Brown paper packages

I love receiving mail. I always have, but living far from home makes receiving personal mail even more special. When I was pregnant with Addie, and in the weeks after we had her, I was often surprised with a package on my doorstep or in the mailbox. Awesome gifts from sweet friends and family and always fun to open. One of my favorite (and most surprising) packages at that time came in the form of a Cheesecake Factory cheesecake sent from some friends from our church in Illinois. I was amazed!

Over the last couple of weeks I've had some fun receiving some packages in the mail. A couple of things I've ordered and then a couple of unexpected boxes, which are the most fun. Today I received two of those surprises.

The first arrived in my mailbox. An unknown return address on a small, brown envelope. I opened it to reveal handmade pouch:

A birthday gift from my sister, it totally caught me off guard! We'd seen these on a website we follow, Very Jane. It's a site that offers deals on items for a certain period of time and when the deal is up, it's up. We'd commented back and forth about them and I considered buying one and then decided against it and forgot about it. Lo and behold, my sister knows me well and bought me one! I was so happy to see this little owl today.


The next surprise came later by UPS. I was expecting these:

My first pair of TOMS! I was pretty excited about these. Thanks to a gift card I was able to get these and have been anxiously awaiting their arrival.

I was not expecting our UPS guy to drop off two boxes and was really curious when I saw the other addressed to Adelaide. She was excited, too! Inside her box were these:

A sweet handmade smock and tooth fairy pillow from my friend Missy. She thoughtfully sent these and now Addie keeps asking for "tooth fairy" and has been wearing the smock. Missy's etsy shop is currently on vacation, but stop by and take a look at her handmade goodies.

It's been a good mail day!

I'd planned on us having a low key day, which we have, since we've been out and about this week and have a crazy weekend ahead. Addie also, seemingly out of the blue, has developed a runny nose and some congestion, so it's a good thing we laid low today. But, we were able to get out and get some flowers and Addie made a card so we could wish our neighbor and friend, Ms. Connie, happy birthday. We actually spent the evening with her just last night when she had us over for dinner. It was so nice to not have to cook and to spend some time with her since it had been a while since we'd been able to catch up with her.

This morning we had a nice short walk over to her house to deliver her flowers and card and searched for butterflies on the way back to our house. It was so nice that I almost don't want to mention the pile of fresh dog poop I stepped in, in my flip flops, on the way to her house. The bright side? At least it wasn't Addie's foot.

And that's been our day. Now it's time to get ready to get to church, cook for the kids and have service.

I am thankful for the thoughtfulness of sweet family and friends!