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.)
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| 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. |
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| Micah on the assembly line, loading his bag with lots of goodies! |
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| Phase 1 Complete! |
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| Phase 2: Wrapping! We all wrapped up the little bundles in fun paper. The kids really liked this part!! |
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| 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
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