Helping Haiti

We have a good friend, Sonya, who is very involved with the organization The Red Thread Promise. This is a wonderful organization that has provided support to children in Haiti especially after the earthquake.
Sonya makes several trips to Haiti each year and does various fund raisers to help cover her costs.We have always tried to be supportive of her cause and the kids are all interested in helping. Before she leaves for a trip she is always collecting much needed supplies to take to the children. Kyle usually heads this project at our house, selecting what items we should contribute and helping the other kids with the shopping. It has been a great way for the kids to learn and stay involved in helping the cause on a regular basis.
  The cake above was the Valentine's fund raiser she held.  It was perfect for an early Valentine's celebration tonight. Yes, it tasted as good as it looked!
By far this was my favorite way to help contribute!

Cookie Marathon

 We have an awesome church with some of the best people I have met. Ethan really loves his Sunday School class and group of friends.  My friend Karen suggested we get our boys together along with a couple of other boys and take on baking most of the cookies needed for the Open Shelter Meal that our congregation is serving this week.
So last Sunday all of the moms brought batches of cookie dough and put our boys to work. Bake they did, a total of 16 dozen cookies in about an hour and a half! Pretty good if you ask me. They had a great time together and how awesome to provide such an important part of the meal, dessert!
After they popped the cookies in the freezer they headed out for a quick basketball game.
Thanks for a wonderful afternoon Peace Ladies! We need to do that again!

Hats, Mittens, & Food Oh My!

What a huge haul we had from donations at our Santa party! We hit an all time high! Over 100 food items, the Pickerington Food Pantry was very grateful. The final count was 68 mittens and gloves, 38 hats, and 3 scarves. By the end of the party the entry to our office was totally blocked. We literally had to jump over bags and boxes filled with goodies.
Paige and I delivered the mittens to City Hall for their mitten tree which will be distributed next week. The tree was pretty full, there was no way all of ours would even fit,  so we tried to make them look festive under the tree. What an awesome experience for all the kids. We are so appreciative of those who donate and make our collection a success. Our kids are so proud to take everything in. All of the kids work hard to clean the house, bake, and help get ready in general. It is truly a family effort, one that has become a beloved tradition for all of us. Taking the food and mittens in is really a great treat for them to see their work pay off.
Thanks so much to all who donated! We have helped to brighten someones Christmas a little bit.

Relay For Life

Ethan wanted to participate in Relay for Life. He loves to run and had so much fun doing the 5K for Jonah last month that he wanted to do Relay for Life. His Mimi is a cancer survivor so he wanted to walk in her honor. He raised $240 and was so excited to get on the track. He said to me the other day "I know this is for cancer but can I walk for Jonah too?" I told him he could walk for anyone he wanted. What a sweet soul he has!

 Whitney and BJ went with him and the girls and I cheered them all on. They did four miles in their hour, not too bad when you are only eleven. The three of them are planning to do the Bexley 5K on July 4th. I am so glad to see Ethan enjoying himself! He is a pretty athletic child and prefers independent sports over teams so all this running is fitting a nice niche with him.

Ethan - I am really proud of you taking the initiative and joining the cause. You did a fabulous job raising money and what a great night with your aunt and uncle. What a special week you have had while Kyle has

been gone. You will have as much to share with him as he does with you!

There was some sprinting going on, Ethan was in the lead and then BJ, not sure what Whitney was doing. She must be getting...old!

The girls were so patient watching. Of course it probably helped that they were so tired from swimming all afternoon!

Bringing A Little Spring!

Last week we delivered Easter flowers to shut ins for church. We went to a new assisted living facility in Pickerington. The kids had a ball! All of the residents have apartments and it is a beautiful facility. We usually go to a nursing home so this was a change for them and they really liked it. We were able to stay and visit with the church members we were delivering to and they loved talking with the kids. It was a great way to start our Easter week.

Helping Haiti

These girls are awesome! Last week at our Brownie meeting I suggested a bake sale to benefit a charity to help work on our Penny Power Try it. We talked about a couple of organizations that could use money and decided on Haiti. Then the girls got baking!
WOW! They had a packed table with every kind of treat imaginable. Our grand total at the end of the day was $93.41!
Great job girls you did a fabulous job!


