Hey sweeties!  Laura here and this morning, I want to talk about one of my favorite things to do over the holiday season, helping others. As most of you know, I’m kinda…rough around the edges.  I tend to be crass sometimes, I tell it like it is, but once you look past that rough exterior, you’ll see that I have one of the biggest hearts of anyone you’d ever know.  I’d do just about anything to help someone in need.  I learned to help those who are less fortunate than us from my mother and I hope to pass that along to my children as well.   I try to have all of us involved in some sort of charity work throughout the year, but living in a super small town, the opportunity just isn’t always there. As I mentioned, we live in a very small town.  Small as in, my daughter’s 1st grade class has only 17 students in it…the whole class.  One thing that we do throughout the winter months is help out at our local food pantry.  This is where living in a small town is nice.  The past couple years especially (with the economy the way it has been), there has been greater need for help as far as feeding families in need.  The food pantry is always looking for volunteers so I figure, what better way to teach my children the gift of giving to others, than having them volunteer with me.  This was the first year that both girls were able to help me load and unload boxes and while my youngest didn’t really understand what we were doing, my oldest definitely understood this year, and has already asked me if we can do it again next year! Another thing that we do every year is sponsor a family over the Christmas season.  Each year, our town hall has a spot where you can sign up to sponsor a family and you are given a list of things that the family needs.  A lot of times, it’s things that we take for granted like new shoes, jeans, a winter coat and even socks and underwear.  We also will donate to our local Toy Drive as well.  I know that my children are spoiled (thank God) by their grandparents, so every year when we do our annual purge, we donate those items to the local toy drive.  I can only hope that my girls grow up and want to help others because they love to do it AND because they can. My mother always loved this bible verse and it has always struck a chord with me , “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Before I leave you today, I get to present you with the Layout of the Week.  This is always such a challenge for me.  Our gallery is just exploding with yumminess all week long!

This week I chose a layout by Trish (MommaTrish).  I absolutely ADORE the way she uses so many patterns on this,  the different fonts and word art she used for the title work and that sweet little photo of her dd.

Congratulations Trish, I’ll be PMing you shortly!