give.

i am determined to raise my kid(s) to be charitable, to think of others before themselves and to always give back. we're certainly not the richest people in the world (at least not monetarily), but we have everything we could possibly need/want. because of this it was important to me to make fin's birthday about giving. when i was thinking about how we were going to give i immediately thought of books. books are important for so many reasons and finley's already a bookworm so it made complete sense. as a teacher i saw kids that came from homes that didn't have books. homes where kids weren't read to. homes where books weren't important. it's a whole different world from what brandon and i are used to, but it exists.  i did some research and called the hospital where she was born. it was almost brand new when i had her there (they delivered their first baby there in feb) so i thought they might need some help building their library. when i called the woman in volunteer services was so grateful to be getting books. they have racks in the waiting rooms but no books. NONE. so while they don't have a children's hospital there, of course there are kids that come in with their families. hopefully the 61 books we donated will help keep kids entertained, happy, comforted, distracted, and maybe give them a little reading practice. you can take the girl out of teaching, but you can't take the teaching out of the girl. :)

we went last week to drop off the books and it was great. the woman met us downstairs and once again said how thankful she is. she took a few pictures and she should be e-mailing them to me. hopefully we can keep this going for birthdays. i know one day she's going to care about presents, i just hope she also cares giving back.