A few months ago, I decided how I would celebrate my next birthday. My 40th birthday. Which happens to be today. I cannot believe I am celebrating my 40th birthday. {and I use the word ‘celebrate’ loosely…celebrate that I’m alive, yes, that the number is 40 already, notsomuch} While I haven’t been 9, or 19, or even 29 for  a while, 40 STILL sounds old to me! Yet, here I am. I have arrived. {excuse me for a moment while I wipe my tears contain my excitement} My driver’s license doesn’t lie {okay, maybe it does a little, but not about my age, whatever!}.

Rather than focusing on my old age {advanced maternal age, as it would be noted, if I were still in the market for prenatal exams}, I decided to celebrate my life, my health, and my mom with 40 random acts of kindness (RAOK). I spent a few months working on my list of fun, meaningful surprises as a way of easing into 40, and I’m giving myself 40 days to complete it. The type-A, overachieving part of me considered doing it all in one or two days, however I want to document it, enjoy it, share the experience with my shorties, and really be in the moment of it all, and that requires patience {elusive in my life for the past 40 years, fo sho, so better late than never, right!?}.

With my shorties’ help {hello, awesome bonding and learning opportunity!}, following is my Project 4-Ohh list. Some are easy, some heartfelt, all worth my time. I’ve printed forty cards (photos coming soon) which say “Please enjoy this random act of kindness. Now it’s your turn to pay it forward!”

Here’s my Project 4-Ohh list:

1) Take a box full of magazines, crafts, and care supplies to Ronald McDonald house {because I’m so grateful for our health}

2) Deliver a box full of food to the food bank {so grateful I’m able to feed my shorties}

3) Leave a bag with the right amount of change for a Coke taped to a Coke machine {there were a few times, when I was 18 and had my first apartment, that I didn’t have enough change to buy a soda out of the soda machine in the laundry room at my apartment complex. And I like Coke!}

4) Send a box of goodies to a military person. {we’ve done this before and LOVE doing it}

5) Leave quarters and a penny on the stretch-a-penny machine at the zoo. {my shorties LOVE those things}

6) Leave quarters in each slot of the quarter candy/toy machines for shorties at the front of the store. {hmm, maybe my shorties helped with this list more than I thought…lol}

7) Leave dollar bills in the dollar spot at Target. {I heart Target!}

8) Leave a little surprise in the mailbox for our mailman.

9) Deliver treats to the fire station with a note “we’ve been fortunate to not need your help but thank you for always being there just in case.”

10) Take homemade cookies to the librarians at our local public library. {we go there about once a week and they’re always so friendly and helpful}

11) Hide Easter eggs filled with coins and candy at the park. {this will be a fun one…I like doing RAOK without being noticed which usually means I don’t see the recipient’s reaction but with this one, the shorties and I will have fun at the park and watch from a distance}

12) Leave bottled water and a snack for our garbage guy.

13) Leave little signs (made with laminated cardstock attached to a small dowel) that say “You’re flowers/grass/garden is beautiful! Thank you for brightening our neighborhood!” in the yards of a few neighbors who really rock their green thumbs!

14) Write letters to family and friends letting them know how much they mean to me.

15) Give a care bag to the homeless guy that I always pass on that one corner.

16) Return carts for some peeps next time shorties and I go shopping.

17) Leave some goodies for the teachers and staff at school ~ do it on the DL.

18) Leave coins in a few machines at a laundromat. {left and lost $10 at a laundromat when my family and I were camping in the Redwood Forest when I was a little girl. I was SO bummed…we went back and it was gone…but I also know the excitement of finding cash and there was a time I coveted quarters for laundry when I had my first apartment at 18.)

19) Show up at my shorties’ classrooms with surprise after school snacks for their teachers. {Starbucks and chocolate, anyone?}

20) Invite someone to go ahead of me in line at the store.

21) Go to the homeless shelter to deliver homemade brownies.

