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Loving this little lady!

38 Random Acts of Kindness

I celebrated my 38th birthday this week. It was a wonderful celebration. I wasn't planning on doing much for my birthday this year, but I found this idea on pinterest a few weeks back and decided to take the idea and make it my own.

There was a girl who decided to do 38 random acts of kindness for her 38th birthday. I thought that would be a wonderful way to celebrate my birthday. I designed an invite and a list of 38 random acts. I invited my girlfriends to pick a few acts to do together as a group. We gathered together Saturday morning and headed out for a few hours to begin our acts of kindness. After a few hours my family met up with me and we finished up the list through out the rest of the day. This way I was able to have a little girl time and spend the day with my family. I wanted my boys to see us serving and being nice to other people. I think that is an important thing to teach children so I want to start while they are young.

We completed 38 random acts of kindness although there were a few on the list that we weren't able to complete (although we tried), we found others ways to served that brought us to a total of 38+. It was a wonderful day and a great way to celebrate my birthday. I am thankful I have great friends who are willing to run around town with me serving others.

Here are some pictures of our day:

This was the invite that I designed. I also had the list of 38 acts that we were going to do printed out on card stock for each girl. Next to each act is a little heart to check off as we completed the act. The girls brought these home so they could see all the nice things we accomplished during our time together.

I made little sugar and spice jars for the girls as a thank you for coming and serving with me. You shake them up and sprinkle it over toast, in oatmeal or on fruit.

This is the back of the jar with the ingredients listed and usage instructions. I thought it was a good gift for the fall coming up.

Here we are at Lake Merritt passing out water bottles and home grown apples to the walkers and joggers going by. Rachel picked the water bottle act so she made cute little labels saying Share the Love - do an act of kindness in celebration of Corene's birthday. So cute, I loved that!

Here is Rachel tossing an apple to the jogger.

One of the acts that Cat picked was to drop coins at the park for little kids to find.

Look at this little boy showing his dad what he saw laying there on the playground.

How adorable is that. Cat made his day!

This girl pulled up behind us on Grand Ave. as we were loading up. We decided to pay her parking meter for her. We thought that would be better then adding to someone elses meter not knowing if they needed the extra time or not. She was pretty excited about that, we put 2 hours in for her which was several dollars.

Here we are at IKEA/Bay St. Here we were writing notes to put in our favorite books at Barnes and Noble for the readers to find.

Here is Elise snacking on some 7 layer dip. I made individual 7 layer dips in mason jars along with my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (with maple frosting) for us all to eat while writing our notes.


Here we are taping notes and coins onto the vending machine. I really like this one as well. Rachel picked it and she had paper saying - Dear Vending Machine User.... and then we filled in a nice little note. It was cute. We taped several notes up.

Can you see our note taped onto the machine. It is in the middle of the diet Coke and the Coke Zero.

Here we returned a bunch of IKEA shopping carts to the store. We also left happy notes on car windows in the parking lot of IKEA.

Our last stop with the girls was to the local fire station to drop off thank you notes and homemade cookies. I knew my boys would love this one so my family met up with us to do this one. They loved seeing the firemen and the firemeh appreciated our cookies.

This act was my favorite. Here is my big boy giving a ballon to a boy at the park. This wasn't the boy crying (see story below) but his face did light up with a smile as we handed him the balloon.

My family and I headed over to Telegraph Street in Berkeley (my old stomping grounds). I figured this would be a great place to serve. Here my boys are giving the musicians some money in their guitar case.

Here we are having my favorite pizza in the world - Fat Slice. We bought a slice to give away. We found a homeless man who was literally digging through the trash and pulling out a to go cup of soup as we offered him a slice of pizza and a soda. He took the pizza and gave up the soup cup.

Here the boys bought an ice cream sandwich for a kid at Cream. They also got to enjoy an ice cream sandwich themselves.

I think my most favorite act of the day was when my boys and I went to "moon park" (which is there favorite park) and they passed out balloons to the kids. My boys were pretty excited to buy some balloons at the store and they picked out the colors. They didn't really want to give them away at the park but they did a good job. The first boy we gave it to didn't really care too much about it. His mom took the balloon for him but then as we were walking away he said he wanted a different color. It was the next boy who was the best. He ran under the slide and was crying. Athen walked over there and offered his balloon. The mother said oh it is okay he is fine his sister just pushed him. We got a little closer to him and I said "are you sure you don't want a balloon, we are giving them out for free" he shook his head yes, stopped crying and got a big smile on his face. It was the most precious thing ever. I almost started crying. We made this little boy so happy. The next few boys were the same, they got hug smiles on their face and looked over at their parents like they had hit the jack pot.

The next favorite moment of the day was when I was sitting in the car parked on the side of the road in Berkeley feeding my sweet baby Sutton while Rick was walking around with the boys. After I finished feeding her I was holding her and looking at her and she just stared up in to my eyes and gave me the biggest most precious smile. It melted my heart. It crossed my mind that the best and most important service I can give is to my sweet little baby Sutton through out her life. It was a precious moment with my baby.

