Pearce

We had a visit from Pearce and Auntie Carrie last weekend. Nathan and Charlotte were SO excited to see their cousin. I think they asked me every day for a week if this was the day Pearce was coming. They also kept asking me if Pearce was still little...so funny. When Pearce first got to our house, he was so cute! He was just as excited to see Nay Nay and Charlotte! He ran up to us and gave us all big hugs. 

As always, we packed lots of fun things into our visit. They got here Thursday afternoon and on Friday, we surprised Nathan at school with lunch from McDonald's. He had no idea we were coming and was so happy to see us! Whenever Nathan and Charlotte are with Pearce, they take him over and act all grown up by holding his hand, telling him what he can and can't do, but they also act silly and love to make him laugh. Nathan was so proud of his cousin at lunch. After eating, he took him around to introduce him to his friends and his teacher. It was so cute to see them together. Nathan's teacher, Mrs. Hucks came over and told us that Nathan had been telling her about his cousin coming for a whole week. She has a two year old little boy also, and she told us that Nathan said her little boy and Pearce would have fun playing together. 

After lunch, we went to visit Grandma with Pearce and Charlotte. Pearce kept saying that he couldn't wait to see Grandma and he wanted her to hold him. When we got there, she was eating lunch with her friends. Pearce and Charlotte were so sweet to her and kept giving her hugs and talking to her. Grandma was so happy to see us and you could tell she was so proud of Pearce and Charlotte and loved having her friends see how sweet they were to her. When her lunch was over, we went to her room and they continued the pampering. Pearce and Charlotte took turns brushing her hair, putting lotion on her hands, and giving her hugs. Carrie and I were so proud of them for being so loving. 

On Saturday, we went to Nathan's soccer game and then to the Arboretum to see the new children's section. Mama and taken us there the week before and Nathan and Charlotte loved it. They knew Pearce would have fun too. There was a water area that Pearce couldn't get enough of! We saved that until the end and just let them go crazy in it. After the Arboretum, we watched the Arkansas game while Pearce napped. When he woke up and the game was over, Uncle Wayne loaded them all up in my car and took them to Five Below to pick out a toy...brave Wayne! Pearce got light up bubble gun that he just loved, and Carrie said that even though the bubbles ran out, he still uses the gun to walk around his neighborhood and shoot all the spooky Halloween decorations! 

Carrie and I always have fun together but it's even more fun to see our children together. We love that they love each other!!!

Nathan's Act Local Project

Nathan's school asks that every student participates in the Act Local program. This is where the kids get to choose a way to volunteer and help the community in some way. It could be something as simple as going to a local park to pick up trash. The kids can choose to work individually or in a group. And after they have completed their project, they have to make some sort of multimedia presentation to present to the class. Last year, Nathan and a group of friends made cards to pass out to a nursing home. This year, he and two other boys decided to donate food to The Seven Loaves Food Pantry which is located at St. Andrew United Methodist Church, and is where Charlotte goes to school (Nathan too before he started Kindergarten). Drew and Barron came over one day after school, and we explained (tried to explain) to them that not everyone has as much as they do. And how we can go to the grocery store or McDonald's whenever we want, but that there are a lot of people who don't have as much money to do that, and that they need help to feed themselves and their families. This is such a hard thing to get across to kids who think that you can just buy whatever you want! Anyway, I told them about the food pantry and how people who don't have enough money can go there and get groceries. But in order for the Pantry to have food to give to other people, they need volunteers to donate canned food to them. The moms and I were doing our best to explain this concept, but I'm not sure they totally got it. Anyway, I printed out a list of items that the food pantry really needed and then had each of the boys make a grocery list of 10 items that they wanted to buy. After they made their lists, we all piled in our cars and went to Kroger to buy the groceries. 

The boys were so cute! They each got their own carts and did a really good job of shopping. But the lists of 10 things turned into about 20! Charlotte wanted to pick out a few things and then each of the boys would see other things that weren't on their lists, but maybe on someone else's, and throw those things in too! And when we tried to tell them not to pick out so many things, they'd remind us that these people don't have as much as us, so what's the big deal? Who wants to just eat canned corn and peas and TUNA?! Let's give them some Honey Nut Cheerios and pancake mix and a few boxes of granola bars. And I'm thinking, yes I want to be generous but not THAT generous! 

The next week, we took all of our canned foods (and name brand snacks) to the church. We met Charles who is the director of the pantry, and he let the boys see where they keep all of the food and put a few things on the shelves. They loved it! 

The last part of the project was for each of them to make a short video explaining different parts of the project and why they were glad they did this project. And then Drew's mom is going to put the pictures and videos together into a slide show. So Nathan had to explain the part about making the grocery list and going to the store to buy the things on the list. The videos at the end are several of our attempts...I deleted 5 more that weren't good, but now I wish I had kept them. Nathan got so frustrated because we had to keep stopping and doing it over. Either he was rambling on and telling about the WHOLE project instead of just his part, or he wasn't saying enough. Pretty soon, he was in tears saying that he wished he hadn't even done this project, and then I was getting mad at him for not taking it seriously. I wanted to just stop and finish the videos the next day when we weren't so grouchy, but Nathan wanted to get it over with. So we're arguing with each other when the video is off, and then we've got to get it together when the video starts...it was not a good evening! When you watch the videos, notice that he keeps calling them "foods and cans" instead of "canned foods"  That was one of the things I was trying to make him re-do, but finally I gave up. Oh and he kept saying that we were buying food for "lonely" people instead of "hungry" people. And every time I tried to correct that, he'd tell me that they probably are lonely if they don't have enough food to eat because they can't have fun going to restaurants. Fine, whatever, let's just get this thing done!