Blessing Bags

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is heading to San Francisco during December.

I just love the city during Christmastime. Growing up, my parents would take us to San Francisco to see all the decorations & now I love continuing that tradition with my kids.

San Francisco has a huge homeless population, so whenever we go to the city we see a lot of homeless people on the streets. It's heartbreaking. I have never been comfortable giving them cash, I usually give them food or a gift card. For the past 5 or 6 years, we have taken "Blessing Bags" with us to the city.

 What is a blessing bag?

It's a ziplock bag filled with items/food that you give to a homeless person. 

What's in a blessing bag?

That is up to you! Here are the items that I put in our blessing bags: 

-New pair of socks

-Peanut Butter crackers (or you could do cheese/crackers)

-Granola Bar

-Beef Jerky/Cheese Stick

- Package of Almonds

-Mini Water Bottle

-Juice Box

-Chap Stick

-Toothbrush/Toothpaste

-Travel Size Deodorant

-Cough Drops/throat lasenges

-Pack of gum

-Travel size Wipes

- $5 Gift Card to McDonalds (so they can get a meal and/or hot coffee)

***Other items you can add****

-Applesauce/Fruit Cups

-Hand Santizer

-New Mittens/New Beanie

-Bar of Soap

-Travel Size Shampoo

-Hand Warmers

 

 Put all of these items in a Gallon Size Ziplock Bag.

 I like to make 10 bags at a time to bring with us to the city. 

Here are all the supplies:

 Kevin usually keeps 1 or 2 of these in his car, so that if he sees a homeless person on the corner, etc. He can give them a Blessing Bag.

 My girls love to assemble these. We talk about how fortunate we are & that some people don't have homes & so this is something small we can do for them to help them out.

Kate told me this year that we shouldn't give them a McDonalds gift card because they don't serve good food and that we should give them In-n-Out instead. I explained that there are a lot of McDonalds in the city & no In-n-Outs and they don't have a car to drive to In-n-Out. 

I like to include a $5 McDonalds gift card because then they can at least get a meal and a hot cup of coffee.

 The girls also wanted to make Christmas Cards/drawings to add to the Blessing Bags this year. I thought it was a great idea.

 All of the items fit perfectly into a Gallon Size Ziplock.

I love the cards the girls made :)

 Our Blessing Bags all filled up!

We are headed to the city later this afternoon to pass out the bags & to go ice skating. 

These are just suggestions for what to put in a Blessing bag. 

You can make them smaller & put them in sandwich size ziplock bags, it's totally up to you!

It's a simple way to bless a homeless person. 99% of the time they are extremely grateful.  

Now, go bless someone who needs a Blessing Bag!

Life Lately + A Winner!

I can't believe December is halfway over! 

This month has FLOWN by.

I guess that is what happens when your December is full of fun Christmas activities!

Here is what we have been up to this December!

Last weekend (the first weekend of December) Kevin and I ran the Bah Humbug 5k.

It is a 5k race & people wear Christmas themed outfits.

Our neighbors run it every year, so this year we decided to join in the fun!

We wore ridiculous ugly Christmas sweaters.

It was the first time I have gone running in a wool sweater dress and let me tell you....it that was sweaty. LOL!

 My sweater dress had jingle bells on it, so the entire time I ran I was jingling.

Such a fun race.

Then we had our annual court Christmas Party & White Elephant Exchange.
We brought this lamp:

Our neighbors who ended up the lamp put it in their front window the night of the party & they have it lit up 24/7. LOVE it!

We had cippiono for dinner...it was delicious. 

The white elephant gift exchange was epic....so many laughs.

 I know I talk about my neighbors a lot, but it's because I love them so much.

I made my Peppermint Cheesecake for one of the desserts, it was delicious! I will have to blog it!

On Sunday we surprised the kids and took them to the Train of Lights.

It is a train ride & the train is decorated with Christmas lights & decorations on the inside & outside.

 The pictures don't do it justice...it was so pretty!

This is the first year we have gone on the Train of Lights. It was fun!

This past weekend was my 1/2 Marathon that I ran with Team World Vision.

Friday night (the night before the race) I was really nervous.

It was the anticipation of running another 1/2 marathon. I was more nervous for this one than I was for the Nike Women's Half because I think this time I knew what to expect...and that running 13.1 miles is HARD. 

I laid out all my gear the night before!

 I was up at 5:15 (if you know me, you know I am NOT a morning person...at all!!!)
It was COLD when we got to the race....38 degrees out. That is cold for us wimpy Calfornians :)
Me & my older sister Elyse before the race. So glad she invited me to be a part of Team World Vision! She has been running with them for 3 or 4 years.

 My goal for this 1/2 Marathon was to run a faster time than I ran for the Nike Women's Half. For that race, my time was 1:59:11. I wanted to beat that time because for this race I was running for Team World Vision & I was running for kids in Africa. It is a fundraising race and I have been training really hard for it. I wanted to get a faster time because I wanted people to know that I took this seriously and I really was running for a cause.

Elyse and I stayed with the 1:50 pace group. I felt GREAT the entire race. It was so nice running at a consistent pace. I did not do that for the Nike Race...my splits were all over the place (plus, there were tons of hills for that race)

For this 1/2 marathon, there were only 2 big hills...which is better than the 15+ hills that the Nike race had.
Whenever I was getting tired during the race, I would look down at my wrist at the orange World Vision bracelet I was wearing...

 It says Water. Hope. Life.
That is why I was running! For clean water for villages in Africa so that kids don't have to walk 15-20 miles a day for dirty water.

