Service

The kids in their nativity attire on Christmas Eve.

We had such a great experience with our gratitude tree last month that I decided we needed to do something service oriented this month. My original idea was to have the kids tell us each night what service they had done that day and then we would have a wall nativity and add pieces each night. After the first few nights I could see this wasn't going to work very well so I just opted to go with the not so original idea of having the kids add "straw" to the manager each time they did something of service. Chuck and the kids had a great time building this little manager. I kept a spool of yarn in the kitchen and each time the kids did something of service they would come and ask me for a piece of yarn. It really helped us focus more on our Savior and helping others each day. Granted I was cutting a lot of string every day, but it was wonderful to watch them start to notice little things they could do for each other and me without even being asked. This was such a wonderful thing for our family!

Bella is really good about noticing things she can help with. One night she wanted another piece of yarn so I told her to find something she could do to help. The next thing I knew she had dragged the garbage can out of the pantry and over to the table and was cleaning up the corn Isaac had dumped all over the table during dinner.

Yesterday I was scrubbing my bathroom floor and left the mop and water out. I walked into the living room and Bella was scrubbing the floor. I love how she's dressed in one of her costumes just quietly scrubbing away. Again she came up with this on her own.

Samuel loves to help take care of Jenna and Isaac is the first to jump on taking Jenna's diapers out to the garage a lot of the time without me asking. I just feel like this really helped our kids focus on being more kind and helpful to one another. Definitely something we're going to do every year!