Friday, December 25, 2009

Christmas day 2009

Wow! What a week! We had a fun day together, but I messed dinner up. Apparently the ham needed to cook for about 10 hours. I found this out while reading the cooking instructions on the label about 3 hours before dinner! I ran out to Walgreens on the off chance that they had something I could use. I wasn't willing to have hotdogs so I came back home and whipped up a meatloaf. I think that is just hilarious! Who never heard of meatloaf for Christmas dinner?

Can you believe that we were able to get our Christmas shopping done on time, on budget, and with cash? We made a committment to ourselves and to God to take better care of the money that He provides us. We made a committment to ourselves and to God to take better care of the people that He has placed in our lives. You know...giving our presence, not just presents.


Finally, I had the time this week to get some baking done. We made some oatmeal scotchies, chocolate covered pretzels and some brownies. I added some candy canes to an assortment of goodies and made plates for the neighbors. Rose accompanied me to deliver them on Wednesday. We stuck a Reece's Rainbow brochure with each plate and invited our neighbors to add some spare change to our adoption jar.

I was so pleasantly surprised at how willing our sweet neighbors were to share a little love in the way of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. We are really very blessed to live in such a friendly God fearing neighborhood.

Our adoption jar was a Christmas gift to me from my dear husband last year. We've been dropping in change for a year now. I rarely ever spend any coins. They go in the jar. Sometimes I throw my 1's in, too.

I once heard on the radio that a great way to save money was to save all your change and dollar bills. It was a problem for me most of the year because I used to always use a credit/debit card when shopping. The jar was just not filling up. But, a few months ago I started taking my grocery money out of the bank each payday and using only cash. It is amazing how I have spent less AND the jar has been filling up nicely!

The kids are also very focused on getting that jar filled. Nearly ever piggy bank has been emptied and every coin found goes straight in the jar. I keep trying to estimate the value of all the coins in my head, but I really have no clue. We will be taking the jar to the coin counter at the credit union next week and send the money in to Maxim's adoption grant fund. You know, the coin counter there is free for members? I'm so glad we don't have to wrap all those coins up.

We have a few more days and a few more inches left in the jar. I wonder if we could manage to get it all the way to the top for dear Maxim?

1 comments:

Sally said...

Merry Christmas!! Don't worry about the meatloaf, it sounds yummy! We had chinese take out for dinner. =)

So excited your jar is filling up. I bet there is more in there than you realize! Can't wait to hear how much you raised!