More blessed to give!!!

So this past Wednesday night I decided to do Christmas gifts with my class at church due to the fact that we have stuff going on til Christmas and may not get to it again until AFTER Christmas which ended up being the case last year!!! 

Sooooooooo before they opened their presents, I did a little lesson about it being, MORE BLESSED to give that to receive! First I had all the kids say ONE THING that they REALLY wanted for Christmas! Of course this was REALLy easy for them to come up with, then I had them all try to think of ONE REALLY NICE THING that they wanted to give to someone that year, and LO AND BEHOLD this was A LOT harder for them to come up with!!! LOL

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Weeeeeeelllll anyway, you NEVER know what all the kids take from your lessons right??? So this past Sunday, I was talking to Sam and Janelle, my friends and parent's to one of my students, MaKensie, and we got on the subject of Christmas presents and they were like, OH we have to tell you this story about Kensie, what she got from your lesson on Wenedsday night.

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Bro. Sam said that she has REALLY been wanting to get a puppy, REALLY BAD and that's ALL she has been asking for, for Christmas. He said after thinking about it they were like, ok they already have one dog, Bronco, its just not going to work out this year. So they had told her you know Kensie it's just not going work out this year, etc...

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Come later that week, after Wednesday night, Sam said that Kensie came to him and was like, You know dad, let me tell you something about what we learned in class Wednesday night! We learned that it is MORE BLESSED to GIVE than to receive. I was like, AWWWWWWWWW!!! She got it!!! She got my lesson...I'm having a TOTAL PROUD TEACHER MOMENT!!! Sam just laughs...

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Then he continues the story, He says that Kensie says, So I was thinking about OLD BRONCO out there in the back yard, ALL BY HIMSELF, and I was thinking, WE SHOULD GIVE HIM A PUPPY FOR CHRISTMAS so he has someone to play with!!!! 

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I was like, WOOOOOOOOOOWWW!!! They said they were laughing so hard about it!!! I was laughing when they told me!!! I have to say, that was SOME PRETTY SMART THINKING KENSIE!!! Actually, come to think about it, I do remember her saying after class that she thought she REALLY wanted to get something for her dog this year, cuz she NEVER had before!!! BAHAHAAAAA!!!

STILL A PRETTY PROUD TEACH MOMENT FOR ME!!!! 

#Ilovemykiddos

♥Mary Frances :)

Operation Christmas Box Party!!!

Soooooooooo MJ has been wanting to do this for a while now, you pack a shoe box and send it to a child in a 3rd world country and they'll get it in time for Christmas. Most of the kids that receive these boxes, this IS what they'll get for Christmas this year!!! Weeeeeellll we didn't get it done in time for last year BUUUUUUT this year we did it!!! We got two boxes packed for girls and brought them down to Crossroads Christian Bookstore (I'll do a review on this awesome Book and coffee shop in another post!) at 91st AVE and Olive for their Christmas Shoebox Party that they had yesterday!!!

I Just wanted to take a moment to share with you all about the movement of OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD!!! You fill a box with little toys, toiletries, school supplies and a note from you, you can tell these kids about Jesus, its a Christian based organization, you can pick boy or girl and the age group you want ANNNNND the coolest part IS you can actually track it and see WHO gets your box and even see them open it!!! HOW COOL IS THAT??? I gave the girls I packed the box for my contact info and said lets be friends!!! I just want encourage us as CHRISTIANS to take the time to reach out this Christmas!!! This is a GREAT thing to get your children involved in!!!

 At this party, you just went in an assembly line and filled boxes, their goal yesterday was to fill 400 boxes...MJ LOVED IT, she was filling them for babies!!!

We had a blast doing this!!!

I couldn't help but think about how my mom woulda LOVED participating in something like this!!! She LOVED reaching out to people of all ages and ethnicities!!!

Soooooooo the group that was in charge of putting this Christmas box party together was a group of Christian woman from all over the valley, they meet once a month all year long and make handmade toys and gifts to pack in these boxes, I these are little cd's that were turned into tops, the kids really get a kick out of stuff...Imagine IF our kids could appreciate something as simple as a HANDMADE TOP for Christmas, it really makes you think!!!

I plan on joining these woman this year in helping make these gifts and I plan bringing some of my kids to help out, they NEED to learn to REACH OUT AND APPRECIATE what they have!!! annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd guess what??? SO DO YOUR KIDS!!! Jus sayin...:))))) I'll put more info about that this coming year as I find out about it!!!

♥

BUUUUUUUUUUUUT FOR NOW...

Participate in OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD!!! GO HERE for all the details!!! It starts TODAY, November 14th and goes through the 21st!!! And once again, don't forget that you can write your child a NOTE, TELL THEM ABOUT JESUS!!!! *Remember, IF ONE SOUL IS SAVED, IT'S WORTH IT ALL!!!

♥Mary Frances :)
P.S. IF you do this, I would LOOOOOOVE to hear about it! Send me pics!!! Maryfranceswriting@gmail.com