I am going back to December with this post, so you are going to have to humor me and my 5 month delay in posting about this!
I first heard about doing Random Acts of Kindness a few years ago, when I stumbled upon this blog post, and fell in love with the idea of doing something similar. I thought it would be fun to do 25 Random Acts of Kindness a week or so before Christmas, since that time of year can be so busy and chaotic, and surprising people with an Act of Kindness, would be fun for everyone!
Unfortunately, it took me a few years to get my act together and finally do it! On the last Saturday before Christmas, my family (Carl, Tyson, Madison & her boyfriend George) joined up with my brother and his family to spread some holiday cheer!
This was our list of 25 Random Acts of Kindness:
Leave a treat in your mailbox for mail carrier
Drop off a few random Notes of Kindness and Candy Canes in random mailboxes wishing people a Happy Holiday
Drop off coloring books, crayons, activity pads, and small games to the waiting room of Primary Children’s Medical Center Urgent Care Facility
Tape quarters to Vending Machines
Tape quarters to washers and dryers a the Laundromat
Return grocery carts and help people load their groceries at a local grocery store
Tape quarters to gumball machines
Leave notes/candy canes on cars wishing people Happy Holidays
Hand out a $50 Visa Gift Card to someone in the grocery store wishing them a Merry Christmas
Handy out balloons and candy canes to children coming out of the store
Empty all of our spare change (from coin jars, couch cushions, car seats) in to the red Salvation Army buckets
Drop off a Chili’s gift card to a family already eating at the restaurant, wishing them a Happy Holiday
Pay for the person behind us in the Starbucks drive thru line
Drop off donuts and hot chocolate to construction workers or anyone else working outside in the cold
Hand out car wash coupons to cars in line at the car wash
Take Donuts to the local fire station
Hand out McDonalds coupons to cars in the drive thru lane at McDonalds and wish them a Merry Christmas
Drop off a few $5 pizzas to the homeless at Pioneer Park
Drop off blankets to the homeless at Pioneer Park or the Homeless Shelter
Hand out Starbucks gift cards to shoppers at the outdoor Gateway Mall
Hand out $2 bills at the Dollar Store
Tape Candy Canes with Happy Holiday notes to ATM’s
Drop off coats and and warm clothes to The Road Home
Drop off pet food and pet toys to The Human Society of Utah
Put $2 bills in random children’s books at Barnes & Noble
We knew that we would have to be flexible with some of our acts, depending on logistics, etc.
Our first stop was Primary Children's Hospital. We dropped off big bags of coloring books, crayons, art supplies, activity set and a few stuffed animals. Photo fail! I didn't take a picture of all of this. Mostly because the waiting room was crazy, busy with kids and parents. Right off the urgent car waiting area was an alcove with a bunch of vending machines. We taped lots of quarters and notes to them!
To save this post from getting super long, I will just let the photos do most of the talking!
George, Tyson & Madison outside of Primary Children's Hospital
Quarters at the Laundromat
Madison ready to hand out balloons and candy canes to kids exiting the grocery store
The firemen doing rope drills, just before we dropped off donuts. They were so grateful!
Handing out $2 bills at the Dollar Store. We got a few tears from people here and many, many grateful THANK YOU's!
Tyson emptying a large bag of coins in the Salvation Army bucket. It took a long time!
Quarters on gumball/candy machines
Visa gift card and Chili's gift card (printable found HERE)
We really had such a FABULOUS time doing this! Just doing a Random Act of Kindness for someone who doesn't expect it, made our day so much brighter! Hopefully, we were able to make the holiday season brighter for some people that day, and inspired them to Pay it Forward.
Unfortunately, our day was cut a little bit short and we didn't quite finish on that day. More about the reason for that in my next post. We were able to finish a few weeks later, however.
Thanks for reading and letting my post about something my family did…WAY back in December!
Wow! It’s been a while since I’ve done a weekend wrap up post!
This past weekend was full of all the craziness that happens in the last few weekends leading up to Christmas! All the hustle and bustle, trying to get so much done, but still trying to enjoy the season!
The weekend started a bit earlier than usual, as we had our office Christmas Party on Friday afternoon. We closed the office at 1:00 and we all headed to the Little America hotel just a few blocks away from our office. We had a really nice lunch, some pretty funny entertainment by a few of the attorneys in the office. During the entertainment A LOT of cash envelopes were given out via a drawing – which was awesome! The firm also gave away several iPads! Even cooler! The big drawing at the end of the event were for 2 40” Samsung Smart TV’s….and guess who won one? Shut the front door! I never win anything like that! And I mentioned in THIS POST that we were in desperate need of a new TV, since we were the last people on earth without a flat screen!
Christmas came early for Carl and I! We spent Friday night getting it all set up! Carl was in heaven!
I spent most the day Saturday in my craft room wrapping presents, and getting these out in the mail:
Why does it always take so long to get them all addressed and out the door?
