Thursday and Friday this week were very tiring for me. My three youngest children and I spent from 9-3 on Thursday planning, shopping for supplies, and baking 165 cupcakes in three different flavors. The kids go to a wonderful little Christian School in Lilburn, GA and every year they get two days off school while their teachers are at a conference. During these two days they are required to do a service project taking at least 4 hours from each day. They decided to bake cupcakes, decorate them, and deliver them to the police station, the fire station and an assisted living home. I was expecting to have two exhausting days (I did this last year with two kids and it was exhuasting - I knew adding in the third child would make it even more so this year) and for it to be over, and our obligations met. Little did I know that my children and I would birth a year long project and that a fire would be lit in their little hearts (and mine) to serve in a very real way. Thursday morning started with a lot of baking. Below is Jackson cracking eggs into a Pyrex measuring cup (I figured it would be easier to pull shells out of that than directly out of the batter, but there was only one tiny fragment of shell in the whole batch!).
Here are the first two batches just out of the oven. Unfortunately, I have only one 12 cup muffin tin and two six cup ones, so I can only make 24 cupcakes at a time. I feel a strong need to get three more 12 cup muffin tins as soon as I can fit it in the budget. Mass producing cupcakes 24 at a time is REALLY time consuming. We had piano lessons at 4:30 and we baked right up until we had to leave at 3:45. We got home after lessons, had supper, and the kids had to go to bed. I spent the rest of the night baking the last batch of cupcakes and putting the plain vanilla or chocolate frosting on them. I got to bed at 12:50.
Friday morning everybody was up bright and early to start decorating. We started before 8. I don't think anybody ate breakfast, now that I think about it. Everyone was too excited. Below, Jackson and Abby are making candy corn hair on our "peeking monsters" cupcakes.
This is a precise process that takes great concentration.
Sammy carefully repairing a cupcake where some hair got too enthusiastically pushed on.
Abby's impression of our "little monster" cupcakes.
Jackson's much more subdued impression. Abby overseeing him to make sure he gets it right.
Abby piping "bloodshot lines" on our eyeball cupcakes. she said she "tried to make it a little messy so it looked actually bloodshot". she says "mom does this look bloodshot?". I said "I don't know, look at my eyes and tell me if it looks the same." Sammy is working so fast, he's a blur :)
Jackson trying his hand at piping the bloodshot eyes. He's my second youngest, but smallest child, and his tiny hands just did not have the strength to pipe that red icing. He got through about half a cupcake with determination but then his hands were just aching. Sammy did two eyeballs and had the same problem. Abby is the only one who had enough hand strength to really crank out the eyes. She was a trooper. She squeezed out those thin red lines until we had an army of tired eyes staring back at us.
one of four finished trays of cupcakes. We have from left to right, the peeking monster, the little furry monster, the running skeleton, the vampire, and the bat. Second row we have the eyeball, the ghoul, and right below the eyeball, the mummy. there are also many small green faced witches with candy corn noses, and some small halloween sprinkle cupcakes as well. I thought we managed a good variety for such a very small cottage industry!
Finally all the trays were done at around 10:45 am and I already felt like I had put in a full day. I don't know how full time teachers do it. I got a second wind as I contemplated delivering the cupcakes though, because giving them away is my favorite part! Jackson and Sammy cleaned out the back of the van and put down the seat to make a large flat area in the back to transport all the cupcakes. Jackson neglected to get OUT of the back of the van before pulling down the seat so we had a brief delay as I comforted him over the loss of his now forever crippled right leg. However, it must have been a blessed day, because he miraculously regained the use of his leg in a mere three minutes, and we were off to deliver! Those that have never ridden with me don't know what a precarious and terrifying trip this must have been for the poor cupcakes. I tend to be, let's just say, slightly leadfooted, and I also tend to brake as fast as I accelerate. It was very hard to drive slowly and moderately enough to keep 165 cupcakes happy, as well as the drivers behind me. Abby and Jackson kept a worried eye on the cupcakes as I drove to our destination. "mommy, a vampire is on it's icing!" "mommy, a mummy fell over!" "mommy, they are all squishing together on one side of the tray!"
