Day 16

I absolutely loved today's stocking! It was Bella's turn and so I took it down and it was ACTIVITY!

It was a planned activity and our plan was to get the kids in on service and what it means to serve others and show them that they can help out even in their young age. As you all know, I have been couponing for about four months now and have been building, and building, and building our food storage. Well I have gotten so much stuff that even our big family can't possibly eat before it expires so we decided to pack a big box of food to take to the Utah Food Bank. We packed up veggies, pasta, cereal, stuffing, gravy, soup, brownie mix, fruit snacks, tuna, rice-a-roni, and many other things. The kids had a blast picking and choosing what to pack. I had heard that the bank was low and many more families are using it and so I wanted the kids to see the warehouse, so-Eric and I bundled everyone up and off we went to drop off the food. After seeing the big building they couldn't believe that the food was down. They thought that such a big building used for food storage would be enough, but I explained to them that since there are more people needing food there isn't as much. They all felt really good to help out others-which is exactly what I wanted them to learn(helping out others is a great thing to do and it makes you feel good to give).

We also went and dropped off toys for the Toys for Tots program. Eric and I have done this every year since we got married. It's an important program near and dear to my heart because it is run by the U.S. Marine Corp. My father was a Marine so I like to help out with their cause. We have scored many good deals on toys this year thanks to all the coupons so I was able to donate some really good ones at half the price so more were donated this year from us for the same cost as 2 last year. All in all the kids had a really good time and they even now feel very privileged with what they have. Happy Holidays!