22) Place fun notes on mirrors in public restrooms. {You’re beautiful! ~ Mirror, mirror, on the wall…}

23) Deliver thank you notes and goodies to the police station.

24) Donate business attire to Dress for Success.

25) Deliver freshly baked cookies and a thank you note to our neighbors. {they are the quietest neighbors and don’t leave a barking dog in their yard for hours on end! Had one of those in San Diego = misery.}

26) Deliver flowers to the assisted living facility nearby. {I’m sure the nurses will know who most needs a little cheer.}

27) Leave a few FREE item coupons next to the items at the grocery store.

28) Leave a lottery ticket at an ATM.

29) Send fun mail surprises to a few of my peeps!

30) Surprise my shorties by waking up early to make homemade pancakes. {usually only happens on late days or weekends}

31) Deliver homemade goodies to the dance studio. {my daughter loves dancing and we love the instructors, owner, assistants, and employees!}

32) Take an extra chair or two to the ballpark. {At shorties’ games, there’s always a grandparent or pregnant mom without a chair who would probably really appreciate sitting in one.}

33) Do some fun and unexpected surprises for my shorties with their toys, stuffed animals, and more. {You’ll wanna stick around for these!}

34) Leave a couple of stamps at the mailbox near the grocery store.

35) Leave a little treat for a really good server.

36) Reach out to a few of my favorite bloggers to let them know how much I appreciate what they do.

37) Leave a few books and magazines in the waiting area at our pediatrician’s office.

38) Surprise my shorties during lunchtime at school by swapping out their packed lunches with their favorite restaurant lunches.

39) Send anonymous thank you cards to a few neighbors ~ the one who goes all out with lights at Christmas, the one with two big dogs that I never hear barking, the one with really nice landscaping who is always working in the yard)

40) Nunya! This one is a surprise and I’m keeping it to myself. For now.

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about turning the big 4-Ohh. That’s kinda the thing…I don’t FEEL 40. Of course, I’m not sure how 40 is supposed to feel. The number itself sounds old, but that’s not the way I feel and certainly not the way I want to look. Botox, anyone? Maybe I’ll start with bangs to hide those fine lines creeping onto the scene, also known as my forehead. Here’s to being 40, like it or not!

Only two days into summer break and my daughter dreamed up two fun activities for us. She created a boat out of a large box (I’ll post photos soon…seriously amazing boat out of a box, for real!) and she sailed the seas while her brother the pirate searched for dragons and treasure. Yesterday, she set up a blindfold taste test treasure hunt, complete with a ribbon made of craft paper to award the winner…seriously, where she comes up with this stuff, I do not know. So fun!

Based on experience, I know that creating a summer-long calendar with something planned for each day ahead of time isn’t the best option for our family. I like to keep my word with my shorties and sometimes things come up. For instance, saying we’re going to the zoo every Wednesday may not happen if one of my shorties is grumpy that day or if we’re invited to something too good to pass up or it’s rainy or too hot or whatever the case may be. And while we stay crazy busy with lots of fun activities, I do like to have downtime with and for my shorties. I don’t want every minute of every day planned with no room for relaxing, free play, and quiet time. So it’s better for our family to make some specific plans (like going to the zoo once a week, scheduling playdatepalooza, etc and to leave plenty of days open along the way to make choices based on what we feel like doing on any given day.

I have my own agenda too. While my shorties come first, I do have some things I’d like to cross off my to do list this summer. Painting the garage walls and floor and getting it completely organized (you can bet I’ll be doing a post on that for sure), staining the deck, organizing our craft room, creating an art wall for my shorties, making curtains and pillows, replacing a light fixture, planning my little guy’s birthday party, and one or two thousand other projects. So I made sure that I left plenty of time and space for my shorties to entertain themselves with my supervision, of course.

