40 Random Acts of Kindness for 40 Years

Finally, a 40 RAOK for 40 years post! 

Here's the whole list, with a few photos for good measure.  Being the dork that I am, I couldn't just write on post-it notes; I had to make cute notes to use.  Dorky or not, they still make me happy!

‎Wednesday, 6/27:
1. Made Paul's lunch at 5:30am
2-5. Mailed actual letters to some special people
6. Paid for the car behind us at DQ - the cute, young drive-thru dude grinned & said "AWESOME!" when I asked him to tell the car behind us that it was b/c of my b'day
7. Smiled & waved on two different pedestrians while we were out running errands.

Thursday, 6/28:
8.-13. Delivered cupcakes to the neighbors - side note: I used a pinterest idea for making baskets/bowls out of paper plates to hold the cupcakes, and they were super easy & really cute!

14.-16. Put gift cards in some of our favorite kids' books at the book store with a note saying, "Like this book? Use this gift card to buy it!"

17. Gave $5 to the guy on the corner with a sad sign
18. Left a gift card for the next customer at our favorite bakery counter
19. Put a snack and a note in the mailbox for the mail man - he finally took it the following day & left a thank you note of his own

Friday, 6/29:
20-24. Left dollar bills among the toys at the dollar store - the clerk was kind of hilarious when I explained to her what I was doing & then left an extra dollar with her to cover tax... she just said, "That's.... different."  ha!

25-27. Sent thank you notes to a few houses that have beautiful gardens or awesome Christmas lights
28-30. Put up "Take What You Need" & "Free Compliments" signs at SBX, Bruegger's & Caribou - The strips on the "Take What You Need" sign had things like courage, forgiveness, joy and hope, and the "Free Compliments" included things like "You are an inspiration" and "You have a great smile!"  Starbuck's & Caribou have to approve your sign before you put it up, and both of the chicks who looked at mine were cute when they realized what it was
31. Tipped at Caribou for the first time ever

Saturday, 6/30:
32-34. Taped money to a vending machine w/ a note to enjoy a soda on me
35-36. Two more "Take What You Need" & "Free Compliments" signs
37. Dropped off a donation at goodwill
We were at the bookstore as well, and one of our 3 gift cards was gone!!!  It was fun to see Ben so excited about it.

Sunday, 7/1:
39. Brought in the neighbor's mail while they are on vacation
40. Emailed McD's corporate to let them know how great the staff is at our favorite location - I actually got an email back from them thanking me for taking the time to provide positive feedback!

Phew!  Many, many more Random Acts of Kindness were done by others in honor of my birthday as well, some by people I do not know!  I love the thought of the world being a little bit better place over the past few days.  Thank you to everyone who provided encouragement and did RAOK's of their own!!


One last photo, of the fun birthday gift I got from my mom & Ed - 40 of a bunch of different treats, including hugs & kisses, as well as a few $40 gift cards!! 

Major changes to Evan's room... and Ben's, too :)

Earlier today, we no.1: cleaned up my and Evan's rooms
no. 2: rearranged a bit of furniture
and no. 3: did some more cleaning.

We took my toybox and put that in Evan's room, moved his nightstand so it was actually by his bed, and put the toybox where that used to be. We also put the shelf that used to be where Evan's nightstand is now in my room, in the place of the toybox.
Okay, did I manage to confuse you?

Starting point:

•  nightstand: close to Evan's window
•  shelf: by Evan's bed
•  toybox: in my closet

End point:

• nightstand: by Evan's bed
• shelf: in my closet
• toybox: close to Evan's window

Does that make sense? Good.

:( sorry, no pics :(

except...
(drumroll)

anybody remember this?

hehehehehe

-Ben

From Mom:  You do have to admit that Ben is hilarious, don't you???!!  =)  We had such a terrific day & got a TON of work done too.  While I have been slowly removing the baby-ness from Evan's room, Ben has also been giving his old toys to Evan, to the point that most of the bins from Ben's toy box were sitting around in Evan's room.  Since Ben was willing to give his old toys up, we made the switcheroo.  We'll get some of those cheap plastic drawers for Ben's new (Evan's old) shelf so he can store some of his legos there (of course!). 

