Hearts Knit Together was born out of my struggle to
balance my desire to create with my busy life as a mother of four. I am
challenging myself to do something creative WITH my children each week
and to share that adventure with you on Mondays. I invite you to share
your creativity with your children so that we might inspire each other
with ideas to help "knit our hearts together."
If
you want to join me, write a blog post about something creative you did
with kids and share your link in the comments. No rules really, only
that your link is current and something about creating with children.
They don't even have to be your own kids. Please remember to link back
to The Gauge Wars so that others who may want to join can find it.
Pretty simple. Your post can be from any day of the week. It doesn't
have to be Monday. Thank you for participating!
I think that for bloggers, Christmas continues through a few weeks of January. But I promise that this week I will finish all my posts with Christmasy photos. :)
A few years ago my mother asked us to do something special for someone else, for her Christmas and birthday gifts, and then tell her about it. I love this idea for several reasons.
1. Moms are really hard to shop for. At least mine is.
2. Being charitable is fun, especially with other people's money
(or what feels like other people's money). :)
3. My children get to learn to give.
4. Giving is what Christmas is all about and it makes you feel good.
5. We really have blessed people's lives over the years.
I can't share too many details about the last few Christmas projects because they have been in secret to those we know. But before that we did give money to charities or buy gifts for Sub for Santa projects. But this year, after moving to the city in August, my children have been noticing all the people who are homeless that we pass on a daily basis. Maeve begs me to give them money every time, until I no longer have change in the car. And then I saw this idea for homeless kits online somewhere and knew it was the perfect idea for this Christmas.
After a trip to the dollar store we were ready to pack our bags. Here is what we included (but there is so much more you can do):
- Christmas card with a message written by the children
- cash money
- chapstick
- toothpaste
- toothbrush
- sanitary pads
- deodorant
- handwarmers
- tissues
- comb
- bar of soap
- candy
- lotion
We made six of them and have given out 4 so far. (When you are looking for people who are homeless you never see them!) I ran passed a woman on Saturday so when I came home I grabbed Maeve and we walked back to give her a bag. The whole time Maeve was saying that she needed the candy way more than this woman did. Maeve was convinced that she wasn't really homeless she was just holding a sign to get candy. You can never really tell when Maeve is being serious or not. But after she gave the woman the bag, she wouldn't agree that the woman needed the candy more but did admit that it made her feel good to give it away. Success!
Before Christmas, Jude and I made the Christmas tree card for Grammy and each of the children wrote about giving a bag away. Except Maeve who wrote something grouchy because when we went downtown (see the fun picture of our family in the Christmas lights on Temple Square?) she had a female bag and we only saw men. I was mad for awhile about her ruining Jude's sweet card but at least it is a pretty accurate record of Maeve's feelings.
The last photo was of the children just after they finishing playing "Santa Claus." One Sunday afternoon before Christmas they played that for quite awhile, taking turns sitting on each other's laps and saying what they wanted for Christmas. They, of course, thought it was hilarious.
Happy Monday!
P.S. Maybe next year I'll start early and knit hats for our homeless bags? Ha ha. Knitters are always so ambitious with Christmas knitting when it is January. :)
Labels: Children, Hearts Knit Together
