Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Spreading Kindness

We've been working hard to do nice things for other people lately.

Nothing super expensive or super involved.

I'm just finding little ways most days to show people we care about them.  We haven't really done any random acts of kindness.  We're focusing on building relationships with our neighbors, teachers and friends instead.

We live by lots of nice people so we are working on getting to know them.  We have lived in our city for a little over two years and still feel like we have a lot of people to befriend.


We've baked for many of them all lately.  Sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, Monster cookies, etc.  You name it and we've baked it to share.  Olive loves helping me in the kitchen so it's been a fun way to do something together to make other people smile.

We have elderly neighbors that love having visitors.  They rarely leave their house so I've been making a point to go over once a week to say hello.  I bring the kids and their faces light up.  They want to know about school, what we're up to and we take care of their sweet tooth.  Olive has started praying for them and asks to go over to see them regularly.

We also have neighbors with young kids.  We've been trying to invite the kids over to play, bake cookies to share with them or be sure to stop and talk to them when they are out.



Delivering sweets to the neighbors.


We also started Olive's school year off on a good note.  We wrote handwritten notes to her teacher and preschool director thanking them for teaching Olive this year.  We baked sugar cookies and delivered them to the ladies during their open house.  They were so appreciative.  We love to make and it made us feel good to let them know they were appreciated.

I just picked up those orange containers in the first picture and a pack of glittery thank you notes all from The Dollar Tree.  They worked great together.  They were cute and perfectly practical.  I wrote a note to each of the ladies and Olive added her own, colorful message at the top of each card.

Tip: My kids love to help me bake.  They want to be really hands on which is fine if we're just baking for us, but not so great if you're baking for other people.  I've learned that if I'm baking treats for other people, I will give them each their own ball of dough to make cookies with.  I'll take care of the dough for other people.  They still get to help and bake with me, but their cute kid germs just stay on their cookies.  Works out great!


Kevin's been joining us in doing nice things for his grad students, the students who run his research lab and coworkers.  So far, we hosted all the grad students for Back to School Burgers one night.  They just had to show up and we provided dinner and dessert.  He also emailed his team and took their Starbucks order for an early morning meeting. 


I'd love to fix dinner for a friend,
have friends over for dinner,
send a care package,
continue to send in little notes and treats for Olive's teachers,
get to know our neighbors better
and find more fun ways to show people we care this Fall.

Do you have any suggestions of things to do with kids to spread kindness??

12 comments:

  1. Those cookies are adorable! Love the apple cut out! Love that you are teaching your kiddos to spread kindness at such an early age!

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  2. Love that you have been spreading the cookie kindness and involving the kiddos too. Makes me wish we were your neighbors :). I just adore that Minnie apron too. Emily would definitely approve.

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  3. Lucky Olive and Fletcher to have such a good teacher to teach them such kindness at an early age...Proud of you..Adorable pictures of my grand babies. ..

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  4. Such sweet gestures! I know how appreciated it all must be! Have you heard of the painted rock thing that has been going around? You paint rock, maybe even write a message on it and leave them where kids will find them - at a park, etc. "Jesus loves you." "You're special!" Stuff like that. I think that is such a sweet idea.

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  5. Whitney- you are one of the kindest, most intentional people I have ever met. I love all of these ideas you shared on how you are spreading kindness. I especially love the idea of you and the kids stopping by your elderly neighbors' houses. Olive and Fletcher, I am sure, are such a ray of sunshine for them and I think it is amazing you are taking the time and making the effort to teach your children how to be organically kind and thoughtful. You are AMAZING!

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  6. I love this, and I love your heart for people! God has given you such a gift for encouragement and for making people feel special. You've inspired me (more than once!) to take time to do kind things for the people in my life. Thank you for that! <3

    Whitney @ Come Home For Comfort

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  7. You're teaching your kids such important values! Those sugar cookies look great and I'm sure the neighbors appreciated them!

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  8. This makes me so happy!! Love spreading kindness! Tag me with the hashtag #spreadkindnessconfetti on IG. I'd love to share it from there.

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  9. I love that you guys have been baking for and visiting your elderly neighbors. I just know that they love it! So sweet of you!

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  10. This is wonderful! Thanks for sharing your ideas for blessing those around you. Love your heart for hospitality!��

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  11. You have such a sweet heart Whit! Your neighbors are so lucky that you moved into the neighborhood. You can have the kids color photos or make crafts. Send snail mail to family. You are instilling wonderful qualities into your children. :)

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  12. Can you be my neighbor? I love that you're teaching your kids such great values!

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