Here are some race photos they sent us...this was at mile 12:



 And, I had to laugh....here is a side by side comparison of me at mile 12 for the Nike run & this run:

 For the Nike run I was in so much pain at mile 12...those hills kicked my butt. For this race, I ran smarter and trained smarter and I was smiling at mile 12!

Crossing the finish line!

 My official finish time was 1:50:30. I couldn't believe I ran it 9 minutes faster than the Nike 1/2 marathon. I felt SO much better after this race. For the Nike Race, I messed my knee up on the mile 11 hill and walked with a limp for 2 weeks. For this race, my legs were sore for 2 days post race, but I don't have any injuries which I am SO happy about.
 
I thought this was so cool....at the end of the race, my total miles since I started my running journey back in July hit 300 miles on the dot!

I am a total numbers nerd, so that was so cool to hit exactly that at the end of the race. 

In July, I hadn't gone running in 10 years.....exactly 5 months later I have done 2 Half Marathons & have run 300 miles! You can do hard things!

 Love this sticker that they gave us. Don't worry, I'm not putting it on my car ;)
 

 It was a really great experience running with Team World Vision.
My favorite part was running the race with my sister.

I am so glad she invited me to be a part of this awesome event and raising money for villages in Africa to have clean water wells. I loved that before the race began, all 20+ of us from Team World Vision prayed for the villages in Africa that would be getting clean water because of our fundraising. It made me cry before the race!

I loved having my parents, Kevin & the girls there cheering us on. They had signs for us, it was so cute! My girls want to run the 5k next year & raise money as well!
I will definitely run another race with Team World Vision. It was a great experience!

 I am still a little short on my goal of raising $1,310 ($100 for every mile I ran)
If you would like to donate (you have until December 31st!)
Any amount helps..$5, $10, $25, etc...it's 100% tax deductible!
Thank you so much for your support!

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And, the winner of the $250 Target Gift Card is:
VICTORIA
Congrats!!! Leave a comment or send me an email to claim your prize!

10 on 10 :: December 2015

10 pictures on the 10th day of the month!

{Document a snapshot of your life & find beauty among the ordinary things in your day!}

Yesterday was a busy December day!

Here is a peak of what we were up to:

Fall has arrived in California...in December :)

My school campus is covered with trees & the beautiful leaves. We had rain yesterday, so the leaves were all falling. 

Breakfast of champions....I have some sort of bar for breakfast Monday through Friday.

In class, we did a Math Lib Review & I had stations. It was a fun activity & gets the students up & moving around.

 Thursdays are my favorite day to teach because I am done at 11:15. So, when I got home (Luke was still with my mother in law at Bible Study) I decided to do some touch up paint in his room. We got rid of his crib a couple weeks ago & I rearranged his room (and we took down his awesome rain gutter bookshelf (see it HERE) since that is where his bed was going) so I had to paint where I patched up some holes.

 There was a break in the rain so I decided to go on my 3 mile run. This was my last run before my half marathon....which is tomorrow!!! AHHHHH!!!! 

If you feel so inclined to donate to my run, HERE is the link. I am running with Team World Vision & all donations are made right to World Vision & they are 100% tax deductible.

Thank you for your support!

I love our running trail...it's so pretty this time of year!

 

I put this pic on Instagram, but wanted to share it here also with some words of encouragement:

Progress, not perfection. Less than 5 months ago I started running again after a 10 year running hiatus. The top rectangle shows my distance & time my first time running. The middle one shows the same run 3 months later (I ran that 2 days before I ran the Nike Women's Half. The bottom is today, my final run for my half marathon training.  My race is in on Saturday.  I wanted to share these because it is fun to see how my times have improved. I didn't run for 10 years because I was scared that I wasn't going to be as good of a runner as I used to be. I am so glad I swallowed my pride and started running again. I am stronger & feel so much better about myself. I made every excuse to not run.....too busy, too out of shape, too much going on with 3 kids, etc. Are you making excuses also? I was that person. So glad stopped making excuses. I only run 3-4 times a week. It doesn't take that much time out of my day. I am a busy working mom of 3, if I can make time, so can you!

Lunchtime after my run...getting in lots of protein. Fried eggs, avacado & chalula. Obsessed!

 

Then, Luke and I went to pick up Claire from school. One of our kids favorite things to do is climb the Japenesse Maple. Can you find Claire?!? So glad I snapped this photo....this morning all the leaves had blown off the tree because of the rain & wind last night :(

Happy Mail Day! These beauties got delivered...I ordered them as Christmas gifts for the girls on my Rodan + Fields Team.

 If you have been on the fence about joining my team, let's chat. We have some amazing sign up specials for the month of December! Send me an email for more info! melissa_larson17(at)yahoo.com

Kate doing math homework....have you heard of the website Sum Dog? My girls love it! I also love that Kate randomly put on a Santa hat to do homework. Kids are fun...especially this time of year.

The never ending laundry pile....ugh. Luke was in bed, Kevin & the girls were at their Father/Daughter Adventure Guides Christmas party, so I folded laundry & watched a Hallmark movie

Hope you had a good 10th & Happy Friday!!!

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Just a reminder: If you want to order the Microderm Paste and/or Sunless Tanner at my discounted price, send me an email!

Microdermabrasion Paste-$68
Foaming Tanner- $20
I will pay the tax & shipping.

melissa_larson17@yahoo.com

And, if you haven't entered my $250 Target Giftcard Giveaway, make sure you enter {HERE}

 Giveaway ends this weekend!