An Advent Post in Lent

REMEMBER THIS?  Here is the update!

1. Donate to a local food bank.  -  We donated a box of food to our church's collection drop area just after Christmas.

2.  Send someone a letter.  -  I mailed a few handwritten notes out to people, as did the kids.

3. Invite someone to share a meal with us.  -  We actually didn't get this crossed off our list until recently.  Seems like Advent was so busy and the kids took turns being sick, so we didn't manage to get to that one.  Recently we invited Fr. Johnson as well as Donnie, Naomi, and Thatcher over for a fish fry one Friday night.  It was nice to have all of them over again.

4. Give treats to the mail lady, UPS guy, and garbage man. - We took it a step better and gave all the workers at the local Post Office a treat.  

 Brech was my official delivery man that day, so the ladies let him pick out a candy cane and pencils for his siblings.  He was on cloud nine.

We also gave homemade treats to the UPS guy, the garbage man, and the recycled things man.

5. Send a Christmas card to a soldier. -  This one took a lot more effort than I expected.  I had thought they still did the "To Any Soldier" Christmas card campaign, but I found out they don't do that anymore.  I did request some names and addresses from my friends on Facebook.  I did receive 6 or 7 names and send off cards to them.

6. Start a prayer jar. - This has been one of the best things for us.  We now add the intention "And for everyone in our prayer jar," to every prayer we say.

 My adorable helpers.

 Watching the machine do its thing.

 Helping Mommy put the stickers on.

 one side of it

 the other side of the jar

 Here are some of the people and families we've added to our prayer jar.

We have a long ways to go before it is filled up.  Please send me your prayer intention requests and I will add them to our jar.  Comment on this post or email me.

7. Leave popcorn on the Redbox machine.

Cormac had the honors of this task.  We put a package of microwave popcorn and $3 in the bag with a note about it being a random act of kindness.  I hope a family took it.

8. Give toys to Toys for Tots. - Each of the kids picked out a toy, book or movie around $5 to give to the Toys for Tots.  It doesn't seem like much, but when you times that times eight kids - it adds up.  We delivered them to a local business drop off site.

 Brech Earl picked a CAT Machines toy set.  He had a hard time giving it up.

Great job, boys!!

9. Leave quarters at a laundry mat.  -  If you haven't noticed by now, we did do a lot of these things in one day.  It is easier to go to town once than every other day.  I picked the place where I had washed all our clothes when we were having sewer problems.  It was a nice place and I felt like the people in charge would probably approve, which they did.

 The kids LOVED this.  We put money on maybe 5 or 6 washers.

 I think we did the same for the dryers.

10.  Take a meal to a deserving mom who needs a break.  -  We actually took meals to two moms who needed breaks.  One mom had just had her first baby and one mom was due in a month or so.

11. Donate diapers to St. Gianna's Maternity Home. - This was easy...add diapers to cart, have Amazon ship them there.  St. Gianna's Maternity Home is a beautiful ministry to women who find themselves pregnant and in need of a place to live. Consider remembering them in your prayers and almsgiving this Lenten season.

12. Babysit for someone.  -  We have NOT done this yet.  I probably should do that sooner than later.  We live far enough from town that it makes it hard to help people out.

13. Leave quarters on a vending machine. - 

 Proud mommy alert - this sweet boy (Brech) had a quarter of his own in his pocket that he wanted to put on a machine.  He wanted to share it with some kid who wanted candy.  Within moments of taping it to the machine he asked me for a quarter so he could have some candy too.  Those of you who know Brech well are not surprised by that question.

 There was much talk about what someone might be able to purchase.  It was a good math lesson for the boys...and the value of money as well.  They thought they would be able to buy more with that much money.  Reality is harsh.

