Carmel Clay Firestation We delivered 2 homemade pies and flowers to our friends at the Carmel Fire Station. We are so grateful for their service to our community. October 2016	Stratford Retirement Center Flowers always seem to brighten a person's day so we put together a dozen vases of beautiful flowers for local retirement residents. The kids all made cards with stickers to attach to each vase. We hope that it helped brighten their day! January 2017
The Villages Family Services We made blankets for the children at The Villages. We added "You Are Loved" to each blanket as a gentle reminder that they are important, special and LOVED. :) February 2017	Traders Point Christian Church Our church has a monthly staff meeting. Mikayla and I decided to surprise them with homemade chocolate chip cookies. We baked about 100 cookies and delivered them to the church before their meeting. We thought they would enjoy a cup of coffee with a yummy, fresh baked cookie. April 2017	Helping Our Neighbors Mikayla and Mason helped rake our neighbor's leaves (without being asked). They raked their front yard for them and it looked lovely when they were finished. The neighbor's were happy to see the kids outside helping them with some fall clean-up. November 2017
Gleaners Food Bank Mikayla volunteered at Gleaners Food Bank with her Girl Scout Troop. She has a heart for serving others, which is a beautiful gift! September 2017	Girl Scout Cookies It is Girl Scout cookie time! We decided to send boxes of cookies to 2 family members + 1 friend that serve in our military. We are so grateful for their service and wanted to let them know how much we appreciate everything they sacrifice for our country. Also, we sent boxes of cookies to 3 college students that we know and surprised them. We included a Starbucks gift card in all the boxes. Coffee + Girl Scout cookies are wonderful together! :) February 2018	Surprising A Family Friend Mary Ann is a sweet family friend. She sends me letters several times each year and they are the most beautiful, hand written letters. It makes me happy to see her letters when I open our mailbox. She writes all over the envelopes as well. I feel like a little kid when I open her letters. I can't wait to see what she has written. She is in her seventies and has been widowed for several years. I put together a fun "spring" box for her. I hope it made her smile when she opened it. :)
Friends & Family There is something comforting about food when life gets hard. We gave homemade apple pies to several friends that are going through a rough time. A good friend just lost her grandmother, a family's barn burned to the ground along with all their animals inside and a neighbor lost her baby girl at 24 weeks pregnant. So heartbreaking! We hope they enjoy the pies and that God pours blessings over their lives. Also, we sent a pie to my sweet great-aunt and uncle as a fun surprise. June 2018	Carmel Fire Station We delivered 2 summer pies to our friends at the Carmel Fire Station. We are so grateful for all the wonderful things they do to help our community. Also, as a special treat (it was Landon's 5th birthday) they gave us a ride in their fire truck, which was a fun experience! June 2018	Encouraging Words We have a basket of stones (with encouraging words engraved on them) that we have been spreading around our community. We have left them in random places for people to find. Our pray is that God helps us put the stones in the path of those that need to hear words of encouragement. July 2018
After School Snacks The kids and I put together after school snack bags for our little friends at our bus stop. We filled each bag with a cheese stick, yogurt, chips and a homemade chocolate chip cookie. Also, we added an encouraging note on the front of each bag. Landon handed out the bags to all the kids! :) September 2018	National Neighbor Day Mikayla & Mason baked homemade chocolate chip cookies for our neighbors to celebrate National Neighbor Day! September 2018	Candy Boxes We sent candy boxes + Starbucks gift cards to our friends at college. We hope they like their yummy treats! November 2018
Donation To Children In El Salvador One lesson that I hope our children learn is to collect moments not things in life. We try to donate clothes and food often to those in need. Our sweet and loving friend, Jenna, lives in El Salvador in a small community. We gathered up clothes + a suitcase and donated them to the children in her community. Jenna plans to take the items back to El Salvador in a few weeks. :) November 2018	The Giving Tree Landon picked out 3 tags on the giving tree at his preschool. We wrapped up clothes for a 3 month old baby girl, clothes for a 2 year old boy and art supplies for a grade school girl. We hope they like what we picked out for them. December 2018	Ronald McDonald House Mikayla colored 15 inspirational themed pages and placed them as the cover page in binders. The binders are filled with blank pages so residents can write down their thoughts as their child is getting treatment at the children's hospital. This was a Girl Scout project and in total her troop put together 60 binders. December 2018
