27 Acts of Kindness

When I heard about the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, I felt complete shook and horror, just like I'm sure most people did. I couldn't believe someone could kill 27 innocent people, and especially young children.  As the week went on, I saw more and more posts on face book about how evil our world is. It seemed like there was nothing but negativity out there. I felt sadness, anger, devastation, fear, and so many more emotions, but I never felt like we lived in an evil world. I think we live in a wonderful world, filled with incredibly good, amazing people, with a few bad ones mixed in. I don't think we should let this act of violence, or any others define who we are as a nation, or a world for that matter. Then I ran across an article on the Internet about a news anchor that had similar feelings as me. She thought up the idea of doing random acts of kindness in memory of each of the Sandy Hook victims. Stop giving so much attention to the man that committed the acts, and start focusing on spreading good in memory of the people lost. I LOVED the idea! We waited until Christmas was over, and then went to work. 

We went to the Cocoa Bean Cafe and had them individually box up 27 cupcakes for us. We stuck a note on the top of each one that said:

27 Acts of Kindness

In memory of the Sandy Hook Victims

(name and age of a victim)

There is more good than evil in this world, all you have to do is spread it

 Our cupcakes

 Then we set out across town handing out cupcakes to random people! Sawyer, Andrew, and Savanna were scared to death to approach strangers, but Bailey and Neesha were pros!

 Our first stop was the bank. They each walked up to a separate teller and gave them a cupcake. Next we went to Petsmart. We gave one to each of the groomers in the back. Bailey and Neesha saw a special needs boy in the store that goes to their school, so they gave one to him too. The next stop was the mall. We gave them to random people walking around, and some of the workers behind the counters in some of the shops. Then we went to Gold's Gym and gave them to the workers at the front desk. Next was a vet office, where we gave them to the ladies who run the front desk.

Our last stop was the library, because there is a lady that works there that says something nice to us every time we go there. Sure enough, while the girls were waiting in line to give them their cupcakes, she looked up and asked Bailey where she got her sweater because she thought it was great. 

It may have forced us out of our comfort zones, but I hope we made 27 people happy. Hopefully they will catch the spirit of what we did, and chose their own 27 acts of kindness to pass on. Will you?

Merry Christmas!

I took the kids out on a Sunday morning to take pictures of them for our Christmas cards. They were being big brats (and by THEY, I mean Sawyer). So, I finally gave up and decided on this instead. I thought it was perfect.

 Our card said, "Wishing you a silent night."

That will teach them to complain about Christmas pictures in the future!

We did all of our usual traditions for Christmas Eve. I tried to talk Bailey out of making cookies for Santa this year. The neighbors had brought us plenty of treats we could have easily shared with him, but she wouldn't hear of it. So, she made cookies.

 She's wearing Sawyer's shirt in all of these pictures, because earlier in the evening, he managed to dump a whole cup of water on her. She decided she didn't want extra laundry to do, so she went up to change clothes, and came down wearing his! Haha, gotta love her!

We didn't get a picture of the Christmas story that we read this year. It was a cute story called Christmas Bliss. After our story, we went out to throw our reindeer dust. I can't believe that this is our last reindeer dust with Sawyer. It makes me so sad. The pictures just won't be the same without him :(!

At least he put on a good show for his last time!

 Before bed they got to open a present. Yay! Gift cards from my Dad!

Santa came! Christmas morning started bright and early like always. We were done opening everything by 6:30. Then we spent the rest of the day playing with our new stuff!

 All ready to get started!

 Sawyer got a stereo system for his car. His went out a little while back, and you just can't be a teenager without music in the car. He was pretty happy!

 Even Reeses and Oreo got lots of treats and toys!

 One Direction and Carrie Underwood CDs!

 Bailey got the boys new pajama pants!

 His favorite gift was probably his Ipod touch. Bailey was happy too, because she'll probably get it when he leaves on his mission.

Bailey got a head to practice doing hair on. Sawyer is totally and completely creeped out by it, so Bailey finds great joy leaving her in random places for him to find. She left the head sitting at the foot of his bed in the dark one night. That was fun for all of us :)! She's actually washed, dried, curled, and styled the hair about a zillion times already.

She got a whole box full of crazy socks! She was so excited to be restocked!

Mark made her this great piece of furniture! It spins, and there is something on all four sides. One side has shelves and baskets, another side has a cork/magnet board.

It also has a full length mirror on one side, and hooks to hang coats, bags, and medals on the last side. She loves it!

 Sawyer with all of his loot!

 Bailey with all of her stuff!

 Even the dogs loved everything they got. They ate treats and snuggled with their new stuffed animals all day.

Merry Christmas!

Sniffy the Elf

Santa got in contact with me and told me that they had a naughty elf living in the North Pole. His name was Sniffy, and he needed a home for the month of December, because he was too distracting for all the elves that were trying to work hard and get ready for Christmas. We had a family meeting and the kids agreed that Sniffy could come live with us for a while. They had NO IDEA what they were getting themselves into! 

 Meet our new friend Sniffy! He's cute, but he does tend to get into a lot of mischief! He did something naughty every night while we slept. 

He toilet papered our Christmas tree!

 

I have to admit, most of what he did cracked me up! It usually was directed toward the kids, like when he took down our stockings, and hung up their underwear instead.

 He sticky noted the inside and outside of Sawyer's car!

 This may have been my favorite. He drew on the picture on our entry way table!

 He dyed our milk blue and green. That made for a fun week of cereal!

 He took a 'bubble bath' in the kids bathroom sink.

 We found out that he loves roasting marshmallows.

 He emptied the kids shoe cabinet and made a tower at their breakfast spots!

 Silly elf! He went fishing in the toilet!

 It took too long for us to get snow, so he created his own, and made snow angels on the counter.

 He tried to get his own breakfast but got stuck.

 Another one of my favorites. He turned one of the reindeer in our front yard into Rudolph and went for a ride. This one took the kids a while to find.

 He really outdid himself on this night! He wrapped our toilet! I'm not gonna lie, I cracked up when Sawyer ran into the bathroom because he had to go really bad. All we heard was a scream, and then fast foot steps heading to the bathroom upstairs!

 The kids wouldn't take him to school, so one night he tied himself to Sawyer's steering wheel with a note that said, "Please take me with you! Don't make me spend another day with Mom!" The kids got a kick out of that. And just on a side note...he did actually make it to school once, because he hid in the bottom of Bailey's backpack :)!

 We actually thought he was being nice for a change, because he left candy bars for the kids. But, when they opened their candy bars, Sniffy had already taken a big bite out of them.

 He was going to brush his teeth, but got distracted, and ended up writing on their mirror with the tooth paste. At least he wrote something nice.

 This one made me laugh right out loud. He found some friends, and they all took a carousel ride on the ceiling fan!

 Or how about the night he filled the kids shower with 48 balloons!

 This one was the BEST! He wrote all over Sawyer's car windows! Me, Mark, and Bailey were laughing so hard, but for some reason Sawyer refused to drive to school that day! He had Andrew come and get him, so I had to take Bailey myself! Thanks a lot Sniffy!

 He found some friends again, and they had a big snowball fight all over the living room!

 Sniffy took a snowball right to the eye! I'm sure he deserved it.

 He got into all the Christmas books and had his own story time.

 He crate papered the kids into their rooms! Wish I could have seen their faces when they opened their doors in the morning.

Sawyer thought this one was pretty funny! He wanted to be the star!

We thought Santa had picked him up on Christmas Eve, but he had really hidden himself in one of the presents! 

He's gone now, but it sure was a crazy month with him here. I wonder if he'll start behaving himself, or if they'll want us to take him again next year?!?