a store and we also got in our shopping for a family we missed on Friday.  One Target, two birds.  #cornball  The kids are definitely bolder and braver this year with their words.  In the past I have had to do a lot of explaining on their behalf, but this year they are using their words to explain what they are doing and why.  I love it!  We do still have to step in sometimes or yell a Merry Christmas so people aren’t crazy creeped by us, but definitely less than any other year.

Tip for book purchasing:  I’m a huge Scholastic book fan.  They typically have amazing prices and they do so much for teachers.  They also have huge warehouse sales where all books are 50-80% off.  You can check out their website and see if one is near you.  I almost always go to their warehouse sale to snag our Christmas books we give out, but the past two years I’ve ordered from our classroom teachers.  Their teachers get points and free books when kiddos order so I didn’t mind the extra dollars when I know our teachers are benefitting.  The kids still got to choose the books, I did not have to leave our house and all the books came home in Solomon’s backpack 🙂  All I do is win, win, win no matter what! #namethatsong

For our kindness today we are handing out candy canes.  In the past when this has been picked we go to our community center and hand them out there.  This year all the kids decided they wanted to take them to school for their classmates.  I have to say I love how into this they are.  They are taking ownership of their kindness and thinking about it so who am I to argue when they throw a new idea out there.  Plus they adore their classmates and I’m so glad they want to love on them too.

Tomorrow we are leaving a treat for our trash guy.  This is always our most suspenseful one…everyone waits on pins and needles…will it go in the trash or will he see it!?!?!?  For the record, we have done this one every year so we are currently 4 for 4 on him seeing the treat and not dumping it.

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In other news I wanted to share two Christmas favorites today:  One being my favorite gift we’re giving and two a favorite gift wrap.

We are Santa believers…not that he’s watching us and sees us when we’re sleeping because that kind of creeps me out, but we love the magic and whimsy and fun of Santa so our kids are still believers at this point.  They also are fully aware lots of kids and families do not do Santa.  We’re really big on “different strokes for different folks” around our house…no family is just like us and that is a-okay.  So they know some kids get presents from their parents/guardians/whoever.

Our family does 3 gifts and some treats in their stockings.  They make their little lists…Sol put his in the mailbox, Hudson put his in his stocking and Harper just kept hers this year.  Picking gifts for them is crazy fun.  We try and keep things super reasonable because A)  There are 4 of them and that can get quite expensive and B)  They just don’t need anything.

I am super excited about one of Harper’s gifts this year…a full on personal mail kit.  This kid writes letters and sends mail like there’s no tomorrow.  I cannot say enough how much I adore this about her and this gift is a bit of a splurge and I am totally cool with it.  Here’s what I ended up with: personalized stationary, address stamp, mini pens, stamps, mini stapler and 2 rolls of washi tape all in a cute box.

Here’s where I got everything.

Folk Florals personalized stationary by Minted (sign up for their email and get a coupon to use)

Self inking address stamp from Amazon seller RubberStampCreation (no ink pad required)

Ink Joy Minis by PaperMate (found these at Walgreens $2.99)

Stamps from our post office 🙂

Mini Swingline Stapler (found at Kroger of all places…on sale for $1.99 but also saw at Target)

Two rolls of washi tape from Joanns.  $3.99 each, but use those coupons party people.  I refuse to pay full price for anything at a craft store with all the coupons available.  And Joanns will accept Hobby Lobby and Michaels coupons.

And a cute little box to hold it all from Hobby Lobby…again, use those coupons!

Harper is going to crazy love this.  She’s almost nine now and her gifts are starting to sway towards older kid which makes me miss her little days, but crazy love her current days.  I mean, you guys, she asked for a cd player…like a boom box.  God love her.  And thank you HHGregg for still carrying “boom boxes” hahahahaha.

And here’s my current favorite Christmas wrapping idea…paper stockings.  So easy.  So cute.  So festive.  I love to use these for teacher gifts and gift cards, etc.

I usually use all brown craft paper, but this year I made one side craft paper and the other side wrapping paper.  I drew out a stocking design big enough to hold our goodies, traced, cut, sewed the two pieces together, decorated and sewed them shut.  Harper and I did these together while the boys were mountain biking Sunday afternoon.

Hope your Monday is off to a great start.  Here’s to another grand week.

Happy Monday.

Seven Things

1.  I’ve had some unplanned solo time with Hudson lately.  This is very rare.  We did things like play mancala, look at legos on the interwebs, watch the lego movie…he’s kind of lego crazy.  I told him the other day while at his 7 year check up that I was going to ask the doctor if I should be concerned about his love of legos.  He is the child who was born with a furrowed brow…his brain thinks through everything and leans toward worry.  He looked at me with his furrowed brow and said, “Are you really worried about me?  I do think about Legos a lot.  Is that normal?”  Sweet thing.

2.  I bailed on Christmas cards this year.  We like to keep this season relatively not crazy busy and Christmas cards are always daunting to me…so this year I nixed them.  And the world is still spinning.  Shocker right?!?!  But for your viewing pleasure here is the picture I thought would be wildly funny to send to people.

Merry Awkward Christmas!  You have my full permission to use this for your screen saver.  #yourewelcome

3.  Sasquatch Design Company is still selling new tees for the Ngungwane Garden Fund.  Crazy soft.  Crazy cool.  And crazy good community you will be linking arms with.  It’s such a good purchase with a purpose this Christmas.  Check them out HERE.

4.  Josh Kelley and I had a rare few hours solo the other night.  We went to the gym and then ate BBQ nachos.  Speaking of BBQ nachos, I have officially found THE.BEST.BBQ.NACHOS.EVER!!!!  Edleys wins the top BBQ nachos award.  I can’t even talk about it…makes me weepy.  Eat them and then email me with all the love that has built up in your heart because of their sheer goodness…then buy me a plate of them to say “thank you”.

5.  Amon has become a bed hopper.  In the morning when he gets up he moves from bed to bed to bed.  He likes some snuggles in the morning.  The other morning I heard him climbing up into Harper’s top bunk and heard her say, “Hey there my big boy.”  Geez.  They are ridiculous together.

6.  Our kindness advent yesterday was taking cookies to our police and fire station.  Today we are taking a treat to the salvation army bell ringer at our local grocery store.  And tomorrow we are buying Christmas for a family.

7.  And I still have plenty of things for sale if you need a last minute Christmas gift.  I’m shipping out asap so things have plenty of time to arrive before Christmas.  Check out available items HERE.

Happy Thursday!