The Giving Plate We have tried to bless several families with meals this past year. We made a salad, spaghetti bake, blueberry muffins and apple cobbler for a family that recently had a baby. The best gift - Mikayla and I got to spend time cooking together in the kitchen. Also, we found a cute plate to give them that can be passed along to another family. :) December 2018	Sunrise Senior Living It's cold and dreary outside so we decided to brighten a few residents' day with colorful flowers at Sunrise Senior Living. February 2019	The Giving Tree Malia picked out 2 tags on the giving tree at her preschool. We wrapped up clothes for a 12 month old baby girl and clothes for a 3 year old boy. We hope they like what we picked out for them. December 2019
Bethany Christian Services We donated a dozen blankets + stuffed animals to Bethany Christian Services for children in their foster care program. March 2020	Trash clean-up The kids spent several hours picking up trash in our neighborhood for Earth Day. Every little bit helps our environment and helps to beautify our neighborhood. Thank you so much kiddos! :) April 2020	Photo Boards Mikayla put together photos + words of encouragement/scripture cards for several friends. She wanted to send love and encouragement to her friends during the coronavirus pandemic. May 2020
Thinking of you! Mason's friend broke his ankle while skate boarding and had to have surgery. We surprised him with a few board games + books to read while he is recovering. Also, we gave his family an apple pie to enjoy for dessert. We hope that it helped to cheer him up a little! May 2020	Helping a friend from church We delivered flowers, dinner + dessert to a good friend from church that is going through chemotherapy for breast cancer. We hope that we helped brighten her day a little and that she was able to enjoy a yummy (stress-free) meal with her sweet family. May 2020	The Scoop Ice Cream Shop We've been giving out gift cards to our favorite ice cream shop in Zionsville this summer. We have given them to family + friends as a thank you, thinking of you and as birthday gifts. There is something special about getting a yummy dish of ice cream (with chocolate + sprinkles) while sitting on a beautiful wrap around porch on a warm summer evening. That is the fun memory that The Scoop Ice Cream Shop has given our family and we hope that others feel the same way. Summer 2020
Donating Clothes + Shoes This kind man delivered a new kitchen table to our house. He shared with us that he has 2 little boys (ages 3 & 5) and they are excited for Christmas. We had 2 bags of boys clothes (4T-5T) + a box of shoes ready to donate so we asked him if he would like to take the clothes & shoes home to his boys. He said YES! He shared with us that his son's names are Aiden and Kaison. We were so happy that we could give a little something to help his children. December 11, 2020	A Week Of Gift Giving We have been busy delivering gifts + food this week to our friends and family. It's been fun seeing so many smiling faces (from a distance due to COVID). Also, we dropped off chicken pot pies, mashed potatoes, bread + jelly, a sugar cream pie and an apple pie to our local fire station. It truly is better to give than to receive. December 13-18, 2020	Helping our friends Our friends are recovering from Covid-19 and are quarantined at home for the next week. We dropped off food items, Lysol wipes and flowers to help cheer them up. We are praying that they make a full recovery and get back to normal life again soon. February 2021
Our kind friend + farmer Our friend + farmer, Jake, helped us plant flowers + oats on our farm. He charged us $300 for the day, but Shawn gave him an extra $1,000 as a thank you for all his help and hard work. We are so grateful for Jake! April 2021	Cookies for Caleb Caleb and his sweet family use to live on our street, but moved to Tennessee a few years ago. Caleb always loved it when I baked chocolate chip cookies for their family. He came to visit friends in Indy so I baked a jar of cookies for him to take back home. Also, I made a few extra for he and his friends to enjoy while in town. We all enjoyed seeing Caleb in person too! :) July 2021	A sweet friend My sweet friend is recovering at home after being hospitalized for a few days with Covid-19 pneumonia. I sent her a little gift filled with tea, herbal supplements, warm socks, a Starbucks gift card and a gift card to the Woodhouse Day Spa for a hot stone massage. I hope it helped brighten her day a little and brought a smile to her face when she opened her surprise box of goodies. October 2021
A Week of Gift Giving We have been delivering food, coffee, flowers and gifts to our family, friends and neighbors this week. It is so fun to give and see so many beautiful smiles from the ones that we love and care about. It is truly better to give than to receive. December 19-24, 2021	Lunch for our house framers We are so grateful for the crew that has been framing our house the past few months. We took lunch from Chick-Fil-A out to the farm for all the framers. March 17, 2022