Philanthropy & Penrose: Cyber Monday Deals!

I'm pretty much bursting with excitement for our Angel Tree child. This little boy scored so many gifts on Cyber Monday!  Check out all of the loot that we were able to get for him off his wish list, thanks to Cyber Monday deals from Crazy8 and Amazon...

What we know about him....He's from our hometown, and he's a 7 year old little boy that loves action figures, especially Superman!

Now, I like to pride myself on my bargain-shopping skills, but I am so impressed with all that we could find for him.  I used the code CYBERWK20 on Amazon to get an additional 20% off the jacket, sneakers, socks & undies, and got at least 50% off the action figures and books there as well.  We also have Amazon Prime so all items ship for free!  The rest of the clothing items are from Crazy8, which was having a great cyber sale and emailed me coupon code for an additional 20% off my purchase with free shipping.

Total, we purchased everything above for under $160.00.  The shoes and jacket alone would have cost almost that much!  I am so excited to start receiving the packages in the mail so that I can get them all wrapped up :)




 

Show & Tell Tuesday: Service

Linking up today for Show & Tell Tuesday with Momfessionals!

I love reading the Show & Tell Tuesdays posts from some of the blogs I follow, and today's topic is something I am really passionate about so I thought I would join in!

If you have ever followed my Philanthropy & Penrose tab then you know about my passion for the Ronald McDonald House of Charlotte.  My love for this charity was planted while in college when I joined the Alpha Delta Pi sorority, and has since continued to blossom into a passion of mine.  I have been a committee member for two annual fundraising events at the house, Storybook Ball and Girls' Night Out.  

RMH Charlotte Storybook Ball 2015

RMH Charlotte Girls' Night Out 2015

This coming year, I am so excited to be co-chairing Girls' Night Out 2016!!  This event is like no other.  It will make you smile, laugh, cry, dance, and leave with such a full heart.  If you are a woman in the Charlotte area, I highly recommend attending this Spring event!


Other philanthropic causes that we support each year are some through our church.

We always pick at least two names off of our church Angel Tree.  We have a lot of teachers in low-income areas who submit the information and I love that the little angels we help are from our local community.  

We also love stuffing at least two Operation Christmas Child boxes each year!  This year we are gifting to a 5-9 year old girl and 2-4 year old boy.  

P.A.T.H. is a local food bank ministry that helps families in our county.  We donate to them periodically throughout the year, as well as through our Annual Fall Festival where entry is canned goods instead of money.  The past two years, we have raised close to 1000 cans and $600 from the event.  Pretty good for our little country church AND getting rained out both years!



Two other things that have been on my heart are Christmas giving traditions.  The first, is that I have always wanted to skip the 'normal' Christmas day stuff and volunteer at a big soup kitchen.  I think once we have older kids, this is something I want to do at least once and who knows--maybe it will become our yearly tradition then.

The other is--now that Ryleigh is old enough to start learning and experiencing Christmas (last year she was still too young to understand), I feel like it's important to have the foundation of the Reason for the Season.  Yes, we are definitely having all the Santa fun and next year we will probably get a visit from a pesky little Elf on a shelf, but I want to tie it all back to Jesus.  I've heard ideas from friends that since the Wise Men brought 3 gifts, they give their children 3 gifts from Santa.  I really like that idea. Also, I'm thinking of doing three special charitable gifts each year--something like Heifer Project.  Each year sponsor three different animals or gifts.  As our kids get older they can help choose what we do, which will make it special for them and also open their eyes to life outside of our little world.

Last year -- Christmas 2014

I can't wait to read everyone else's ideas in the link-up :)

Leaving our Mark.

If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw me post these last night.  

I got the idea a few weeks back from a blog that I follow, Grace and Love.  She's currently building a house and I instantly loved the idea of writing Bible verses in the house before drywall goes up...adding a little of our foundation to the foundation, so to speak.  Her family also buried a Bible under their concrete slab the day it was poured, which I thought was a fun idea!

We decided to write two verses, one near the middle of the downstairs and one near the middle of the upstairs.  We chose this one for the first floor, which is on the dining room column...

And this one, which we had read during our wedding ceremony, for the heart of the upstairs...

Forgive the messy handwriting, that's what happens when you're holding a toddler that's trying to wrestle the marker out of your hand....

....we also ended up with a lot of this, because well...Ryleigh wanted to participate too.

Excited that they will be starting drywall soon!  I can't wait for it to start looking more and more like home.