To Mitzi, Love Amy

Enjoy a night off!

This year my family is doing service projects instead of gift giving.

We are all assigned a sibling and with them in mind, we are to do a service in their name.

I have been assigned my sister Mitzi. She had 3 kids under the age of 3.
She barely gets time to breath let alone date night.
In my sisters, honor, I would like to take your kids for an evening:
Thursday, December 17th
4:00-9:00 pm
Dinner, games, crafts, and movies for the kids

All ages welcome (even babies)

For those of you who don’t know me, we are new to the ward (about 6 months now). We moved from Las Vegas. I have 4 kids, Darcy age 12, Dixie age 10, Dillon age 7, and Denim age 5. I work for Alaska Airlines and unfortunately I work often on Sundays. My husband is the Ward Mission leader and I served in the Primary Presidency for a few months before I got my Sunday work assignment.

Please RSVP so I can make sure I have enough food and activities for your child(ren). Make sure you give me your child’s name and age. I will have my 2 daughters there to help.

Please make sure to pick up your child by 9:00 pm as it is a school night.

What can you do? Temple, Christmas Shopping, Date Night, read the Ensign without being interrupted, take a bubble bath, scrapbook, UFO (Un-Finished Objects), basically anything that is hard to get done with little hands and eyes about.

I sent this out as an email to all the ladies in my ward and handed out flyers one Sunday. I ended up with 13 kids (NOT counting my 4). I had 1 – 7 year old, 1 – 6 year old, 2 – 5 year olds, and 9 – under 5 years old! It was crazy! I was so tired after that night. Now keeping Mitzi in mind, I didn’t want to just watch TV with the kids. I made play dough (from the Bodell Bistro, also thinking of Mit) and the kids played with play dough and they decorated sugar cookies. I made signs that each had a letter of Merry Christmas Mitzi, but you can’t see it too well and it was too hard to get all 13 + my 4 together so we did it in groups. I am so thankful I don’t have 13 kids...Mit you are a great Mom! Love, Amy

To Chuck From Wayne....

As I contemplated what I would give Chuck as a service project, I recalled that he was in to saving our environment, I thought of that old commercial where the Indian is crying while he looks over the land of pollution and thought of Chuck crying right along the side of the old Indian.

I wanted to make a difference and took upon cleaning up our water systems and saving my nieces Leland, Lucy and Charlotte from playing with “not meant for kids” balloons.

Here I am cleaning up America, one condom at a time.

I cleaned up the water duct from Yale to Jamboree just north of Irvine High. There was a lot more trash than what the photo looks like. I picked up almost 2 bags by the time I got to Culver. I enjoyed doing the project because it gave me time to think about Chuck for a couple of hours and I don’t normally think about him for hours at a time. Love you Brother! PS – Throw your “not meant for kids” balloons in the trash and not our water systems.

Let's Play Ball!!!

I have Hock and I am so excited about my project!!!
What do I know about Hock???
Well, he love's basketball, he is terrific with kids and he has amazing patience!

I immediately knew what I wanted to do for Hock. Team X is a program that does sports for kids of all ages that have special needs. They are usually paid by the government programs, called respite care. In February of this year, the state of California drastically cut the respite care program. Team X knew that we were struggling, so they privatly told us that our boys would be getting a scholarship from them for the year.

Upon hearing that I had Hock, I called the director of Team X, and found out that they were closing for the month of December. Grrrrr! But they would be thrilled to have me volunteer in January. So next month I will be "cheerleading" the special needs kids as they play basketball. I will be baking them team treats. I will make each of them a personalized poster with their name on it!

But I really wanted to do something this month, so I found a family in my ward with a dad in Grad school. I took this mom's daughter in my Kids Camp at no charge and had her be my special helper elf. This was a little thing, but it made me so happy to hope that someday someone does this same kind of a thing for my little Hootie!

I love you Michael Hock, and I am so incredibly thankful that you are my little brother!
Charise

Merry Christmas Ryan!

I have loved this new Christmas tradition. It has made for a very Christ-centered season where I have been focused on showing my love for y'all through serving others rather than fighting crowds at the mall.

Ashley and I were really anxious to see who we would get. We had developed some great lists of service ideas for many of you. But, I must admit, Ryan was not one of them. Unfortunately, Ryan's list was only somewhat helpful at first, but then once I got in the spirit we did great!

His first suggestion wasn't going to work out here. Stake Dances are very rare here (none coming soon) and the YM don't go camping in December, so those two were out.

But, I began to realize I had already been helping him in a way that was related to his job-finding request. I had just recently tried to help Ryan get a job doing IT for a law group in Raleigh by e-mailing my contact with them who is a senior partner. Then when he got the offer from his new job, I called and helped coach him on how to negotiate a good offer. Even though those were great, it was clearly not enough. Sadly, I was too involved with my own job and didn't know of any jobs right off to tell my ward employment specialist.

Ryan's third suggestion to volunteer to help somebody with their home needs was right up my alley. I got an e-mail one day from a lady in the ward saying I was her home teacher (note: I had not been given a home teaching assignment from our Elder's Quorum yet) and wondering if I could help her move a fridge a few hours later. I quickly replied that I would love to and planned to finish up at work early enough to stop there on my way home.

Then, a few weeks later, one of our close friends in the ward (and our hometeacher) called to see if I could help him move his new treadmill into his house. This may sound small, but it was probably the most difficult of anything I did for Ryan's gift of service. It had been raining all day (wettest November in Richmond history) and the family had to tear up their yard to fix their septic tank. Sure enough, the treadmill would only fit through the lower door that required walking through 25 feet of mud partially covered by a few pieces of plywood while it was raining. The company was supposed to deliver it inside the house, but it was quite clear why the delivery man told the wife it would be an easy move with 2 people. It was a hefty job lifting a 500-pound box off a pallet, through the mud, and into the house. At one point, I slipped and fell with the box on top of my legs. As I laid in a huge puddle with a 500-pound box pushing my legs into the mud, I looked up at the clouds, smiled, and thought "Merry Christmas Ryan." Even so, it was a fun one to do because I was helping the man who had helped me move two huge pianos for an entire afternoon just a month earlier.

