Compliment Jar

It was my employer's birthday last week and I wanted to have her daughters give her a present that would be meaningful and that she would enjoy. I wanted it to be something that they made themselves (for those of you who don't know, I work as a nanny). I searched pinterest for "mother's day gift ideas" and saw some great things, many of which were outside of my crafting ability. But when I saw this compliment jar, I knew it would be perfect. I had each girl write out things they liked about their mother or things that their mother did that they were thankful for. The idea was that when she was having a rough day, she could pull out a stick and be cheered up! She loved it and the girls loved doing it. They asked me this week if they could add more sticks to the jar!  Of course I said "yes".

My birthday!

I wasn't going to make a post about my birthday, but I got a request from one of my two readers so I figured if 50% of my audience wants to hear about my birthday, I should comply! For my birthday we spent the afternoon in Roanoke. There is a place there called Center in the Square. It has museums, aquariums, and a rooftop garden. We didn't go to any of the museums, but we did look at the aquariums and the garden (not much of a garden in the winter, but the view of the city and the Blue Ridge Mountains was amazing). After the Center in the Square, we walked along the Rail Walk, where we also saw some cool art made out of pipe cleaners hanging on the fence.

Happy New Year!

Over the past year we have been writing down things that have happened and placing these memories in a jar. On New Year's Eve, we dumped the slips of paper out and read through the things we had recorded. Some were major life events, like Husband graduating with his Master of Divinity. Others were little things that made us smile at the time, like when the 6 year old daughter of a friend told us she loved us. Some were sad, like when our friend WVL left for a year to teach in China. Some had to do with world events, like the Alberta flood. We had so much fun reading through our memories that we are doing it again this year. I can't wait for New Year's Eve!