I got some very dirty looks and a couple of honks from drivers as they passed me by, and it was all I could do not to scream out the window "Hey you losers! I'm trying to SERVE and GIVE here, give me a break!" Thankfully, I am not a road rage type girl, and I simply smiled and sent up a Jesus on the cross prayer. That's what I call "forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do!" I'm sure I was annoying, but I had to get a lot of cupcakes intact to their destination!
Finally, we reached our first destination, the Lawrenceville Fire Department. All 3 kids were beaming as we carried in a tray of our cute spooky masterpieces. Right as we got out of the car a firetruck pulled into the station so we stood there and watched and they honked and waved at us on their way in. We were immediately greeted by happy fireman who took us to their kitchen and deposited our first delivery safely on the table. A couple of firemen then consented to get their picture with the kids, and they pulled a firetruck out and let each of the kids sit in it before taking the group photo. One of the fireman indicated his fear that all the cupcakes would be gone before he got a chance to eat one.
Here are the kids right as we were about to leave for delivery. holding a try, and sampling the wares. After all, we can't give away products we haven't tasted!
Fire woman Abby to the rescue!
Fireman Jackson on the scene!
Fireman Sammy, happy to serve!
Company 15, Gwinnett fire services! They thanked us and we thanked them for all they do and I asked the kids "doesn't giving feel GREAT!" and they all were jumping up and down saying "YES!".
Delivery one accomplished, we set off down the street just two turns and less than five minutes away. The Lawrenceville Police Headquarters. It had moved from where we delivered last year, and when we saw the new building Sammy wisely insisted we give them TWO trays instead of one. It was a very big building and LOTS of people must work there. I agreed, and so Sammy and I carried in the trays while Jackson and Abby opened and held doors. The police station is always locked down tight, but there happened to be a police man in the records room when we entered, along with the records lady. They were very excited and touched by the kids offering. The police officer looked with amazement at the cupcakes and said "you kids made these??" and "wow! That's so nice! you must have worked so hard!" The kids, of course, were just beaming. They said they would take them down and put them in the break room and they'd probably be gone in an hour. That seemed to please the kids to no end.
The kids with the nice records lady and the officer who was so touched by their gift.
The school the kids attend is in Lilburn, so we decided to go give to someone in Lilburn too. So I made a few calls and we decided on the Sunrise Assisted Living Center in Lilburn. Sammy was excited to see it was the same place his class had performed at the previous year. He already felt a connection to the place, so that was pretty neat. Miss Crystal at the front desk greeted us and took us to the Bistro where residents can help themselves to treats. She said a lot of the residents had a sweet tooth and that they would love these. The kids waved and smiled at the residents as they walked by and we were invited to the Halloween party they are having and told that if we call there are always events there we could come share with the residents. It was nice to find that out!
Miss Crystal and the kids
The kids offerings in the bistro, waiting to be eaten!
Outside sunrise with some Halloween themed lollipops that Miss Crystal gave them. Isn't it interesting that a lot of times when you give, people automatically want to give you something back? I find this to be especially true when children give. It seems whenever I take the children to do service projects the recipients seem almost frantic to give them something in return. I don't know if it is because they want to reward the children for their kind hearts or what, but I've found it interesting to note.
