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Light the World | 25 Days in 25 Ways 2018

I LOVE the Light of the World Campaign that my church has done for the past few years. It has brought the perfect spirit to the season for me and my family. Last year, I created fun printables HERE for this amazing campaign. You can still download them and share in the fun activities, music, and scriptures. (The videos on the printables will no longer work, but check out mormon.org for this year’s videos!) You can also go HERE for some updated advent calendars and fun activities from Brightly Street (they are really awesome).

I can’t think of anything better to do as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, than to serve others. That is what our Savior Jesus Christ did throughout his life. He was the perfect example and there is no greater gift we can give him, than helping to #LightTheWorld by serving those around us. 

I realize that it is already the 4th of December, but its NEVER too late to get started. Please check out all the links above and get in on the SERVICE ACTION with your family. You will not regret it! Merry Christmas!

 

Just a little magic to help start your week off right!
Fun ideas, inspiration, tutorials, or whatever I feel like!

Mondays

Monday Magic | Kid, You’ll Move Mountains Initiative

Every Christmas season, I like to find a service project that my family can participate in. Usually, its something small and crafty-oriented.  But this year, I have something else in mind.

My nephew, William has been in the N.I.C.U. for over 2 months (we are hoping he gets to come home before Thanksgiving) and during my daily visits with him, I have been reading Dr. Seuss books to him. The book, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” has been especially poignant, as Will has had a bit of a hard time, but he’s a fighter. As we edge closer, to healing and getting him home, I have thought about this book many times and what an inspiration it is and I have came up with an idea that I just love. I have decided to purchase the book and get all the doctors and nurses that have worked with William to sign it (and add personal messages) and then when he gets to go home, the book will go home with him.

And then I got to thinking how amazing it would be if every NICU baby could take this book home with them. What a treasure it would be for the parents to have to remember all the doctors and nurses that were a part of the journey! What a treasure for the doctors/nurses to have a chance to say goodbye and share their experience! And what a treasure for the children to have as they grow up and see how special they are!So that’s what I want to do this year. I would like to start this initiative to buy as many of these books as I can to donate them to the Utah Valley Hospital N.I.C.U. in December! If it goes well, I’d love to keep this initiative going to help provide books for as long as I can. I feel that this is something that could make the N.I.C.U. a little better for all of the families that have to experience time there and just provide something extra special for them all.  

Will you help me? I am using YouCaring.com to host this fundraiser and I would LOVE it if you could check it out and make a donation to help me with this project. I need help sharing it too, so if you would like to social media it up, that would be amazing! Thank you so very much for making this possible!

www.youcaring.com/movemountainsinitiative

I’m still working on finding the best place to purchase these books in bulk and will continue to research this out and do all that I can to make this succeed! If you have ideas or places I could look into, please let me know! Thank you!

Just a little magic to help start your week off right!
Fun ideas, inspiration, tutorials, or whatever I feel like!

Mondays

Light the World | 25 Days in 25 Ways

Each year as I prepare for the Christmas season and I plan my family’s December Activities, I am always searching for new ways to focus on the Savior and the true meaning of the season. Amidst all the fun, holiday-themed activities, I feel it is really important for my family to remember Jesus Christ and his story and how we can become more like him.

As I have been preparing for the holidays this year, I was so happy and excited to discover a wonderful campaign that my church has initiated,
light-the-world-logo-watermark-red-01I was thrilled to find so much ideas and inspiration about following our Savior, Jesus Christ in December. I also discovered many other sites that have built upon this idea and I am so excited that there are so many resources, starting with mormon.org and HERE!

 

“As we follow the example of the Savior and live as He lived and as He taught,
that light will burn within us and will light the way for others.”  

–President Thomas S. Monson


One of my family’s traditions each year is an activity advent calendar, where each day in December we do some kind of holiday activity. I love my beautiful shadowbox advent calendar that I purchased a few years ago and it’s always so fun to plan and add the activities to the boxes for my kids to discover! So after looking through all the different resources, I narrowed down the things that I wanted to do and began creating my own little cards to stick into my boxes. I mostly used ideas from Brightly Street.

adventshadowbox

I decided that I wanted to share these cards with you so that you can use them too!  So what I have done is created 2.5 x 2.5 cards with each day’s theme, song, scriptures, video links, and activity idea. (I’ve also included blanks – so that you can add your own stuff). You can download the pdf and print them out and use them in whatever advent calendar you have! Personally, I will also be adding the regular holiday-themed activities that my family does to the back of the card, so we can do them as well as the #LIGHTtheWORLD activities.

#LIGHTtheWORLD

dedesmith_lighttheworld

DOWNLOAD

I hope that you all will participate in this wonderful initiative and I really hope that you can use what I have created. Don’t forget to check out all the other resources that others have created! Find what works best for you and your family and serve! I know if we all participate, we can truly bless this world by serving those around us and fill our hearts with the peace that Jesus Christ can bring to each one of us.

#LIGHTtheWORLD