I still felt like I had not done enough for Ryan. When I sat and thought, "What would Ryan want?" I knew that part of what makes Ryan such a wonderful addition to our family is how much he has always put others before himself. Even when he was a teenager, we knew that about Ryan. Char may love "Ashley woo-hoo!", but Ryan is my woo-hoo in-law simply for the wonderful man (even when he was a 15 year old) he has always been to my baby sister. So, I decided Ryan would probably appreciate me helping out by doing some of the things requested by the rest of you.

This made sense to both Ashley and I, since we were already trying to help each other out with their person. So, during this Christmas of service, we found ourselves saying, "This one's for _______" every time we went out of my way to do something nice.

In the spirit of Bill: Every time I went through a busy door way, I was sure to stay there an extra moment and try to help two more people than I normally would have. A few times, Ashley seemed to realize what I was doing and smiled in support.

In the spirit of Wayne and Hock: We made an extra effort to offer on three different occasions to feed the missionaries or go to appointments with them in the name of Wayne and Hock. (At first, I thought this was one of Ryan's suggestions too.) Although they haven't taken us up on our three different offers yet, they say they will very soon. I also went out of my way to be more bold in sharing our beliefs. My boss, who is a wonderful example of Christian living, and I had some great discussions about our beliefs. I invited him to join our family at the Miracle of Christmas (an awesome live nativity) at the Metro Richmond Zoo (owned by an LDS family in our stake). My boss and his wife have annual passes to the Zoo and planned to go anyway, but it was fun to do it together and share our common beliefs in the Lord.

In the spirit of Char (actually Savvy): I found myself going out of my way to be extra kind and helpful to every African-American mother I saw. When they clearly had their hands full with difficult young kids, I was especially proud to help cheer their kids up or help them in any way.

In the spirit of Dad, Mom, and Amy: We made sure that we were the last ones to leave the Ward Christmas Party after helping put away tables and chairs, then mop and vacuum the floors. (This is a cheating one because we already do this since we have had activities callings before.)

In the spirit of Mitzi and Tiffany: I went to Disneyland! Just kidding. The mother of one of our close couple friends is really stressed with the Christmas season combined with some difficult financial circumstances. When Mit and Tiffany wrote that they wanted us to offer to watch a mother's kids so she could do something by herself, I thought of this woman who has been so kind to help us. Ashley and I talked about it and made it a priority to watch her kids so she could have alone time. Ashley ended up doing the work, but I kept pushing her to offer to help in any way possible.

In the spirit of Lani and Amy: Last week, when we were out in the historic snow storm, we came upon a woman stuck in a car spinning her tires. Without thinking, I stopped the car, told Ashley to follow me, and set out to push the woman's car up the hill to the next exit. As I pushed her nearly 1/2 mile up a snowy hill, I smiled thinking that hopefully somebody would do the same for my sisters if they were stuck in the snow (Ashley accidentally jumped the gun and blogged about this one already).

I am sure that all of you had similar experiences during this season of service. We all had ideas for each other and went ahead and did them even though Carrie didn't draw that particular name out for you. So Ryan, even though we only did a couple things directly in your name, we actually did it all with you in mind, because you do so much for our family.

The season of service has made this Christmas a very spiritual time in our family. After Thanksgiving, we began reading the New Testament to the girls to get prepared for Christmas. We have acted out the story of the birth of Christ too many times to count, with Ashley's five nativity sets, then in person with Nana's costumes, and then watched it live at the Metro Richmond Zoo. This season of service has made this Christmas so focused on Christ, that when we went to see Santa on Christmas Eve day, we realized we had never discussed with Lucy who Santa is and what he does. That was when I knew this season of service was the best Christmas gift ever!

Merry Christmas Amy

What pressure to have Amy, the one who came up with this whole idea! Can I just say how wonderful and stress free that this "gift-giving" was. It was wonderful to focus on what service for others that I could do, instead of material things, waiting in lines, fighting crowds, and spending money. I feel truly blessed to be a member of this family.

Before we decided to do this service gift exchange, I began looking for winter coats for my girls. I also wanted to get coats for Amy's kids, knowing that this was the first year back in real winter weather. I started by asking my sisters if they had any had-me-down coats. Then I mentioned it to my mom whose ward Relief Society was having a clothing swap enrichment night. I also asked a few friends around here if they had coats they had grown out of. In the midst of this, we decided to do the service exchange and I was assigned Amy. It was perfect!

Rather than just send Amy the coats we found, Chuck and I decided to work together to exercise some faith. I called my Relief Society President and asked if there was somebody in the ward who had young kids, whose family had a difficult economic year, and who needed some warm coats. She told me about a family with 2 young boys and only one coat between the 2 of them. They would take turns wearing the coat to school. We began praying that if we helped this family, somebody would help the Dittbrenners in Colorado. I was able to find a coat for the younger son to have his own. We never met the family; just simply asking the RS President to pass the coat on to them for me.

I just kept feeling that this was not enough, I wanted to do something for AMY. So I decided to send a box of warm clothes for her and her girls. I went through my boxes and found heavy coats, light jackets, sweaters, hats and scarves to send to her family. Colorado is much, much colder than Virginia and I hope that they can use some of what I sent.

I realized that I have collected a lot of things I do not need and I hope that you all enjoy them. Before we shipped them, we took this picture of me wearing some of the items I sent to them.