Day 9: Chili, Cookies & The Care Center

Today's advent activity was a Christmas Open House Party.  If you know our boys, especially the twins, they LOVE to have parties.  They'd have a party EVERY, SINGLE day if they could.  They get the party gene from their dad who is a complete extrovert, rarely needs downtime and is always ready to host more people.  I love hosting parties too, but I'm not quite as extroverted as my dear hubby. However, I do relish a night without company and just burying my head in a book. 

A few weeks ago, we were brainstorming and came up with the idea of having a Christmas party with a greater purpose.  As a family, we decided that it would be cool to help our church stock up their children's clothing store that will open in Spring 2013 as part of our church's new Care Center.

The new Care Center will continue to have a food pantry and a CARS ministry, but it will also have a clothing store, medical services (vision & dental), legal services, employment training and more.  Right now, several of these services are provided at other locations.  The new Care Center will bring it all together under one roof to better serve the needs in our community.  Its exciting!

This fall they started accepting donations of gently used children's clothing and shoes.  They do request that donations of socks, underwear, pajamas and infant onesies be new in order to affirm everyone's dignity.  I love this.  I mean, really, who would feel awesome about getting used underwear and socks.  I have four boys, I cannot imagine passing on those items to anyone else after they've used them.  You can read more about the Care Center here if you want.

We decided that we'd call our party "Chili, Cookies and the Care Center" because every party needs a clever name, right?  Jon loves to cook (and eat) Chili, so he was in charge of making that and the topping bar to go with it. In case you're wondering, his "toppings bar" included cheese, sour cream, chopped jalapenos, green onions, diced yellow onion, cilantro, lime wedges and tortilla chips.  Clearly Jon is a big believer in having lots of garnishes and toppings for your chili.  And in case you were wondering, one type of onion is not sufficient so that's why we had two.   

I love to bake, so I used my Saturday when the kids were gone to bake up a ridiculous amount of edible treats including cake pops, peanut butter brownies, cookie dough fudge, chocolate peppermint sandwich cookies, raspberry kolacky, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal butterscotch cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate dipped marshmallows, and cinnamon roll cookies.  I might (just maybe) have gone a little crazy with my baking.  I also like setting it up so that it looks pretty.  I rarely get to pull out all of my nice serving dishes and I got to use my new serving platter. I think that being a mom of four boys with their dirty fingernails, smelly feet and general messiness, has pushed me even more into pretty displays of fancy treats.  Its one of my few feminine outlets in our home that is appreciated by my kids. 

We emptied our hallway bench and coat rack in anticipation of receiving donations.  We put a few things out that we had shopped for earlier in the week.

Our guests were beyond generous.  As I type this, our entryway is overflowing with bags and boxes of children's clothing.  Our boys are super excited to drop it off later this week at church.  We already fill up our minivan pretty well being a family of 6, so we'll definitely be at capacity when we squeeze all this clothing in as well.

In addition to having a great clothing drive, the party was just fun spending time with friends and family.

James and his good buddy Liam enjoying some treats.  James has a transformers costume over his "handsome Christmas shirt" if you're wondering what he's wearing.

Before he went down for his nap, Caleb was glued to Grandpa Shogren's side.

During this time of year where its easy to focus on buying and getting things, I love having an entire day that was dedicated to just being with people.  We got to catch up with friends we hadn't seen in a while and ones that we see weekly.  There were old friends and new friends.  I just LOVE being with people and love the idea of filling our month with advent activities that focus on being PRESENT rather than receiving presents.

The Willis boys & Shogren boys (well, 2 of the 4)

My "old ECFA co-workers" drove up from Wheaton for the party.  I love these women.  We were all friends before we have kids and have maintained friendships over the years.  6.5 years later, we have 13 children between the 4 of us.

At one point, there were about 30 children in our house at the same time.  You read that right, 30 children!  Needless to say, it was loud, but that didn't stop Caleb from taking a 3.5 hour nap.  To be honest, it wasn't much louder than it normally is around our house since a few of us still haven't mastered using an inside voice.  Despite the crazy number of little ones, there were no major problems.  Even more impressive, there were no spills.  Seriously!  I would expect at least one crazy spill with just the adults we had in the house, but add in that many children and I would have bet money on it.

I have NEVER seen that many pairs of shoes in our hallway.

At one point, I pulled out some Christmas crafts.  I had bought them for the party, but kinda assumed they might go unused.  Boy was I wrong.  Crafts were a major hit with all the kids.  I wasn't surprised that the girls went for it because honestly our toys consist of cars, superheroes and pirates.  There is absolutely nothing girl-oriented here, no pink, no purple, no princesses or dolls.  I was slightly surprised that the boys (mine included) made all the crafts.  Even more than being surprised, I thoroughly enjoyed that all 3 did them without any help from me.

At one point, we had at least 12 kids huddled around our kitchen table working on making gingerbread men, decorating trees, and making wreath ornaments.  I had to set up a second smaller table to accommodate more kids.  I loved it.  Something I loved even more was the fact that they were all using washable markers (thank you to whoever invented washable markers!!).

The kids were hard at work and the table was at capacity.

After everyone left, the boys and I took stock of just how generous our friends are and talked about how we could pray for the children who will receive these clothes in the coming months.  We took a quick picture amidst the clothing piles.

The boys were very excited about how many clothes were given.

Thank you to our friends & family that showed up today.  Thank you for teaching our kids about giving to others and getting them excited to be generous.  I am so appreciative of everyone taking time out to spend it with our family today.  

**A little update.  Today (December 11th), the boys & I dropped off the clothing at our church's care center.  It filled up our trunk completely.  A volunteer met us with a cart and the donations filled the cart completely.  The boys thought it was awesome that we were able to round up so many clothes.  The volunteer who met us in the parking lot to take the clothing gave them each a hug and told them that the children will be so happy to receive this clothing.  I'm thankful beyond words for how well this all turned out and for how excited the boys were about being a part of this. 

On our way home, we talked about why the church does things like this (ie..a food pantry, a clothing store, etc).  We talked about how taking care of the poor, giving to others and showing love is what Jesus commanded us to do.  My hope is that if we continue to provide the boys with concrete ways to express generosity and practical ways to show love to others that they will grow into adults that embody these characteristics.  I'm thankful for a church that provides us with countless opportunities to do this (as well as what it is doing for those it reaches) and for such supportive friends.