Welcome to our world of creative, Chaotic Happiness (part 2)

Apparently, there are all kinds of rules to writing a blog. Really? Yeah! I read a bit about the dos and don'ts but quite honestly I'm much more comfortable doing my own thing and I just had  to tell y'all the rest of the story!! So here I am again...2 times in a week with what will most likely be more than 300-400 words. Sorry but...
When you last saw our little (haha) family, we had wrapped up some presents for The Homeless Present Project. We decided that we wanted to make the gifts a bit more personalized so I used my Cricut to make some easy to assemble Christmas images.  I set the kids up with some scrap paper and folded some card stock into cards and we were good to go!! All of our children participated and created 12 unique cards!! Each card had a special message in it and was signed by whichever child made it. 

The older kids in our family took charge of attaching a card to each gift. (It was awesome to see them making this their own!!)

 

This bin was supposed to hang out in our car during the Christmas season. 

The plan WAS to give the gifts to homeless people that we ran into during the day, but since it was a Sunday and we were all home we decided to put the whole bin in ONE car and go out looking for people to give our presents to. We ended up driving to our downtown area and found a few people napping and hanging out in the plaza. We quickly realized as we made made our way toward them that 12 presents wasn't going to be enough.  
Now, I have to be honest, there are times that I have hesitated to want to help people who are homeless.  I have doubted, judged and been less than Christian in my thoughts.  I am not proud of this and I know that I am a work in progress but what happened that afternoon as we passed out the few presents we had, touched me...deeply. 
As we approached the first gentleman with our small offering, I let him know that we only had a few, he smiled and said, "Give them to the ladies first! A blessing is a blessing no matter how small." Another lady said to me, "Oh no, you don't apologize! It's such a blessing just to be able to see you all doing this." 

I'm sad to say that I didn't get any pictures of us actually passing out the presents. Truthfully, I didn't even think about it.  All 7 of us chatted with the people we met and enjoyed our interactions so much that it didn't even occur to me to photograph it. A picture would not have captured the tenderness, humility or the generosity of the sweet souls that we met that day, anyway, I suppose.

It wasn't until we were getting ready to leave that I snapped a couple of pictures.  The gentleman that first spoke to us when we arrived was quick to ask, "Can you get one with all of us?" as he hurried over to his friends.

As I drove my family home, my eyes welled up with tears.  I suddenly felt that I hadn't done enough.  I could have done more, couldn't I have? I could have eaten a little lighter this week, not splurged on the extras that we take for granted, made more packages...I guess I suddenly felt a little guilty.  Why do I have so much while others have so little? Why so I behave so ungratefully while others with less are happy because a "blessing is a blessing no matter how small"? 

My family and I don't know why any of those people are homeless, we only know that they are.  Quite frankly, it isn't any of our business. We only know that something happened in their lives that for whatever reason led them here. It is OUR business to take care of each other. As human beings...one soul to another. 

We made a promise to each other on that car ride home that we would not let this stop here.  We WOULD do this again...and soon because that day was a blessing to us. And a blessing is a blessing no matter how small...or how big!

Love,

From the creative, chaotic happiness that is our family  

Welcome to our World of Creative, Chaotic Happiness (part 1)

Our family is what you might call a big one. There are 7 of us total (5 kids, 2 grownups) not to mention 3 small dogs.  To say that it is never boring in our home is an understatement!  There is always something going on and sometimes the chaos is a lot but more often than not, I find myself steering into the skid, so to speak. 

We currently have 3 teenagers (15, 14 and 13) in our home, which makes for a great starting point for our story...

Our family has dinner to together at the dining room table (nearly) every night.  There is the occasional carpet picnic but for the most part you would find us at our kitchen table at 6:30 pm(pst)every night.  On one particular night we were discussing selflessness during dinner.  We were talking about how some of the teenagers had become a bit more full of themselves than we thought was acceptable and we were trying to come up with ways that each of us could practice thinking of others before ourselves.  Never did it occur to me that the conversation we had that night would lead to such a great idea for a family project. There was a lot said, a lot of ideas thrown around but in the end it was decided that our family had some shopping to do...The Homeless Present Project was born!

So, what is the Homeless Present Project? Well, it started out as us buying some socks or something like that, wrapping them up and giving them to homeless people that we would see while we were out and about.  The idea was to give presents to people who often are forgotten at Christmas time.  There are a lot of programs for children and families with children and they are all wonderful!! We decided that we wanted to focus on the homeless...the man we see everyday at the park not far from our house and the people that nap at the plaza. By the end of dinner we had decided that this did not just have to be a "Christmas thing".  Everyone was super excited!! I personally felt like I had scored major awesome parenting points with the Man upstairs!

A couple of nights later, we went to the Dollar Store and Big Lots to collect our supplies.  We bought gallon sized zip up bags, applesauces, cheddar cheese snacks, yoohoos, fruit snacks, toothbrushes, hand sanitizers, gum, combs,candy canes and reusable spoons. (It ended up costing us about $50 give or take a couple of bucks.) 

Phase 1: Sorting....The kids put all of the items into stacks.  This is the first time we had done this so we set our goal this round at 12 presents.  

Micah on the assembly line, loading his bag with lots of goodies!

Phase 1 Complete!

Phase 2: Wrapping! We all wrapped up the little bundles in fun paper.  The kids really liked this part!!

All of the goodies ready for Phase 3!!

I think that it's important to point out that we are not rich by any stretch of the imagination! We are basically a single income family of 7 (and the 3 dogs!). I have an etsy shop that is not even close to where I want it to be! We do budget our money though, and the money for this project came out of our monthly "Target" allowance.  This meant that this month we spent less on our beauty and cleaning supplies...we bought cheaper brands and skipped some things all together and we were happy to do it!!

Thank you for checking out our first post!! Come back soon so that we can tell you all about Phase 3 and 4! 

Love,

from the Chaotic Crafty Happiness of our home