Camp Mom activities are organized into the following categories: indoor fun, outdoor fun, free play fun, and field trip fun. Some days, I’ll make the decision and surprise my shorties. Other days, I’ll let them choose. If the weather isn’t cooperating, I can suggest they choose something from indoor fun or free play fun. On the day I stain the deck, I may suggest they choose something from the outdoor fun list that they can do in the backyard. My shorties love choices and I’ve found they are way more apt to enjoy an activity for more than five minutes when it’s something they chose to do. Organizing the activities, and not putting every single idea on the board (we have a binder with all of our ideas and we keep adding to it…this will be a fun keepsake for years to come and we can add to it each year), makes it easy for my shorties to choose activities and use their imaginations and creativity to come up with their own.

Here are a few more of our ideas:

• play board games
• bake fun shaped homemade bread
• make and play with playdoh
• catch fireflies
• play ball
• blow bubbles
• play frisbee
• explore nature
• draw and color
• build with Legos
• go to the sprayground
• play school
• go for a walk
• go for a wagon ride
• do a photo scavenger hunt
• make and play with candy clay
• go to the science museum
• go to a baseball game
• go rollerskating
• make something using only items from our recycling bin
• paint rocks
• create and have fun with an obstacle course
• hide-n-seek
• make and send cards to out-of-state family and friends
• tie-dye and paint t-shirts
• fingerpaint
• make handprint crafts
• make new canvas paintings for our art wall
• try a new recipe
• make popsicles
• create new pages for our memory books
• breakfast picnic at the zoo and/or park
• make a book together
• do a photo shoot with shorties as the photographers
• watch videos of shorties when they were babies
• look at old photo albums
• make little signs on stakes to leave in neigbors’ flower beds letting them know it brightens our day
• make new placemats and napkins
• camp out in the living room
• decorate the driveway with sidewalk chalk
• and lots, lots, lots more!

I have a fun little surprise to share with you next week!

During the summer, I host Camp Mom for my shorties and they LOVE it! And I love that it avoids the misery that comes with having bored shorties. So it’s a win-win all the way around.

And let’s face it, time flies whether you’re having fun or not. And it seems at the end of a vacation or any kind of break, whether it be for Spring, Christmas, or summer, I always hear people (and I’ve been guilty of it myself) saying something along the lines of where did the time go, I wish I had done this or that, or I had planned to do this or that but never got around to it.

Time is short, life is too short, and now that I have shorties (and the limited time with them before they fly the nest), I want to share lots of fun memories with them. So Camp Mom is a fun way to make lots of memorable summertime fun!

Three cheers for the third anniversary of Camp Mom! *woot woot woot* Here’s one of the posters I created for a previous Camp Mom. lol As you can see, I’m not a fan of whining.

All this week, I will be sharing ideas, many of them free or inexpensive, and all of them fun. Maybe you’ll find an idea or two that you’d love to share with your shorties this summer! And I’d love to hear your ideas!

Camp Mom 2012 starts later today so stay tuned for the Camp Mom fun lineup, photos of this year’s Camp Mom poster, and the first day of fun plans! So excited!

You know I couldn’t let the last day of school go by without making it extra special! We started the day with caterpillar pancakes. My sweet baby girl studied caterpillars then butterflies in recent weeks at school so this was a fun idea for her.

For her morning snack, I made a special cupcake with a fun free printable (available for preschool to 5th grade) I found here:

Tucking my daughter in bed the night before her last day of school, she informed me that she wished she had a special shirt to wear on her last day of 1st grade. *sigh* So, around 10:30pm I was sitting in my home office creating this “masterpiece” as a surprise. Fortunately, she had a plain white tee in her closet and I had exactly two sheets of iron-on transfer paper. Add in a few fabric markers, an iron, a scanner, a printer, and voila. I scanned one of my daughter’s recent drawings of her friends and printed it on iron-on transfer paper for the front of her tee. I scanned and printed her class photo for the back of the tee. When she woke in the morning, I showed it to her and her eyes lit up! Made the bags under my eyes SO worth it!

