Giving Friday #8: Purchasing Christmas Gifts

This week, we spent our Giving Friday at Target :).  Tyler's after-school program through YMCA was doing a service learning project in which they were collecting toys for a local charity.  We went to Target to support this effort, talking on the way about how it would feel to not get gifts at Christmastime.  We talked about what kind of gifts their "friends" may like and then we spent quite a bit of time in the store picking out the perfect gifts. 

Although they still were a bit upset at the end that they didn't get to keep what they selected, I did see a transformation in them from the beginning to the end.  As the excitement about making someone else happy with their gifts grew, they seemed just a little less hung up on the fact that they had to give the gift away.  I hope that it is these small transformations that will continue to strengthen their empathy muscles.

Megan is 4!

It's hard to believe that it's been 4 years already from the cold December day that came into our lives.  She's still a very sweet girl (well, at least about 85% of the time) who is really enjoying school and is slowly but surely coming out of her shell (on our airplane ride home for Thanksgiving, the people across from us asked if she always talked so much).

On her birthday, Megan enjoyed the traditional birthday breakfast (a donut with candles) and opened all of her presents.  She then got to celebrate with her friends at school before dinner with the family.

The Saturday after her birthday she and 3 of her friends had a Tinker Bell party complete with fairy wands that they decorated, a game of pin the star on Tinker Bell's wand, and a fairy treasure hunt with pixie dust (aka birdseed).  Everyone had a great time.

For more photos, click on the photo below.

Giving Thursday/Friday #7: Acts of Kindness

Well, we've had to change our days to Friday instead of Thursday due to Tyler's new Tae Kwon Do class, but we're still enjoying it.

This Thursday, we adapted an idea from the Big Hearted Families site and learned a bit abousimple (not always "random") acts of kindness that we can do each day. 

We watched this video from the RAK site and talked about the "Have you Filled a Bucket Today?" book again.  Then we filled an "Acts of Kindness" bucket with ideas for simple things we can do each day to spread happiness (e.g., give compliments, hold the door open, smile, thank teachers and bus drivers, etc.).  We hope to pick a card each week and focus on doing that act of kindness for the week and discuss our experiences each night.

Hopefully it will be a project that continues to have impact for many months.

We're so thankful...

...For being able to spend Thanksgiving 2012 with Granny, Grandpa, the Shripka's, Burke's, and Chernesky's.  Though it was a short trip, it was packed with a lot of fun.  Click on the top photo for more.