The Larson Lingo

12.27.2012

26 Acts of Kindness Update + A Winner

After the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, I posted how I was going to follow Ann Curry's lead and do 26 Acts of Kindness in honor of the 26 victims.

I wanted to do them before Christmas and I did!

Last week was NUTS, but I am so glad I did my 26 Acts....For me, it was a good way for me to reflect on & pray about the Newtown tradgedy.
Here is a list of 25 of my 26 Acts (the 26th one deserves a post of it's own)

Most of the acts were just simple little things!

1. Telemarketer called during dinner and I was nice. Normally, I just hang up on them. But, last night when they asked to talk to Kevin, I was polite, said that he was unavailable & that I hoped they had a good night. Simple. I also didn't make Kevin take the call.

2. Donated $10 to a friend who posted on Facebook that has a friend in need who is battling cancer and they are trying to come up with money to buy her 3 kids Christmas presents since the mom is in the hospital. You could just donate money from your paypal. I only donated $10, but hopefully it will help a little bit.

3. When I was nursing Claire, I was a donor to the International Breast Milk Project and was able to donate my breast milk to babies in Africa & in the NICU. I have been meaning to get re-qualified since I had Luke, so this week I finally filled out the paper work & got my blood work done to be a donor again.

So now, I'm all cleared to be a donor again!

4. A friend from high school put a request on FB that she needed a bundt pan and some mason jars. I happened to have an extra bundt pan and several spare mason jars, so I gave them to her.

5. I put candy canes in 7th grade girls bathroom at my school.

6. Kate's school was having a canned food drive, so I donated a bag of food.

7. One of Kevin's friends has twin girls and needed clothes for them, so I cleaned out several bins in my garage & was able to give her a couple bags of clothes.

8. My school was having a toy drive for a school in the inner city, so I donated 3 new toys (one for each of my kids)

9. I Put a $1 on the Red box machine

10. Paid for the person behind us in the drive thru

11. Brought in our neighbors trash cans on trash day

12. Made Peppermint Chocolate Chip Muffins & dropped them off at a nursing home

13. We sponsor 2 Compassion girls, Sarah & Faith (one for each of our girls) We wanted to sponsor a boy for Luke, so I signed up for another one, meet Jose Emanuel:

14. The girls made a picture for our mail lady & we gave her a cupcake to go along with it.

15. I had a Subway coupon (but I don't eat at Subway) so, I gave it to our school custodian along with a Thank you note.

16. There is a woman who works at our Target, named Sylvia. I always go to her line at Target because she is so nice to me & the girls. She has worked at Target for years & always has a smile on her face. The girls drew her a picture and I gave her a Starbucks card:

17. Called my Grammy, I hadn't called her in a few weeks.

18. I bought 4 Lotto tickets at the gas station, I gave one back to the cashier.

19. Taped the other 3 lotto tickets to the gas pumps:

20. My Principal heard that I was doing 26 Acts of kindness, so jokingly he asked where his act of kindness was. The next day, I got him a gift card to his favorite sandwich shop near our school.

21.Gave my friend Kelly a bottle of wine because she is awesome & because she picks up Kate from school 3 days a week. I love her.

22. Left exact change in a Soda Machine

23. I was planning on giving Claire's preschool teachers just Starbucks cards (didn't have time to do anything else) but then one of them (who had Kate last year) told me she was hoping they were going to get the Christmas Cookie Mix I gave them last year, so I decided to give them that as well.

24. Left quarters in the toy machine at the grocery store:

25. Christmas picture & Cookies for our neighbor:

26. Act #26 is still going on and has morphed into something only God could be responsible for....It deserves it's own post, so stay tuned :)

I loved doing #26ActsofKindness
It made me look for ways to be kind to others and even though I finished on Christmas Eve, I have found myself the past few days looking for ways to do random acts of kindness.
As a teacher & as a mom of an almost 6 year old and having a friend who's children were there, this has really affected me deeply.
I really want to do #26Acts again each December in memory of that tragic day in Newtown when 26 lives were taken too soon.

And, I realized I never picked a winner for the Cookbook Giveaway!

Congrats Kimberly!

Let me know your address & Hershey's will send you the Cookbook and some chocolate!

Check back soon for the 26th Act of Kindness, can't wait to share it...I am still processing the outcome of it.

12.24.2012

2012 Family Photo Shoot

In January this year, there was an auction for Ashley of Lil Blue Boo

to help raise money for her cancer treatment. I love Ashley & the girls have several dresses that she has made, so I knew I wanted to contribute to her cause & bid on an auction item.

Luckily for me, a Northern California photographer, Monika McSweeney had donated a photo shoot to Ashley's auction. I looked at Monika's website & I knew I had to bid on this item.

I had just found out I was pregnant (with Luke) so I knew a family photo shoot for this Fall would be perfect! I stalked that auction all day & all night to make sure that I won. And, I did :)

We had our photoshoot in October & I am SO happy with how the photos turned out.

I can't believe Monika got so many good ones because the girls were not cooperating AT ALL. In the picture below I am smiling/gritting my teeth and saying to the girls, "You better listen or you aren't getting your reward."