I told my daughter that I’d deliver a special lunch to her for her last lunch of first grade ever! Shortly before her lunchtime, I picked up her favorite fast food and delivered it in a lunch bag I decorated similar to her t-shirt. She loved it!

When it was time to pick her up from school, I rolled through the pick-up line with her private school bus looking like this:

She was SO excited and her friends seemed to like it too! My daughter took a special treat to her friends at school. We attached cute little tags (found here) to ice pops with curling ribbon with stickers on the back of the tags which read: 1) freeze 2) enjoy and she wrote her name on them. So fun! On our way home, we stopped by a friend’s house and delivered a special last day of school/first day of summer after school snack…frozen ice pops and some jello cookies we made using this recipe and this cute printable tag:

And my daughter was SO surprised to arrive home after her last fun-filled day of school to find this:

Yard signs which read “OH YEAH It’s SUMMER” with a balloon garland across the front porch and a balloon wreath on the door. (excuse the grass…we’ve had ZERO rain recently)

And this special after school snack and bucket of summer fun was waiting on the kitchen table:

Such a fun last day of school full of surprises and memorable moments! Shorties and I loved it (and I love that it’s over because it was a lot of work, yo)!

We’ve been enjoying our Memorial Day weekend and hope you are too! Tomorrow, Camp Mom 2012 begins! Shhhhh, don’t tell my shorties because it’s a surprise. :-)

1) End of school year activities! Seriously, it’s a lot of work for mommy (that’d be me now). But, oh, how I remember the fun and excitement of it all and I love making this time of year memorable for my shorties. I’ll be sharing all the details soon. It was so fun!

2) Summertime fun! Again, lots of work for mommy but so worth it! Growing up, I loved, loved, LOVED summers! We camped, grew gardens, went to the park, went to the beach, played in the sprinklers and pool, had fun with bikes, skates, slip-n-slides, and bubbles…it was all such a magical time of year! I love creating extra-special memories with my shorties. Out of that (and to avoid the misery which comes from having bored shorties), Camp Mom was born. And yeah, you guessed it, I’ll be sharing that in an upcoming post.

3) Surprising my shorties! It’s so easy to surprise, amaze, and bring happiness to my shorties. I love seeing their little faces light up with excitement and the huge hugs while they exclaim that I’m the best mom ever, well, I adore those moments in between being the worst mom ever. lol

4) Bedtime. I’m not gonna lie, as much as my shorties attempt to wear me out, it’s probably me who wears me out the most. Maybe it’s because I have a type-A personality, maybe it’s because I’m a bit of a perfectionist, maybe it’s because I do and think (creative ideas flood my mind 24/7 and pinterest will be the death of me…lol) too much in the span of a day, but I sooooo look forward to bedtime! After tucking my sweet shorties into bed, I have a date with my laptop to catch up, get a few things done, and create. It’s often the only me time I seize all day and I love it. And the moment I finally fall into bed, yeah, that’s pretty sweet too.

5) A/C ~ I could never be Amish. Among millions of other things, I love the comfort brought by the airconditioner. Sitting here, after a nice cool shower, in front of my laptop with my iPad, phone, and the lamp that I puffy heart love, enjoying a tall glass of ice water and the cool air compliments of A/C and good ‘ol electricity.

XO,

Heather

Until next week…What are you loving this week?

Disclaimer: I was not paid or perked in any way for this post. These are just some things that I’m loving this week.

My shorties and I love surprising their teachers with little goodies a few times each year. Here is one of the surprises we created for their teachers and these were BIG hits!

We filled the treasure boxes with lots of fun goodies and created a fun description for each item.

My shorties had so much fun decorating the top of each treasure box especially for their teachers!

This was a really fun project! My shorties and I had so much fun thinking of goodies to go inside the treasure box and the teachers said they really loved their boxes!

Each gift cost about $5 to make. File this one under quick, easy, fun, inexpensive, and a big hit with the teachers!  SCORE!

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