Christmas Fun!

Merry Christmas to all of you!!! Hope you had a wonderful time with family and friends in honor of our King! :)

We had a really great Christmas! Complete with an awesome story to go along with our Toy Closet again this year. So here it is! The story of our second annual Toy Closet Adventure. Ooooo boy, get ready!

As we did last year, we started shopping early, hitting up sales and using our shopping secrets. Although we moved and don't have an actual closet this year, we still managed to stash all our goodies until we were ready to give them away. And if you don't know what I am talking about go here to learn about last year's Toy Closet Adventure that began it all! (Side note- it is my favorite post that I have ever written!)

First, we had to figure out what to do with the toys when the time came... We do donate to toy drives but we also enjoy taking out toys and actually giving them to children. There is something that's missing when you just drop off a toy rather then deliver it to someone. Plus, the look on their faces is just awesome.

So when we were thinking about a place to go we remembered our cousin Kaitlyn when she stayed in the hospital. We happened to visit her on Halloween and they were having a party when we showed up and took all the kids trick-or-treating around to different parts of the hospital. It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it! We thought that they may do a similar thing for Christmas and wondered if we could assist in providing toys for the kiddos. We thought it would be a great way to give back to the people that helped take care of our family and bring some cheer to families spending their holidays in the hospital. So after a couple calls, we got in touch with Meg, the nurse in charge of organizing the Halloween event. We told her our idea and what we had and asked if there was any opportunity for us to come and give these toys to the kids. She was so excited and said that the best time to do this would be when Santa comes, but that they hadn't been able to find a Santa yet... Taylor so wished she knew a Santa when she hung up the phone... but then remembered.... not only do we know a Santa, we know the best Santa in San Antonio and he goes to our church! After talking to Mrs. Claus and figuring out a date that would work for everyone, we had a Santa booked for them! (Check out his awesomeness here!)

Every little detail was falling into place... any problem that came up quickly worked itself out before we had time to worry about it... it was amazing and obviously carefully coordinated by someone other than ourselves. Funny how God's got your back when you are doing what He made you to do. ;)

When the day finally came (we had to wait all the way til the 23rd!) we all showed up and shared in the excitement of watching the kids (and lots of nurses!) light up with joy as they saw Santa coming down the hall and to their rooms. We delivered gifts and candy canes and lots of giggles to patients in their rooms and then headed to the play room for story time with Mrs. Claus and more kids visiting with Santa. We even went down to the ER to share some smiles! It was so wonderful hearing the kids excitedly thank Santa for the gifts and it really did warm our hearts. Toy Closet - you did it again! What a great way to spend time together sharing God's love! It was a beautiful day and we were all so blessed to be a part of it!