14. Surprise a kid with a gift card.  -  This was a combined effort for Rex and Gianna.  Rex decided which gift card to pick, and how much to put on it ($10).  Then one afternoon Gianna and I were at Wal-Mart.  I told her to pick one girl to give the card to.  Every time I saw a young girl I asked, "This one?"  She always said no.  I was worried we might not find someone.  I think we walked around for an extra 15 minutes past my shopping list needs.  She finally found a girl who was about 4 or 5 years old and decided she should give it to her.  I thought it was perfect because her mom looked like she was going to have a baby at any time.  I am sure that family could have used the extra money with a new baby coming, even if it was just ten dollars.

15. Leave a dollar in the kids section of the dollar store. - This activity took a LONG time to finish.  The boys were so excited to be in the toy section that they wouldn't put their dollars down.  "But, Mom, I want one of these for Christmas."  

 Rex was the easiest to convince to put his dollar down.

 Cormac knew exactly what he wanted to buy, Army men.  I told him that there is probably another boy who wants Army men too.  He was fine with that idea.

Then there is Brech.  "Mom, I want this."  "Mom, buy me this." "Mom, I can spend this dollar and buy that one right now."  I just love that boy!

16. Send a homemade card to someone.  -  I made homemade cards for Darren to give out to those who work under him at work.  I also made a few homemade "thank you" cards we sent out.

17. Deliver a dessert to a family we know. -  I made brownies for one of the families we took a meal to.  

18. Help a neighbor shovel their driveway.  -  First off - this would require snow, which we have little of.  Second - we would have to be home and not extremely busy or sick when it did snow.  This was not meant to be this winter.  Sigh.

19. Hand out flowers to strangers.

20. Make Christmas card and randomly hand them out. -   On Christmas Day, after Mass, I gave Stephen, Cormac, Rex, Brech, and Gianna each two flowers to hand out to any lady they wanted to.  Along with the flower (either a red rose or a red carnation) they were given a note that said, "Merry Christmas from the Gebes Family" and each of the kids had signed it themselves (except the twins had my help).  I guess this was cheating a bit by combining two acts of kindness into one.

I had never thought about how much just one flower could brighten the day of someone.  One lady hugged me and said it was the best gift she had gotten all day.  Another lady cried and said this was one of the sweetest presents.  That prompted me to have a conversation with the boys about how the men in this world have dropped the ball.  Men should be buying their women flowers more.  Has this resulted in me getting more flowers??  No, but that's ok.  (Darren did get me flowers for Valentine's day, so that was amazing and counts for twelve times combined into one.)

21. Send a present to someone who would never expect it. -  This is actually the idea that got this whole thing started.  One afternoon I was at the chiropractor's office.  I was getting adjusted when in walked a sweet girl.  She obviously had her routine and that included just walking right into the room to be adjusted.  Her mom, being like most moms, was worried about her overstepping her boundaries tried to get her to come out.  This girl was one of the sweetest girls, though I never saw her face.  She says to me, "You have Ariel hair."  To this day, when I think of it I cry.  I hadn't been told that since The Little Mermaid came out when I was a teenager.  Yes, yes I do have Ariel hair.  I was having such a hard time that week, feeling very old and very not-so-pretty.  To be reminded of that was a treasure to me.  She really made me feel young again.  At the advice of my mom, I bought her a special gift. I bought her a sketchbook and a set of colored pencils. I hope it was as uplifting for her to receive a gift (thanks to the chiropractor for arranging to get it to her) as her comments were to me.

22. Host a party for our friends.  - This was the epic battle of eight families.  Enough said.

23. Light a candle for a special intention.  - This was done by Darren and the boys one Sunday when I missed Mass due to little girls being sick and it being too cold for them to go.  Special intention - all of you were included.

24. Give a thank you card to our priests. -  We wrote out nice, short thank you notes to all the priests at the Cathedral.

This was the "assembly line" of sorts for the Christmas cards the kids signed.

Well, there you have it.  The Advent post in Lent.  Blase made of fun of the fact that I haven't posted this yet.  Been busy, boy!!!  I hope your Advent was great and your Lent going well.  God bless from us to you!