You've Been RACKed!!!

So, I saw this last year around Christmas time and SOOO wanted to do it, but {hang head in shame} I was honestly too lazy.  I made the excuse that I didn't have enough time... BUT I DO!

RACK stands for RANDOM ACT OF CHRISTMAS KINDESS and our famiy has decided this is going to be a little Christmas tradition we are starting this year.

We made a whole list of things that we are going to do to show Random Acts of Kindess this season.

We did 25 Acts for the 25 Days of Christmas. We plan to leave a little Christmas note with each of our acts of kindness. I'm not recreating the wheel, so I'm using Cara Carrol's card that you can find on her blog here. Cara also has a list of what she did last year when she went RACKing :)

Here is our list for 2012:

1. Tape candy canes to ATM machines.

2. Tape coins to vending machines.

3. Take cookies to the librarians at our local library.

4. Take brownies to the local fireman.

5. Take doughnuts to the local police officers.

6.  We are doing two Christmas shoe boxes to ship overseas to one boy and one girl in need.

7.  Visit the nursing home and hand out Christmas cards.

8. Donate items to the animal shelter and visit the animals.

9. Take hot chocolate to Salvation Army people outside of Walmart.

10. Leave a gift in the mailbox for the mailman/mailwoman

11. Collect canned goods for those in need.

12. Put candy canes on cars

13. Leave a stack of children's books at the play area in the mall.

14. Anonymously pay for another family's dinner.

15. Donate clothes to FABRIK {they are teaming up with United Way to help teens in need}

16. Donate toys to those in need.

17. Take gifts to our neighbors.

18.  Donate coloring books and crayons to doctor's offices.

19. Adopt a class and bring them goody bags.

20. Donate coloring books and crayons to the church.

21. Push those random grocery carts back where they belong.

22. Bring breakfast for Caycen's babysitter.

23. Bring in breakfast for coworkers.

24. Visit the people working at CVS on Christmas Eve and gift them a gift since they can't be with their families.

25. Drop off Baker's Pride doughnuts at the local hospital and put them in the waiting room for the families and staff working on Christmas Day.

I am super excited about going RACKing and teaching my little man the importance of serving others and showing the love of CHRIST.

If you want to join us please let us know! And we would love LOTS of comments letting us know if you will be RACKing this year and also some encouragement as we get all of our stuff together to start RACKing!

I hope everyone has a BLESSED weekend!!!

Love,

The Darleys

Halloween 2012

This Halloween we took Caycen trick-or-treating for the first time. Last Halloween he actually fell asleep for trick-or-treating ever started!!!

Caycen got to be a dinosaur for Halloween this year and {if I do say so myself} he was the CUTEST little dinosaur that I've ever seen!!!!

We walked/rode around the neighborhood to different houses for about 45 minutes. 

Caycen had a lot of fun! He even tried to say "trick or treat" at the last couple of houses, which sounded more like "tr tree". He was TOO cute!

After we thought he {or Chance and I} had enough candy, we decided to go back to the house and hand out candy.

We had so much fun this month getting to dress up and celebrate Fall!

Looking forward to next year's costume :)

Ottawa Farms

The day after we went on the Halloween Hike to Oatland Island, we decided to go to Ottawa Farms in Bloomingdale. My mom and Skyler went along with us.  

It was so much fun! Of course it was like 85 degrees outside that day, so we were hot, but it was so nice. 

We got there pretty early, so we played around in the field for a little while until we got to go in.

We started out at the bouncy, where Caycen just played at the end of, and Skyler got to go down the HUGE slide.

Next, we went to the pumpkin patch.

After that, Skyler and Caycen rode on the cow train. It was so cute because Skyler got to have Caycen sit with him the entire time.  He was such a great big cousin!!!

Next, we went to the little wooden tractor and Caycen got to pretend he was driving. Of course he kept saying "choo choo"... he thinks every vehicle makes that noise I guess.

We played the little water pumping game with rubber duckies.

After a while, we were beginning to get hot and needed some water. We took a little break, then Skyler and Chance had a very INTENSE checkers game :)

After our little break, we went to pet some of the animals. Caycen LOVED feeding the goats and petting the pigs' noses. His buddy Sawyer, who was there with his mommy (and my friend), Alison, loved the animals too! They were all so cute.

Skyler decided he wanted to play in the room FULL of corn.

We even got to watch a pig race! Caycen thought it was cool!

After about 2 hours of fun, Caycen was pooped! Skyler and my mom decided they really wanted to do the corn maze, so while they did that, we went back to the car... and FELL ASLEEP!

Ottawa Farms was SO.MUCH.FUN!!! I will definitely be taking him again next year :)

Hope you enjoyed this post!

God Bless,

Amy

Halloween Hike

We started celebrating Halloween around mid-October with a little Halloween Hike out at Oatland Island.  It was so much fun because my mom (Caycen's Grandma) and Skyler, my nephew got to come for the weekend.  Our friends Amanda, Brandon, and Ashley all came with their youngins too.  Oatland Island is a Wildlife Center that has tons of different animals.

For the Hike, the kids got to dress up in their costumes and walk around Oatland Island. The staff members were dressed up as different animals and the kids got to go up to each animal and get candy.  At the end of the hike there was a little hayride to take you back to the front. Inside the building there were tons of other animals, crafts, and activities for the kids to get into.  When you walked back out to the front, there were even pony rides.  All of the kids had a BLAST!

 We had the cutest little kids there!

I think he's trying to be scary here :)

looking at the fox (He LOVED the animals!)

Here we got to see Mother Goose and sing different nursery rhymes

 We're singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" here (Little C's favorite song!)

Petting a snake!!!

Digging for DINOSAUR teeth and bones!

Skyler got to hold the owl and the other kids got to pet it. Skyler was really strong! :)

Skyler rode the pony, while my little dinosaur got into mischief by standing on the fence and all the other babies wanted to do it too!

We had SO.MUCH.FUN!!!!

I think next year it would be even more fun for Caycen and the other babes, because they will be able to do the crafts and all too.

What a great HIKE :)

Amy