I had a fun night Saturday with some of my Zumba friends. We got together for dinner at Trio. If you are in Utah, you must try this place. I’ve eaten here quite a few times and I don’t think I’ve ever had anything I didn’t like!
Always delish!
Such a great time with these guys! Soooo many laughs!
After going to Mass with Carl on Sunday we delivered Christmas ornaments to my nieces and nephew. A tradition I’ve been doing with my own kids and my niece Erin since they were born (I buy them each a new Christmas ornament every year), and this year I got to add my brother’s new wife Heidi’s kids too! Hopefully, they don’t think it’s too corny/cheesy!
This picture was actually taken in the car with the ornaments on the dashboard. I’m classy, like that!
Carl and I then power shopped for the next few hours! We got a ton accomplished, but I feel like there is still so much to do! We shopped at our local outdoor mall (the one that is open on Sundays!) and we froze! The wind was sooo cold! We did get to see our 2002 Winter Olympic Bricks, which my parents bought for all of us as a donation to the 2002 Winter Olympics.
It’s always fun to see our bricks!
Sunday night was topped off by dinner with Madison at Texas Roadhouse, and some cute Zumba girls dropped off the yummiest treats they had made! Wow! Look at this plate of goodness!
Sooooo good! But I’ll be doing Zumba for days and days and days to work off the calories on that plate!
Even though I had a very heavy heart this weekend with the events in Connecticut, it was really nice to spend time with friends and family, and remember that I truly am blessed, and to remember also, that life can change in an instant!.
I hope you had a great weekend!
What did you do? What was the BEST part of your weekend? Let me know!
Hello! Shocker, I know! My second week in a row posting! 😉
One of my favorite holiday traditions, is to get all of my Christmas decorations out the day after Thanksgiving, and try and get them all up that weekend. I rarely get all the decorations and tree(s) up in one day, but I usually make it in two. It truly is my favorite time of year. I think there is something magical about the twinkling lights, and I think my house never looks better than it does at Christmas. Do you want a quick holiday tour? Well, even if you don't want one…..you're gonna get one!
Welcome to our home!
The front porch in the daylight. At night the swag around the door and on the railing is full of twinkling white lights. A few years ago, I grabbed bunches (and bunches) of red and silver ornaments from various stores for cheap, cheap, cheap! You will see a very common theme in my decorating! The wreath on the front door was a plain silver jingle bell wreath that I won at Bonco many years ago. Last year I broke out the glue gun and added red and silver ornaments to glam it up a bit more. Love the way it turned out, and so simple to do!
As you walk in the front door, the formal (?) living room is directly on the left. This room has been many things over the years (including scrapbook/craft room), and we never really spend any time in it, and we've never had really nice living room furniture for the room. The only time the room really looks good, is at Christmas. And that’s not saying much! LOL!
This above photo is a view from the stairs looking down in to the formal living room. The white armoire used to be in Madison’s room. Even though it sits in the formal living room now, if you were to open the doors, you would find a ton of crafting and sewing supplies. Gotta use storage where you can, right?
You can see our fat, cat Jax in the bottom right of this photo. He’s rarely around for photos!
The photo above is a “Joy to the World” card that I ordered from Katie Daisy. Love it!
This is the view going from the front door towards the breakfast nook. The stairs going UP to the bedrooms are to the right, as well as the stairs going DOWN to the family room. The kitchen is to the right of the breakfast nook. One of my favorite Christmas decorations has to be my dollar store wreaths in my bay windows. I bought them probably 10 years ago, and they have held up great. I love the cottage feel they add to our home.
The shelf above is usually decorated for whichever season is coming up. I have Santa's on the shelf for Christmas, and I will switch them out for snowmen in January.
A close up of the Santa shelf.
More red and silver ornaments in a glass jar on the kitchen table. Those ornaments are everywhere!
My kitchen box window. The JOY letters are the ones I made at Craft Weekend and the “Merry & Bright” sign was party of the cool swag we got.
The above photo is of the stairs heading down to the recently renovated family room. This room recently got a new paint job, carpet, window framing and we also painted the fireplace mantle. Oh, and all the furniture is new….or new to me. Not sure if we are keeping it or if it will be going to California with Tyson, when he moves in to a permanent place. We will see.
Chloe’s favorite place is in front of the cozy fire!
Close up of the painted fireplace mantle. The mantle is pretty low key – just garland and silver reindeer stocking holders. I just wasn’t sure what to do this year. So much has changed with our house. It’s like a blank slate, and I’m not sure what to do with it. Notice the silver and red balls on the wreath……once again!
The tree behind the chairs is the “kids tree”. We give Tyson and Madison an ornament every year for Christmas (and sometimes during the year, if we have traveled somewhere special)……those ornaments go on this tree, and is decorated by them. Tyson was home for Thanksgiving this year, and he and Madi decorated the tree the night before he flew home to California.
