Cards for Kids

Amongst my possessions, I have a small pile of letters and note cards that I have received from friends through out the years. They have written kind thoughts and compliments which I have cherished. When I get blue, sometimes I reread them to boost my spirits. It's nice to be able to have a tangible remembrance of those past friends too.

While I have sent countless cards to my cyber stamping friends, recently I have decided that I really should be sending cards to people that I know in real life. At church I work with the children in Sunday School. Sometimes it can be frustrating, but I do see such sweet acts of kindness from these kids too.

Today we had a Quarterly Activity of a Summer Fun Fair. Just a fun time, play games, eat lunch. Two of the kids were so loving and kind today that I just had to make a card to send them.




This is for a boy named John who was really kind to grab my DS, E's hand and help him through the Fun Fair. E* was a bit uncertain of the whole activity but John grabbed his hand when assigned as his partner. Said, "Let's go!" And helped E, a little bit younger, through the activities.




This card is for an older girl named Reagan who kindly accepted being partners with a younger and very squirrly boy. I'm sure she would have prefered being partnered with a friend. But showing such kindness and love to another boy was a selfless act which I'm sure will not go unrewarded.


These are simple cards that will hopefully bring a ray of sunshine into a young child's heart. I know that I love it when a friend, or even an aquaintance takes the time to compliment me. I'm certainly glad that I finally bought this soon to be retired stamp set! It'll be perfect for the little ones (and not so little ones) at church.

Wild Life...not just the ones in our house!

Okay...there is a story to this one. But I really want to stamp a couple of cards before the kids get home from their last day of school today...and it's a 1/2 day. So to tantilize you...here is a pix of one of our local creatures.






More of the story coming soon!

Father's Day...

My Grandfather sends out cards to us on anniversary days and birthdays. At my mom's suggestion, I made a bunch of cards for his Father's Day gift. The Anniversary set has 2 different sayings stamped on the inside of its cards while the birthday set uses different animals from SU's Silly Sealife.






In his service at our church, my father sends cards to people in the congregation from time to time. So I made a set of cards for Dad this year too...again, mom's suggestion. He needed less frilly cards and more on the all occasion or "thank you" side. Here are just some of the cards I came up with for him. He will get 20 of them...boxed in a fancy chocolate box. Hehe...He'll be surprised when he opens it to find the cards.

GREAT news about a Bike Trailer...

Yesterday was Saturday and I spent most of the day shopping for our big Hawaiian adventure. We have a super mall only about 2 miles away which I have not walked around in well over a year. If you walk around the entire mall, it's supposed to be a mile. So I figured, being without any kids, I'll walk it and see what is new, moved, interesting. Steve and Barry's is gone, but there is a Sketchers and Timberland outlet. The Children's Place is HUGE now...yeah. I can always get great finds there. We do have a Sports Authority Store. (Remember, I ordered those 2 bike trailers from sportsauthority.com.)

Taking a detour from my quick waddle around the mall, I went inside the store to see if they had any trailers instock. And lo and behold, they did. Two different models. One, the unfortunate InStep PathFinder and the other was a WeeRide Co-Pilot Bike Trailer. Both of which were $99.99.

I talked to the sales associate who, after hearing my story with the bikes ordered online, said that Sports Authority and Sportsauthority.com were 2 different entities. Someone paid to use the Sports Authority name on the website and he didn't think that talking to a manager would help me any either.

I went to the car where my cell phone was, called DH who redressed the kids back into clothes and drove up to the mall. He started talking to the manager, but I interjected and explained the situation (a bit better) since I was the one who was on the phone/computer for the last 2 weeks. Basically, the manager matched the $89 price. And we bought our THIRD bike trailer.



When we arrived home, we quickly got to work. The kids went inside to eat, b/c they are always hungry. Ken and I took apart the 2nd bike and attached the 3rd bike. Then, horrors, he couldn't get the coupler part tight enough. Then I noticed that a neighbor, who is supposedly a whiz at fixing cars and anything else, had his garage door open. His house is not in our sub, just outside it, as we live at the end of our subdivision. So I told DH to take the bike over there and ask him if he had a tool that would help. Luckiliy for me, he did. And R* told us to come back if we needed it tightened again. He suggested that we should get some jam nuts...b/c only about "3 threads are holding that big bike onto the adult bike" as he put it. Just by looking at the bolts he concluded that they were metric too. What a neighbor. We need to make some cookies and bring them over as way of thanks...and a way to open the door for more assistance...hehe.

So, nearly dusk, our family of 5 took our very first bike ride up and down and all around the subdivision. E* held on, didn't fall off, and LOVED it. McK* was disappointed today was Sunday which meant we had to go to church instead of taking another bike ride. I figured out that I would build up some strength before I could bike up the mile long hill to Walgreens to get a candy bar with E*. I barely made it home, our sub is so hilly! We were 3 houses away from own own domicile and I had to have E* get off and walk while I walked the bike. I also need to invest in a bike lock, bike mirrors and a water bottle!

By the time we got home, it was definitely too dark to ride. Everyone went to bed and slept in. Yay!! We are ready for some more biking in the very near future. If you are outside tomorrow in our sub, you'll see us around 9am!! (Maybe a little later, since we still have to go to the UPS store to mail the 2nd bike back.)