Well my sweet Marlie is officially 7! On June 11th we celebrated Marlie's birthday at home in our pjs! She said she wanted pizza so we made our own pizzas which turned out really good.
She got a few gifts from her family. Her favorite was this stuffed animal or "stuffies" as she calls them, named Peanut. This girl loves stuffed animals and I can't complain...saves me a lot of money not having to buy American Girl dolls!.
Matt was excited to celebrate Marlie's birthday too. He bought her a bible this year and specifically picked this one out and insisted her name be engraved on it. It was very special.
But as you can tell these two can't be serious for too long. This is our normal...
We've been cutting back on birthday parties but Marlie really wanted to collect shoes or do something special for a charity. So my sweet friend Veronica had told me about a place called Lunches of Love (LOL) where they pack and deliver lunches to kids who might not otherwise get a lunch when school is out. I thought this would be perfect and it definitely was!
So we all went to Lunches of Love to pack lunches! We started by decorating bags...
We washed our hands and it was time to start packing! We had 2 hours to make 3,100 lunches so they could be delivered that day. The girls started by making bags of trail mix and I was surprised how serious they were and how efficient it all went. Thankfully the Mommas were there to help too!
This is Adriane, the sweet woman who started this ministry. I had the honor of hearing her story and how and why she started this. So often we see problems but think the problems are too big for us as individuals to take on. Not Adriane, she jumped right in! Prayers for Adriane and LOL. I saw a shirt the other day that said "Don't Keep Calm - Go Change the World". I should have bought her one!
The boys started packing lunch bags by putting a juice box in each bag. They too were serious and packed a ton of bags!
Then it was time for the assembly line which Matt later said was his favorite part. Each person had a role in the assembly line...maybe the most important was having the Mommas at the end working as "quality control" to make sure every item made it in the bag! Here are 2 videos of both assembly lines working hard!
The kids loved it and did such a great job! There were lots of smiles and laughs along the way.
It was such a wonderful event! Thank you so much to Lunches of Love for allowing us to come and help and for making it such a special day for Marlie with her own personal sign, balloons and cookies! Thank you to all of our friends for coming and working so hard! Thank you also for donating juice boxes. Look at how many we donated! Y'all are awesome! Check out the other pics in the slideshow!
Afterwards we had lunch and sundaes and did sing Happy Birthday to Marlie. She loved the moment and in her typical silly fashion took in every moment of everyone singing to her. Happy Birthday Marlie. You are so loved. I pray that you continue to love life and always remembers those in need.
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