Cuteness

Rick went into the boys room when he got home from work today to say good night. This was the conversation:

Rick "Where you good for mama today?"
Crew "Yeah"
Athen "Crew, are you telling the truth? We were yelling and screaming today."

At least he knows what truth means.

Weekend at the Beach

Our friends from Santa Cruz asked us to house sit for them while they were in Brazil. We headed out on Friday night and stayed through the weekend.

My dad met Rick bright and early on the water for some surfing. They have been wanting to go surfing together for a long time now but haven't had a chance to. They surfed for a few hours while I stayed with the kids.

We then headed over to Twin Lakes beach. I love this beach. It is the beach where I grew up going. We spent our summer days at Twin Lakes in our wetsuits with our boogie boards and skim boards. We would then eat dinner on the beach. We did this countless days and nights in my childhood. This is also the beach where my dad grew up going and where my grandpa grew up going. I love that I am now taking my kids and family there 4 generations later.

The boys have been wanting to have a bon fire on the beach and roast marshmallows ever since we got back from Costa Rica. So we roasted hot dogs and made smores on the beach. They loved it of course.

Sutton was pretty good at the beach. She slept in her car seat on the blanket for most of the day. They boys LOVED playing with grandpa and papa. They played in the sand and in the ocean. Rick bought them a boogie board last summer and they love playing with it.

We then headed over to the boardwalk to go on a few rides. The boys went on the kid roller coaster. Athen went with grandpa and Crew went with papa. They were both pretty scared although Athen was able to hold it in. Crew on the other hand cried a bit. When they saw Crew crying they stopped the ride to let him off. I think he would of been fine if they just kept the ride going.

We headed out on Sunday morning and drove to San Jose to go to church with my dad. Sutton had a major blow out all over her cute outfit as well as mine. I now have a big yellow stain all over my cute expensive dress. I hope Rick can do his magic and get it out for me.

Preschool

My big boy Athen had his first day of Preschool today. Last night we had a special dinner for him to celebrate his first day. We had pasta with cream sauce, green beans, fruit kebobs (which he wanted to make himself of course) and garlic bread. We made Athen a crown to wear for our family celebration.

We spent the evening getting ready, picking out clothes and packing a lunch for his new lunch box. He has been talking about his lunch and what he wanted in it for the last week. We filled it up with all his favorites - peanut butter and honey bat sandwich, tomatoes & carrots, raisins and sesame cashews, 2 big graham crackers, an apple, a granola bar and 2 gummy vitamins. It seems like a lot of food but he is in preschool until 1:30. He will eat that much at home before 1:30. We will see maybe next time he won't get as much.

Here is Athen in his crown and with his apple that says preschool on it. He was pretty excited for his apple preschool sign. He loves apples!

 He is dancing in these pictures. He is so excited to get to preschool.

All the kids were waiting outside the classroom when the teacher opened the door. Athen took off running inside and barely looked back to say good bye to us. The whole family was there to send him off. Everyone walked inside the classroom and Athen went straight for the fake food and kitchen area to start a dinner party which is his favorite thing to play (he must take after me). A few minutes later we left him there and he barely blinked an eye. He has been so excited for the last few weeks to go to school. We have been teaching him how to make friends and how to be a good friend so hopefully he will enjoy the day.

I can't believe my big boy is in school.

 The great thing about this school is that it is just down the street from our new house. Our house is at the end of the court. All we need to do is walk to the end of the court and cross the street to Athen's school - so great. He goes M, W, F from 9:00 to 1:30 so it gives us plenty of time at home to get stuff done and have some quality time with Crew and Sutton.

Crew

Crew my little love bug. This poor boy needs more attention then I have to give right now and it makes me so sad. We are working on the poop situation which he has now done over 10 times (at naps, bed time and in the morning when he wakes up). When he goes down for naps I put his sleepers on backwards. I have cut out the feet and zip him in backwards so he can't get out. I did this after the first time he pooped but then stopped putting him in it thinking he was done (I did this several times). Now I know, just do it anyway. He gets duct tape around his diaper at night time.

This little boy melts my heart. He is so full of love (when he isn't pooping or misbehaving). He loves to give hugs and kisses all the time. His favorite person is his baby sister Sutton. He loves her to pieces and wants to spend every second with her. He waits for her to wake up and says "Sutton waking up", he loves to lay by her and stare at her, give her lots of kisses, touch her and even throw toys at her when I am trying to pull him away from her. He is a little on the rough side and doesn't realize it. Sometimes he startles her, steps on her, kicks her or throws things at her so I try and keep him away from her as much as I can, but it is a challenge since he is so persistent.

I have been trying to give him special attention during the day so he gets more positive attention and doesn't end up wanting the negative attention. I hope he feels loved, it makes me sad to think that he might not feel enough love because he isn't getting enough attention.