Saturday, October 19, 2024

Birthdays and Random Acts of Kindness

 We met today to celebrate Larissa and Charles' birthdays...

Charles was VERY excited for his birthday. His birthday is the 21st and CoRielle celebrated earlier. They knew the 21st may be hard...the date of our October celebration last year, the last time most of us saw Josiah. They celebrated a week or so ago and Charles has been convinced he was 4! Then they came to OUR house for another birthday party - and now, he's 5! He'll be 18 in no time at all. 

We are certainly thankful to have this little man in our family.  Yes, he's come with quite a few challenges, but Cory and Arielle are amazing parents to this little guy and his spark adds life to all of our lives. Larissa's sweet spirit, her gift of mercy and service spread such peace and calm in our family. She blesses us in so many ways! We are thankful Jared found her! 

I kept it simple this month - pasta and a couple of kinds of sauce, salad and fresh sourdough bread. The boys had quite a discussion about which sauce was best. 

I believe they chose different sauces. 

Gifts, cake and then Jared played downstairs with the boys...Cory watched Ellie...and the rest of us worked on putting together packets for the upcoming week.


We have decided to do as many random acts of kindness in Josiah's honor as we can in the upcoming week. We've collected candy, mugs, hot chocolate, tea and coffee, gift cards....and Larissa designed a card to accompany everything.  I originally envisioned covering his hometown, Eagle River, but we do NOT want anyone to start saying we are playing off Josiah's loss for a campaign stunt for Jared...and we don't want to taint the jury pool either.... we'll scatter kindness around the valley this year. 

The assembly line

I'm excited about this...a chance to surprise others, something happy to look forward to during a hard week. At this point we have 22 gift cards, 20 mugs, 144 bags of candy...and BreZaak and CoRielle each have their own candy/gift cards and cards. We're also trying to work out a way to give away Chick Fil A sandwiches on the 23rd in Josiah's honor. This would be MUCH easier if we HAD a Chick Fil A up here. ::snort::  The card says, "Please accept this random act of kindness in honor of Our Hero...."

I saw this idea from Philip and Megan, a couple we knew at our last assignment. They lost their son, Hunter 9 years ago. They've begun this practice...and Michael and I loved it. We will probably start spreading things around and continue it through the week. If you're a business in the Valley that would like a basket of goodies let us know. 

GRACE NOTES: 

1. Busy day with many of the family. 

2. Charles and Larissa. 

3. Random Acts of Kindness. 

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