40 Random Acts of Kindness for 40 Years post coming soon!

A lego spaceship...

This is a spaceship I made with legos. It is used by a team of astronauts who are mining on mars.

 The spaceship. The disk at front and blue

peices are sensors, the front one

scans for nearby energy crystals

and the sides are for navigation.

This shows it using it's tractor beam lift

to pick up a box used to carry energy crystals.

A sketch of the ship, this is pretty much the

same thing as pic. 2 but with some astronauts,

a mining truck with a drill, and another

crystal rack in the background.

(this is more of a personal

"self-craft" I did by myself)

-Ben

Progress on Evan's Big Boy Room

Evan & I did another project for his room update - some art to replace the baby quilt below:

Before - baby decor with my "blankie" from when I was a baby, a dress that Grandma Pete wore when she was little, baby photos of family members, and Winnie the Pooh accessories.

First we applied letter stickers to two canvases.  We spelled out part of the chorus from Three Little Birds, which is one of Evan's favorite songs.  =) 

Then we painted the canvases with green, blue & orange paint, chosen by Evan.  He was desperate to mix the orange paint with the blue & green, but I did not want the paintings to end up "preschooler brown," so I put the kibosh on that!  We added orange accents after the green & blue dried.

Then we pulled the stickers off, and it looked kind of crappy!!  The paint bled under the edges, while the adhesive would not come off of the canvas on some letters - not sure how both could happen at the same time?!  I did not take photos of me touching up the letters with white paint after Evan went to bed... I was ok with it being "free-form," but I could not handle all those jagged edges! 

And here they are, hung in his room!  Next up is changing out the baby accessories on the shelves.  When I mentioned to Evan that we could choose some new things for his shelves, it kind of blew his mind.  It will be interesting to see how it turns out!  I also ordered some cute fabric for new curtains and perhaps a bunting?  =)

It's hard to see here, but I did sneak in three little blue birds in the lower right corner of the bottom painting.  See how I am?

Ben's take: This goes really great in his room

along with his pop art. I am most excited about seeing

what will be new for those shelves. It was awesome just watching

them paint it, and it looks SO great when you are actually right there.

Watercolor Circles - AWESOME

Today and yesterday, we made art with circles and watercolor paint (Idea from here.).

Two different views of the starting "frames",

made with black (or once, blue) paint
stamped using contaier caps.

 

And me, systematically painting
inside the lines from top to bottom.

Evan mixing WILD colors...

Evan's work of art...

And mine.



Mine                 Evan's              Mom's

All 6 finished paintings side by side

This was really fun! -Ben

From Mom:  This was quick, but SO FUN!!!  I love the finished products, and need to find a place to display them permanently.

Splash Pad

For somwhere fun friday, we went to kelley park, where they have a splash pad and a playground. It was really great!

 It was fun...

But every 5 min. or so I got too cold
:( weather!

Evan, too!
at least I THINK tat's why he's like that.

 there was 2 squirters pointed right at each

other, too!

It was so much fun!!!

-Ben

From Mom:  BRRRRR!  The kids got so cold so fast even though it was a beautiful day.  We will definitely go back to Kelley Park on a nice, HOT day. 

Tie-dying!

Today, we tie-dyed with Lisa, Carmen, and Brookie.
It was SUPER fun!

My shirt on the left, and Evan's on the right. Personally, I like Evan's,

because it is "all cosmic" (quoting Mom)

 A washcloth by Evan,

 Two that I did (note: the bottom

 one was supposed to be a lightning bolt)

and one that mom helped Evan with.

hope you like it

(and sorry there is no pics of actuallty DOING tie-dying)

-Ben

From Mom:  The orange parts on Evan's shirt are actually socks that we also dyed... they might be my favorite, because they are like secret craziness that no one else sees!  Those washcloths were originally white, and had turned a little on the gray side (ok, a lot), and now will be really great for injuries as well as regular washing.  =)

We failed to take any pictures of anything today, including the tie-dye process & brownie cookie eating. Small people were very anxious to get on with the dying already; I think we would have had a revolt on our hands if I had tried to stop them to take photos!