I used some of our recent snow day time to get help from the kiddos working on some “sending love” projects I’ve had on my To-Do list lately.

We all made Get Well Soon cards for Mr. Fix-It’s grandma (we call her “Bea”) and printed off some pictures to send with them–because who wouldn’t feel cheered up seeing pictures of my adorable kiddos? {smile}

I made a birthday card for my Grandma Koeller and sent it off. Grandma Koeller has come to visit us several times the last couple years and the children know her, so they enjoyed being part of it.

She’s actually my great-grandma and she turned 93 this past weekend! It was a bit confusing to explain to the crew how my great-grandma was their great-great-grandma…but we all just call her Grandma Koeller because for a long time my sister and I were the only great-grandkids and everyone else just called her Grandma. Ah, the convoluted threads of a close-knit family! {smile}

I also have a few Valentine’s Day projects in the works.

I saw this adorable, fun idea on Pinterest to send a “party in a box” and, well, the kiddos and I went a little crazy putting together some Valentine’s Day care packages for our loved ones. The Dollar Store was a treasure trove!! We’re using medium flat rate boxes that the munchkins are decorating with punched out hearts and we filled them with pink and red goodies. I’ll share pictures tomorrow before we mail them out, but here’s some ideas that we found/used:

 

• Cake mix and frosting (we used coupons to save!)
• Pink and white sprinkles (the most expensive piece to each box!)
• Heart-covered napkins and table-cloth (Dollar Store!)
• Cupcake papers and picks (Set of 12 wrappers and picks at Dollar Store–score!)
• Little bags of “table scatter”or confetti–hearts punched from pink, white, and red paper
• Heart stickers (I snagged on clearance last year)
• Bagged candy
• Boxed Valentines (Another clearance snag from last year!)

The boys really got into it with me when I asked them to help pick out treats for Ms. Maya, their beloved babysitter who’s away at college this semester.

We also just received the address for our new Adopt A US Soldier friend. We send him snail mail every week or so and try to send off a care package every 6-8 weeks. We supported one soldier in 2008 and a second soldier in 2009-2010, but the kiddos were much younger then and other than drawing pictures and occasionally helping to pick out snacks, I did most of the work.  This time they are very excited to be involved with me.  The Ladybug can’t wait to practice her typing by sending letters and the boys are full of questions to “ask our soldier.” {smile} It’s a great experience for them and we’ve had fun Pinning all kinds of care package ideas to my Be the Change board. I think our first package will go out in March, but we’ll have missed St. Patrick’s Day by the time it gets to Afghanistan, so I’m not sure if we’ll go with a theme or not. There are a lot of cute ideas out there! Between college and military care packages, this should keep our creative fingers busy! {smile}

You know, if you’re not really the card-making type, you can still be the card-sending type. My Grandma Hohner certainly is! And Dayspring has this great program called the Heart Connection Card Club that sends you a regular assortment of their beautiful, Christian cards each month for $1.30-$1.60 per card! Plus you can skip a month or cancel any time you want and you get an exclusive 15% off other products for being a member. I’m excited to get a discount on their lovely line of Military and Civil Service card sets!

 

Have you been working on any special projects lately?

I’d like to add missionary letters and packages into our rotation as well, but I’ve got my hands full right now. My goal right now is to do a package a month and rotate who is getting it. Doing multiple support packages isn’t as hard as you’d think once you start doing a bit of couponing. You can save on just about everything and you can buy in bulk and break it up to support multiple new friends.

Do you do any care package projects?

See where I’m sharing…