A Mom Just Like You.....My Journey through Life with 8 Children....

• Sep. 17, 2007 - Learning the Art of Old Fashioned Gift Giving...Learning to Give of Ourselves....

Learning the Art of Old Fashioned Gift Giving...Learning to Give of Ourselves.... Creative Birthdays Gifts Made by Hand.... The Birthday Crown....Made every year by me.... The Birthday Wreath....Made by me to go with the dress this year as a special big girl addition.... First of all I must say that all 3 of my boys, that still live at home, did such an awesome and amazing job on making gifts for their younger sister this year. This is nothing new. They like to make and give gifts to each other every year on every birthday. Somehow our sweet little girl hit the jackpot this year. With each and every year it is such great fun to see just how well the boys skills have advanced and grown. They are doing these things out of the kindness of their heart nobody told them they had to.  They are also growing in many ways because they do it.  Spiritually they are learning how to give so much of themselves. In the department of skills they are learning how to work well with their hands. They grow more and more creative in their ideas with each passing year.  If you click on all the pictures below you will be able to see the gifts much better and up close.... These guys spent all of their free time working on the gifts. Whenever they had free time to go enjoy doing whatever they enjoyed doing they  chose to spend it making their sister her birthday gifts. That truly warmed my heart. I guess all that training we have invested into our children did reap harvests and there are certainly pay offs. This was truly one of them! Thank you Lord!!! These guys were amazingly creative in what they came up with as gifts to make this year. We did not give suggestions or help them in anyway at all. They used what they had and came up with great results. Here is DT, he is our oldest son at home.... In this picture he is with one of his younger sisters.  This little girl is very much like DT in personality, organization and maturity.... He is very mature for his age.  He is also very organized and has a great mind for building. He has a wonderful creativity inside him. The things he creates are always very geometrically made LOL. He would be awesome at building some very creative and unique houses. He is the one who has said he is going to build houses for the poor since he was 3 yrs old and he hasn't changed his mind yet. He is your Mr. Steady kind of guy. He is also very handy with his hands. He can put anything together and is very good at it. But he is also a very cautious kind of guy and likes to follow instructions whenever it comes to something someone else has made. He can easily see how something works but if there are instructions he would rather use them to be on the safe side.  He has a more rigid type of personality...... DT made this dollhouse for his sister. He also made dolls to go with it. It is a cardboard dollhouse with cardboard dolls. If you click on the pictures you will see just how creative he got. He used things like cardboard boxes, twisty ties, drinking straws that were used to lock the roof onto the house. There are handles to carry the house around. He made many rooms inside for moving the dolls around. It is so very creative! Take a peek by clicking on the pictures yourself to see just what I mean. She absolutely loves this house!!! With good reason. It sure keeps her and her sisters busy for hours as they play with it...... This same son made this same sister an absolutely adorable red cardboard wagon about 4 years ago. He was 8yrs old and she had turned 2 yrs old. It was for her to pull her babies around in and she loved that wagon! He used nuts and bolts to hold on the cardboard wheels. He did an absolute awesome and creative job on that too. If I ever find the copy of the hard printed picture I will post it. Here is SJ, he is my second oldest son at home.... In this picture he created boxing gloves and shoes with newspaper....too funny....(that was for his fun for the birthday lol) He too is amazingly creative but in a different way.  He would be more of your Mr. Visionary kind of guy.  He is the type of guy who would create a garden landscape for the house my older son DT would build.  Their work would certainly compliment each other.  He likes to create beauty and he is more abstract when making his creations than he is geometrical.  He is also very handy with his hands.  He is our fix it guy.  He is not one to follow directions he can just look at something see how it works and figure out a way to fix it.  He would rather play with it and get it fixed than to follow instructions.  He has more of a free type of personality.... Click on this picture below, he built his sister a wood swing that hangs from a tree.  He did an absolute awesome job. Here is a miniature seesaw he built for my girl....Totally amazing.....These girls have had such fun playing with it.  If you follow the pictures you will see all four of them on it together...... Here is another thing he made....You will have to click on all these pictures to see them up close....On this wood he engraved her name, age and birthday on the wood.... In this picture you will see the paper stand up doll he made her....You cannot tell from the picture but the doll has a tab on the back so you can make her dance and move....My girl loved this gift too.... In this last picture my son cut off a piece of ribbon  cut the ends and wrapped it up....My girls love wearing ribbons in their hair so this was just another gift she adored.... Okay here is MJ, he is the youngest of our sons at home.... He is the one who will excavate the land whenever the time comes to help build a home with his brothers.  He loves trucks/vehicles.  He has quite a photographic memory.  Because of that he has an eye for remembering any and all vehicle he sees.  He is also very handy with his hands and he loves to make and create things too.  He is the Mr. Commander type of guy.  He likes to make sure everybody is doing what they are supposed to and that they are doing it right lol.  