Molly is looking forward to being a Daisy next year, she has watched her big sis AnnMarie be in Girl Scouts for the last 4 years.

Offering a Helping Hand

Over this past weekend we went over to our friend Mrs. Smith's house to weed and clean up her flower beds and plant some flowers for summer. While Lindy and I were shopping for the flowers and mulch, Bill was busy digging out more space for a larger bed under the front window. Mrs. Smith is housebound so he wanted to give her a good view of the flowers. It was a lot of work but the kids really enjoyed doing this for her.

We were going to take the Brownie Troop over to do this but many girls were not available. All of our kids still wanted to go and work on the yard and Bill was not able to go many other times. We will be taking the Brownies over to weed this summer. Good Work kids I know that Mrs. Smith really appreciated all of your work!

Some serious manual labor by these little girls.

Planting, planting, planting....

Snacking, snacking, snacking.

Kyle can do some serious grown up work now! I can count on him to carry heavy bags of mulch for me, mow, trim, and do just about anything I need. When did he grow up?!

Ethan worked on this little corner by the front door. Mrs. Smith may see this when she goes outside for appointments. He weeded it really well,cleared the ivy and put in flowers. It looked great and he couldn't wait for her to see it. Words from Ethan, " I love working on other people's yards." He really enjoys going to work on Mimi's while Kyle is mowing and he had a great time doing this.

Lindy chose these hanging baskets to hang on the shepards hook. Mrs. Smith love the fuchsia. She used to be quite the gardner and has a little greenhouse on the back of her house. She knows all kinds of flowers so we had quite the challange to give variety and find some neat colors for her to look at.

They were hot and tired but proud of a job well done!

Acts of Service

Kyle had the opportunity to help at the Pickerington Food Pantry to sort food. He was doing it for his Boy Scout Community Service Hours and it was planned to coincide with doing Acts of Service today. There were about 25 people there and Kyle and another boy were the only scouts (I think they were too tired from the camp in!). The boxes of food collected from the holidays was huge! Things were very organized and I asked if I could stay to help and they were not turning down any hands. These are my favorite kinds of activities and ones that I want instilled deeply into my children. I want them to always volunteer and jump in to help where ever needed.

As I checked expiration dates on the food, Kyle sorted everything into the appropriate boxes. That was interesting, some of the donated items are things I have not heard of, Kyle was clueless (Cherry Peppers? I would not even know what to do with them!). We did best with corn, green beans, and Macaroni and Cheese.

It was nice to spend a couple of hours helping the community alongside my boy! I don't get the opportunity to do many scout activities with him so it was a nice treat. Keep up the good service Kyle, we all need to do our part to help.

A little community service

Peace to all of you!

Each year we do something for the community at Christmas time. This is how our hat and mitten donation got started and I am always looking for ways to help my kids help others. It is probably the one thing that I feel is the most important in raising my children, to think of and serve others. I want it to be the most natural thing for them that they don't even have to think about doing it, they just do.

Last year we did gift boxes to soldiers in Kuwait. We had a great time choosing gifts and packing everything up. This year we started doing projects in November so that we were not rushed. We are ending our season by taking 7 dozen cookies to the nursing home near our house that took care of our friend, Mrs. Smith, last year when she broke her hip. We hope that the staff and residents enjoyed the treats. They were delighted to see our smiling faces and the plate piled with goodies. It feels so good to bring smiles to others faces.

Erin is so proud to deliver her hard work!

Hats and Mitten Donation

Thank you , thank you to all who attended our Santa party. We collected close to 60 hats or mittens to donate to needy children. Lindy and Paige counted up everything and I could not resist trying on these cute hats. Erin helped me deliver them to our church who have numerous groups they can distribute items to.
As parents, Bill and I thank all of you for helping us have a successful project for our children to do. They receive, count, bag, and deliver all of the items. It is wonderful to see how excited they get when they realize how many kids will be warm this winter. Have a wonderful Christmas season!