The kids didn't just give of their time and talents for this service project. They spent about 11 hours total on the project, but also wanted to help out mom and dad for the expenses of buying all the supplies to make and deliver the cupcakes. Our kids have recently started getting an allowance. It is actually bingo tokens. Each child has a color, and they get two tokens a day if they have done all their chores. The tokens are worth a quarter. This means that if they work hard all month and do all their chores, they will earn tokens worth 2.50 a week. (I normally don't pay for weekends, I feel as if some things are done just to help the family out) At first, Sammy was trying to give me 4/5th of his hard earned allowance. He has saved earnestly since we started this and had about 20.00 worth of tokens. He was trying to give me 16.00 worth. I couldn't bear to let them part with so much after they had worked so hard to earn it and I knew it would take another two months to earn that back. So I gave them a limit of 5.00 worth of tokens. Sammy came back with 5.25. He is a smart cookie. He knew I wouldn't get on him for being only .25 cents more generous than I said. Well, this started a giving war. Each child wanted to out give the other. Jackson added two more tokens onto that. Abby added one more onto that. When Sammy started running back to his room for his token jar I put a stop to the token war once and for all! They contributed 17 dollars between them. This offset some of the considerable cost of supplies and made mommies heart grow big. There was no hesitation, and no holding back with these kids. They wanted to help. They wanted to give. If there is one thing I don't mind my kids competing against each other on, it is who can give and serve the most!
The real magic started on the way home though. We were talking about how tired we were, but how good it felt to make all those people happy. I was really only thinking aloud when I said "that was fun, but next year it would be nice to do something different." Sammy immediately agreed. He said "It is nice to thank the police men and make people happy, but nobody NEEDS cupcakes." He had just spoken my thoughts. "yes," I said "it would be nice if next year instead of thanking someone we could try to meet some real needs". Sammy started asking who were people who really needed help. I told him about homeless people, I told him about soup kitchens, I told him about woman's shelters. I told him about crisis pregnancy centers. He wanted to know what a lot of these were, and I told him in the gentlest way I knew how, but he asked question after question. "Mommy, husbands hit their wives? why did they marry them if they don't love them? How can they think they love them and hit them? Do they hit their children? Do they stay safe at the shelters? do the shelters take the children too or do they have to stay with the bad husband?" He was also concerned with the pregnancy centers. He wanted to know that the babies would be okay. It dawned on him yesterday that there were evils in the world he knew nothing of. I could see in his big brown eyes his concern as he tried to process this new information and fit it into the world he knew. I was sad because I felt like he lost just a bit of innocence, but I was glad to see that he cared. The boy without empathy continues to grow in love. Praise God! I see Compassion in his eyes.
Soon, he and I had formulated a plan. We were thinking how to best be able to serve one of these places next service day. I mentioned that to make a big difference maybe we should start now. That we should pick a place to serve next service project day and start now to plan for it so we could make a big impact. Sammy mentioned maybe asking at the school if everybody could bring one item for a baby so we could make diaper bags full of supplies for a pregnancy center or shelter. He said 75 families each bringing one item could make a big difference. I said we'd have to ask the principal if she'd allow that, but it was a great idea. We came up with each child giving one or two of their tokens each week towards the cause. Over a year this would add up to 72 dollars if each child gave two tokens a week. The other kids loved the idea when we set it to them. I pledged to the kids that if they gave from their allowance, I too would give something from my weekly spending money of 20 dollars towards the cause. We pledged that we'd look for great sales throughout the year, that we'd ask all our friends and their moms for any outgrown but still good condition diaper bags. I could see a fire light in the kids' eyes, and I felt something sparking in my heart. A year in advance I was looking forward to the next service project with a light and happy heart , not dreading it like I normally do! (I never dread serving, it was wondering "what should we do" - waiting until the last minute to think about it, never knowing, always going "well, we could make cookies for someone". Yeah, the fat girl falls back on baking every time. It's something I know well.) It felt GREAT to have a plan, to feel like we could really make a difference. Not that I'm dissing cupcakes. Cupcakes are great, and we should never stop thanking those who risk their lives to keep us safe. Not ever.
Sometimes though, we need something more. Something to inspire us at a deeper place. Something to light the fire of purpose in our hearts. Yesterday in the car, Sammy and I discovered that something. I feel like we are at the start of an adventure. I daresay it will bring my kids and I closer, working towards a common goal, and will increase their empathy and understanding of those in need. Maybe it will help them to appreciate the home they live in and the family they have just a little bit more. It will be exciting to see our savings grow, to see our supply closet increase, and next service day to assemble and deliver all the things we've collected to bless the moms and babies.
And it all started with a cupcake.