He likes to please people also especially us.  All my boys like to please us but this guy is motivated by pleasing us.  He is more likely to do something for us just to bring a smile to our face then he is to do it for himself.  He has a little of both things in him.  In some things he is more free in his personality and in other things he is very rigid... Here he made a bed frame for my little girls babies.  You can either put a mattress inside the bed frame he made or you can hang a blanket over it so it is like a hammock.  She loved this also.  She has it next to her bed so her babies sleep right by her.  It is nice and big so it will fit lots of little babies. There is a picture below with the babies inside the frame.... The unveiling of the bed frame.... Admiring the gift.... Using the bed that night for her babies.... The last gift shown here is an smaller purse I made my girl.... My girls love to carry things around with them so I made her a smaller purse to match her birthday dress.... As you can tell she loved it.... I am so blessed inside when I look at all these gifts of the heart from my boys to my little girl.  These gifts sure help me see that all the years I gave to my children taught them to give too.  I never pushed giving on them I always just encouraged it, and most of all modeled it for them.  I gave to them from my heart and I loved creating things of fun for them.  Children love when we take our time to make something for them!  Even if it is nothing more than muffins.  As you can see they will certainly carry on that tradition.  God is no different with us.  He loves to give to us in so many ways and it makes Him happy to do so.  Whenever God sees us model after Him with giving to others it brings Him much joy.  When we take time out of our lives or we take our eyes off our own sorrows God is well pleased with us for doing so.  Not only does it please Him but it will also amazingly bring joy and happiness into our own lives too!  When you give to someone else and you know it brought them joy, especially at a time they truly needed it, you cannot help but feel good inside. Giving is such an awesome feeling.  It is such a selfless and amazing gesture when you give to someone else even in the midst of your own troubles.  Whenever I may be feeling down I try to do something for someone else to take my eyes off myself and whatever I may be going through at that time.  In doing so I quickly forget my own sorrows.  I also tend to realize that my problems are not as big or bad as I thought they were compared to what others are going through.  It is a good way to stay out of a self pity mode when we give to others by giving of ourselves.  We will reap rewards in heaven but most of all we will also reap rewards here by bringing a smile to someone else's face.  A friend of mine many times has asked me how I cultivate such and such into my children.  My main answer for most things is my husband and I model what we want our children to be.  We let them see us genuinely be who we want them to be and then they copy us in their own actions.  So much more is is caught then taught.  If I do something unwillingly or with a bad attitude my children will see I am not truly giving from my heart and they will copy that.  When my children truly give with joy it is because they saw me joyful in my giving.  They saw that through my giving it brought me joy and it brought joy to whom I gave to.  Because as humans we are selfish by nature, giving has to be a conscious effort. It is so easy to get wrapped up in ourselves and what we may have going on in our lives at the time.  There are times I myself can be guilty of that.   So I make the conscious choice to put my selfish feelings aside and focus on giving to someone who could use it.  I do this regardless of what I may be going through in my life.  The only exception to this is if I am in a position that I am actually physically incapable of giving.  But during those time I can still pick up a phone or write a letter to someone else in order to bring a smile to their face.  During those times that is what I choose to do and you can almost hear a persons smile over the phone.  After doing this for so long giving begins to become enjoyable and you start to see it as something you want and enjoy doing and not something you have to do.  So give it a try.   You don't have to do anything huge it can be as simple as making an extra loaf of bread when you make bread.  It can be as simple as making someone a card or bringing them cut flowers from your yard.  It is the thought that people appreciate. Just knowing you took extra time to cut flowers or make them some bread you thought of them.  That means something.  How do you feel when God or someone gives to you?  Are you thankful?  Another post on being thankful.  When we give it also helps people know that God loves them and is there even during their time of distress.  They now feel like they have someone on their side, they are not alone!  What a wonderful feeling!  If you are down right now find someone who is worse off and offer to help them in some way make something simple to bring to them.  You will be so blessed by the smile you bring to their face.  Then look in the mirror and see the smile that it brought to your own face. I know you will be glad you did and I know God will truly bless you for doing so.   2 Corinthians 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. Happy Giving to you all!!! Dearest Lord, Thank you for allowing us to be creative in our giving.  Thank you that my children are true givers and that they do so with much joy!  It blesses my heart every time I see them give so much of themselves. It causes me to want to keep on giving myself.  I pray that we will always be aware and notice those around us in need. I pray you will always fill us with a tenderness and sensitivity to those around us who may be struggling and in need of a lift.  May me always do so from the bottom of our heart. The same way you give to us so freely and with such love!  May we always touch the lives of those around us in your name!  In Jesus name I pray, Amen~

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