the lemonade stand

you just never know.
keep pushing on, because you just never know what it's going to be that REALLY gets in their hearts!

on monday afternoon, the older kids and i sat on the porch while the little boys played in the yard and made a PLAN for our lemonade stand. I LOVE PLANS! :-) and they do, too. they often aren't part of the PLANNING. i just tell them what is happening one minute before it happens. most of the time, things work better that way...no disappointment if something doesn't go the way we PLANNED.

but, having a lemonade stand was on our "summer list" and if we were going to do it, we were going to do it WELL!

my favorite part was, when we were writing out our plan, rebekah said, "so. who are we going to give the money to?" NO thought of keeping the money for ourselves. this is just imitation, people (and her beautiful heart) but mostly imitation. if you IMITATE it. if you DO it, they will copy you!

THEY came up with who/what - some to buy mosquito nets for people in Africa, and some to buy food for the food pantry at our church that feeds close to 200 families a WEEK.

the day before we made signs and made the brownies and rice krispie treats and made sure we had LOTS of lemonade and cups when we went to the store.

i wish you could hear the laughter through the picture. we were blessed with a GORGEOUS day!

4 trash trucks went by - they all got free lemonade :-)

the first hour was just the older 3. that was my favorite. it got crazier as the little boys got up and joined us.

grandma even stopped by!!!

i can hardly stand the cuteness...

they made $65.10!!!! they can't stop talking about the guy that was selling stuff (alarm systems or something) door to door. they went over to give him a free cup since he was walking outside all day. and he gave them $20! made their DAY!

this morning i sat them down and we watched a video (click "watch video" under the picture. it's 3 minutes. and well-done) about how much mosquito nets mean to people living in africa. we decided to buy 4 from nothing but nets. bailey was in TEARS. "why do some people have to die from MOSQUITOS, mom?!?!?!"

for a second i wondered if i'd gone too far. showed them too much. then decided, NO. how ELSE are they going to think outside of themselves? their eyes need to be opened. and their hearts can handle it - because they know the LOVE of the One that is bigger than ALL of it. i feel like i LITERALLY saw their hearts grow this morning. you know how sometimes you feel like you can see them grow taller?? i saw their hearts grow bigger.

then we went straight to the store - to buy the food for the food pantry. each week our church tells us the greatest needs. that's what we bought - canned black beans and canned fruit.

they are asking when we can do our next lemonade stand.

oh, and i'm a totally mean mom. i didn't even let them EAT a brownie or rice krispie treat at the lemonade stand - they got to pick between an apple or carrots for their afternoon snack... :-/ you know what? they didn't complain. so they got one of the leftovers after lunch today.