Random Act of Cookie Kindness - A Back To School Treat

     While assessing my goals for homeschooling, it hit me that I want to start every school year with a service project.

     Learning the joy of serving others is an important part of educating our family.  I myself have struggled with finding the motivation to serve.  If it isn't convenient or easy, I rarely find myself looking for opportunities to serve others.  I want it to be different for my children.  I want service and acts of kindness to be a regular part of living for them. And I figure through teaching my children the importance of thinking of others, I can slowly help myself progress in that area.  My children have certainly inspired me to become a better person. <3

"Through service to others, we develop a Christlike love and we experience joy. Service teaches patience and long-suffering as well as gentleness, goodness, and faith." - Merrill J. Bateman

     Marley and I planned to bake cookies together and pass them out to some of her friends. I explained that we wanted to start out our school year by doing something nice for others.  She liked the idea.

     The first part of the project was actually baking the cookies.  Baking is always fun for kids.  I let her do a lot of the pouring and mixing.  And when the cookies were done, she was more than happy to taste test. ;)  We used this recipe: Best Chocolate Chip Cookies, and they turned out very delicious!

     We put the cookies in ziploc bags and packaged the cookies in white paper bags and attached cute little tags on the bags.  I designed these tags myself and printed them out on card stock.  Simple and effective to make the bags look pretty. To use this image, click on the image to enlarge, then right click on the large image and click "Save Image As." Or download here.

     I told Marley that we would leave them on her friends' doorsteps.  I said she could knock on the door and run away so that it was a little surprise waiting for them.  The knocking and running away was her absolute favorite part!  I watched her tiptoe up to the doors, leave the bag of treats, knock loudly, and then quickly run away.  Marley was ecstatic when she actually saw someone answer the door and pick up the bag of treats.  She turned to me with the biggest smile and said "They found the cookies Mommy!" It was such a precious experience to see her getting joy out of doing nice things for her friends.   Our first project of the school year was a huge success!