Give away day and the Pumpkin Patch

This past Saturday at our church, was "Give Away Day." People have been up at our church building for weeks getting clothes, toys and other household items separated, sorted and shelved to be ready for Saturday. Their work so paid off and by "paid off", I don't mean any money. It was pure joy to see people's faces when they said "Thank you so much" because I knew that they really meant every word. I worked in the "Toy room" most of the day with my good friends and a few new people that I got to know. It was so fun and so heart wrenching all at the same time. I loved seeing those little kids faces light up when I handed a sweet little girl a barbie doll or a little boy a brand new football. Those are highlights of my day. The not good parts happened when we ran out of boy toys at the end of the day. There is no possible way to gage how many toys you will need for this day. There is no way to know if we are going to have 500 little boys and 700 little girls. It changes every year. All I know is that this next year, leading up to next year's "give away day", I'm going to do my best to make sure that does not happen. How am I going to do that? I am going to be more aware when I shop. If I see little cars and baby dolls on the clearance rack, I'm going to buy them. I can go without a Sonic Coke for a few weeks, if I know that a little girl is going to have a brand new baby on our "give away day." Saturday opened my eyes to what we have and how very EXTREMELY blessed our children are to have 2 parents, 2 sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles and many many friends that love us, support us and take care of us. One little girl came though the line and I asked her if she would like a barbie. Her little face LIT UP and I mean that, I went back and found a bag of toys (they got several things in their toy bag, a book, a game and several toys) that had a brand new Barbie in it...I took the Barbie out and you would have thought that I gave that little girl a million dollars. I will have that little girls face in my memory for a long time. I am so thankful for the opportunity to work at an event such as this and I will do my hardest to work this next year to help make next year's event even better. This year, the church fed and took care of over 2,400 people in one Saturday from 8 am to 2:30 pm. Just amazing. God's love was overflowing and I know that the people that came on Saturday were touched by God's love and kindness. I know that I was, and all I did was show up and hand out some toys to little cute kids. We won one for God on Saturday and I'm so thankful to be on the winning team for the rest of my live. It's not about me, it's about God. (Thanks Allan for the great sermon on Sunday!) I don't have any pictures from the event, but I'm sure if you check out Allan's blog later today, there will be some great ones posted...he's always good about that sort of thing with his stories on his blog!

I wrote on Friday about the birthday party at the pumpkin patch. It was great!! I have never been to a pumpkin patch that had so many great things for the kids...they loved every minute of the party. Of course, my friend Stephanie, is a great party planner and had everything so together, so the kids couldn't help but have fun!

Parker LOVED the pumpkin patch. He kept yelling, "BALL, BALL, BALL!!" and if he got a pumpkin that he could actually pick up, look out because the boy was going to throw it!! It was so funny. He also tried to pick up almost every pumpkin that he could and that was quite cute.

He and Sus liked the pumpkin "house" the best because it was full of little pumpkins that they could hold. Everyone at the party, moms, dads, party kids and siblings all got to go on a hayride. They stopped the hayride at a "mini-patch" and the kids all got to get out and pick out their own little pumpkin. Susie was so sweet and let Parker carry hers around. She loves her little brother!

We thought that Parker would like sitting next to the cut-out of baby Elmo. Turns out that he just wanted to still play with his little pumpkin that Susie shared with him. We are so taking another trip out to this Pumpkin patch with Aaron and Grace before halloween to pick us out a great big pumpkin and take a family hayride!