January Scripture Writing Plan: Courage

As we start a new year this is a great way to spend

a few minutes each day focusing on what is truly important! 

There is something about writing out scripture that seems to 

make the word come alive for me- 

and I'm thankful it's been a blessing to so many of you as well!

Delivery Driver Treats

Our Amazon delivery drivers are crazy hardworking & so appreciated-

especially this time of year. 

We had 4 deliveries (one before 8am!) Saturday alone! 

So after the third I decided I needed to leave them some little thank you treats! 

I made a little sign and grabbed some Gatorade and snacks and set them on the porch. 

I was super excited to see some missing after the 4th delivery driver left!
My snacks weren't super fabulous since I just used what I had on hand
but when I went to the store today I got some good stuff and lots
more Gatorade- since it seems like everyone has taken that. 

If you'd like to print out your own copy of the note you can find one HERE. 

I printed it out and taped it to a paper sack and my basket came from the Target $ Spot. 

Let's bless those hard working delivery drivers! 

Christmas Ring and Run

Several years ago I wrote about something super fun we did 

one year for Christmas- Ring and Run!

Ring and Run is based very loosely on the song The 12 Days of Christmas

and is kind of a Christmas random acts of Kindness!

It was so much fun I'm thinking of doing it again this year! 

Here's how it works:

You choose a family to surprise and every day for the 12 days leading up to Christmas 

you leave a little treat on their doorstep along with part of a poem, 

ring their doorbell, and run away!

The year we did it we chose a sweet family with 3 little girls
 and I cannot tell you how much fun we had buying and delivering little treats for them! 

Although this tradition is supposed to be totally anonymous, 

we altered that rule just a bit and let the parents know what we were up to. 

{Sneaking around in someone's front yard might tend to cause the police to get called
 and so we wanted them to know that we were not prowlers or burglars &
filled them in on what we were doing.}

It was so much fun sneaking up to their front door, leaving a treat, and speeding away!

If you just want a copy of the poem, you can find it HERE.

{Only the first page is listed below but the link is all of the poem!}

I made some fun tags that you can use to print out

to leave with y our gifts- and even included the gift for the night

at the top of each tag.  

You can print out your own tags HERE. 

{Don't try to just save the little images above, they'll be too little and blurry!}

Who can you bless with Christmas Ring and Run?  

Baby Jesus Kindness Christmas Tradition

I am a girl who so LOVES traditions!  

And in our family we have many- especially at Christmas time. 

One of my absolute favorite traditions that we did for many 
years while Madison was growing up involved our nativity scene. 

As we decorated for Christmas I put out the entire nativity scene-

 except for baby Jesus. 

We left His manger empty- until Christmas morning. 

Until that time we had WORK to create a soft bed for him. 

How did we make a soft bed for him? 

Each day we tried to do as many kind deeds for others- 

above and beyond the normal. 

For each of those kind deeds we did, 

we got to place one piece of straw in the manger for baby Jesus.  
It was such a great reminder to all of us (Tony & I included)
to stop and truly think of others during the busy holiday season. 

Each night at dinner we would share our kind acts and get straw 
to add to the manger for baby Jesus. Our goal was to have a super soft, cozy bed
 for him by Christmas morning- built by our kindness to others.