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The coupons for product redemption, information, and gift card have been provided by Entenmann’s® Little Bites® so that I could try the product and share my thoughts and information about Entenmann’s® Little Bites®. The opinions expressed in this post “Celebrate Fall with Service” are my own and do not reflect the opinions of Entenmann’s® Little Bites®.
The temperatures have dropped and with it many of the leaves off our trees. Fall is here, and I’m feeling a renewal of good things in my life. I love to celebrate fall. It is one of my favorite things to do, and every year I do it a little differently. This year it’s with a crisp outlook on our home life and how we can better ourselves.
This past week the kids had a 4 day weekend for their fall break. It wasn’t much considering the school districts around us all had a full week off, but I’ll take any days I can get. We started the break with a day of serious house cleaning. After watching The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints General Conference the weekend before, I knew our house needed to be made a priority again.
So I promised the kids that if they were diligent and really helped out around the house, we would celebrate fall break with some bowling. Sadly we had a day of semi-helping hands, and this mom totally lost her cool. Bowling night would have to be earned another day.
Give Service!
Friday morning we woke up, and after packing a quick breakfast into the kids, I loaded them up for a day of service away from home. Maybe if they helped someone else, they’d be more helpful at home too. I’d recently had the opportunity to meet Dawn from the Society of Saint Andrews on Indy-Do Day as we helped cut and tie mesh bags for the gleaners. It turned out, I could volunteer to help glean some local farms and the food would be taken to the local food pantry’s and distributed to the hungry in my own community.
I almost didn’t sign up what with it being fall break and all but decided that No this would be a great opportunity to lead by example. It was incredibly chilly Friday morning, but we dressed warmly in our winter hats and gloves. Then we headed to the orchard to sift through fallen apples and pack up the good ones for food pantries.
My kids were amazing!! Even Harold at 19 months, helped load the rotten apples into crates headed for the apple cannon. When he got bored of that the older kids took turns watching him. With our help, 750 lbs of apples were gleaned and are now in the homes of hungry Hoosiers.
The kids definitely felt good about the work they did, and have been talking about it ever since. Even asking me when we can do it again, and do they glean other things besides apples? I promised that if they served with good attitudes then I’d have a treat for them on the way home. Everyone was excited when I pulled out the Little Bites® Pumpkin Muffins. Have you tried the pumpkin flavor yet? It’s a limited edition so don’t miss out!
We headed home, to finish our house cleaning, and hopefully still earn a family night out of bowling. I was hopeful, but also knew after their work in the cold morning, they may go right back to ignoring me and refusing to clean up our home. They made this momma so proud. I’ve never seen all 5 kids of mine get along so amazingly well for a whole day. Sure we get some moments here and there, but this was literally the rest of the day.
I attribute it all to going out and giving a little bit of our time in service. It’s a lesson I hope to remember the next time the kids make me want to pull my hair out. They earned their bowling, and our house is looking pretty dang amazing.
Right now Entenmann’s® Little Bites® and TerraCycle are running a Small Bites, Big Collections contest. Service never has to be big, even the smallest things for others and our planet can make a difference in our kid’s attitudes. If you eat a lot of Little Bites® it might be time to start a collection bin and turn your trash into service.
The top collector between now and December 31st will win 50,000 bonus TerraCycle points, a Little Bites prize pack, custom collection boxes, and 50 boxes of Little Bites! For more contest rules and to get in on this act of service with your kids visit TerraCycle. When you earn TerraCycle points you turn them in for donations to a variety of causes, thus turning your trash into service! It’s a win-win for everyone and really helps change kids attitudes to an outward instead of an inward perspective.