Close up of the Kids Tree
Temporary TV/media cabinet. Not sure what is going to happen here. Rumor has it that Santa is finally going to bring the Moll family into the 21st century and bring a flat screen TV….but we will see. Can you imagine it? LOL! Something other than the monstrosity pictured above? *wink*
Trying to get a photo of both trees……
Well, that is it….so far anyway. I hope you enjoyed the tiny glimpse in to our Christmas home. It’s not much, but it’s comfy!
Happy Monday, friends! Have you decorated for Christmas? If so, do you go all out? Or do you keep it simple? Do you have more than one tree? I’d love to hear from you!
A few days ago, we experienced a very lovely situation here at the Moll house. A fabulous master bathroom flood, that happened sometime during the night (while we were sleeping), that we didn't find out about until morning. Not only was the carpet in our bedroom soaked, the carpet was soaked downstairs in our family room. Fabulous, right? Oh, and did I mention that my laptop was on the coffee table directly below the master bath? It's toast too. Merry Christmas!
We called our insurance company and they were awesome. They were at our house within in a hour and had issued us a check for the repairs. Weird how fast it all works now. They sent a crew out to pull up carpet, rip out drywall and get huge dryers and de-humidifiers set up in our family room, master bedroom, and master bath. This was yesterday morning. So, for 24 hours now, our house has sounded like an airport. It's crazy noisy. Our family room is taped off from the rest of the house and everything from that room was moved to the dining area. It was making me crazy so I sort of moved everything around so I could at least function. It's Christmas for heaven's sake! I worked hard on decorating this year, and I wasn't going to let it all go to waste! :) Here is the lovely family room:
Pretty fabulous, huh?
Here's the view from the other side of the plastic curtain:
Charming, isn't it. Now imagine the sound that goes along with it! All those fans going.
While I was taking pics, I decided to just go ahead and document how the house looks this year, for Christmas.
The outside:
at night:
Come on in!
Notice the plastic…..it's totally the new xmas decor! Also, notice the kid's xmas tree that is usually in the family room, is now in the dining area! Love it!
The living room – with a hodge podge of furniture from the family room thrown in! Ha!
Thanks for taking a moment to peek inside my crazy house this holiday season! :) Have a great Saturday!
It's no secret….I LOVE getting Christmas cards! I've always struggled with the perfect way to display them though. Last year I found the perfect solution (for me!) I purchased this photo holder/card display from my friend (and Willow House Design Consultant) Linda Burt. And it has worked out perfectly! Here is last year's card display (the cards have S L O W L Y been trickling in this year – what the french toast?)
How do you display your cards? And is your Christmas card in the mail, on it's way to me? I know my card won't be going out until next Monday (cutting it a tad close, you say?)…..Tyson doesn't arrive home from college until late Friday night, so we will be taking a family picture on Saturday! Yikes! Enjoy your day!
Christmas came early for me! Carl picked up the exact sewing machine that I wanted (which he saw on my blog!) for me today! I have been making some pillow covers for the pillows on our couch, and I was using hem tape….which worked, but wasn't fabulous! So after he picked up my sewing maching (BOO-YA!), I went to work and covered 5 large pillows, made 2 placemat pillows and make a long oblong pillow. The photos are crap (per usual) and don't really show was a difference the pillows make. BUT, I'm giddy to have those F U G L Y pillows covered!
Before:
After:
Not too exciting but soooooo much better!
I also painted my dining room chandy…..Carl installed dimmers and some more lighting! Busy and productive day for sure!
aka "The Beast"! We've had this tree for 15 years. We bought the first year we were in this house, and had no living room furniture. We still don't really have living room furniture….and it's a good thing! This tree takes up the whole room. It is NOT pre-lit, and has to be put together branch by branch, by branch, by branch. Did I mention branch by branch? And then the lights go on. It really is an almost 2 day process to get the darn thing up. BUT, it's worth it. At least in my opinion. I love how big it is and it makes me so happy to see it in the living room and in the window when I drive up to the house!
I have collected many ornaments throughout the years, and have made a ton too. This year I added the white/red mesh ribbon that matches the ribbon on my garland. I ditched the painted wood ornaments I made years ago, and added some silver/red ornaments I picked up at Target. I have decorated mostly with Red/White/Silver this year. Lovin' it!
I'm linking up with Sara at Thrifty Decor Chick and her Christmas Tree Party! Go check out her beautiful tree, and all the others linked up! Amazing!
I'm linking up to the Christmas Craft Link Party that Kate @ Centsational Girl is hosting, and House of Hepworths This is super, super easy!
I purchased two 8 x 10 canvases (sp?) from Walmart
Then used my Silhouette to cut out the numbers 2 and 5, and adhered them to the canvas
Then I just painted over the vinly with red paint. Easy peasy! After the paint dried, I peeled off the vinyl….and TA-DA! Super quick and super easy! Perfect idea for a quick craft!!
Now head on over to Centsational Girl and check out all the crafty goodness!
