A Final Care Package

Just kidding...there's another care package to come after this one...

Anyhow, many many months ago when I saw this welcome home scrapbook paper, I decided I would make my husband a Welcome Home care package and bring it to him at the ceremony. Well, I'll probably keep it in the truck and let him open it after...but I digress.  Point is, for old times sake, I've made him one last package...

It's contents are as follows:
1) A welcome home card with a drawing by our son included inside
2) A skull ring he BEGGED for on R&R but thinks I never bought ;)
3) A new pair of Jordans
4) A $22 customized box of Pop-Tarts.  Remember my mention of that in a previous post...well, now you know why it was $22.  (A little pricey, but I think it'll be worth his reaction).
5) Crystal Head Vodka (It's very expensive so he always said he deserved it when he redeployed.)
6) (not shown) A t-shirt that says, "That's what she said". If you know my husband at all, you'll think that's funny.

Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid

I love Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid.  When it comes to Kool-Aid, I like them all, but I LOOOOVEEE the Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade.  When I found this at the commissary is the instant containers, I hoarded every last one up.  I'm a bit less particular when it comes to my Pop-Tarts.  I like chocolate, strawberry, cherry, cookie dough, chocolate & vanilla, etc.  I love them all & so does my husband.  He actually requested a box of Pop-Tarts with every care package.  I did my best to fulfill this demand.  In fact, this family loves Pop-Tarts so much, I ordered him a $22 box of Pop-Tarts for his Welcome Home care package.  But I'll explain that at a later date. At any given date, my cabinet is full of Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid.  A few days ago, when searching for a meal to prepare, I noticed my Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid survival kit and thought, HMM...Clearly, I love Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid.  What a great title for a blog post!  However can I tie this in??  I've got it! It's a stretch, but here goes...

Yes, I love Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid, but what do I not love??  COOKIES! At the moment, I LOATHE cookies.  Cookies can bite me for once.  I used to be normal, I used to love cookies like my Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid.  Macadamia cookies, sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies...cookies in general made me happy.  But not any more!  Well, at least not for another month or so.  As I stated in a previous post, my husband requested one final care package filled with nothing but COOKIES.  Filling a large care package solely with cookies takes a lot of dough (that's a total homonym).  It was $46 for all the ingredients to pull of not 7 dozen cookies like I had previously thought, but 118 cookies!! It was a result of 1 batch of macadamia nut cookies, 1 batch of peanut butter cookies, one batch of Butterfinger cookies, one batch of turtle cookies (like the chocolate), and 6 batches of S'more cookies.  I didn't have the graham crackers, so I used more butterfingers.  After all the cookies were baked, I couldn't even fit them in the box.  I didn't have enough tupperware or zip-locks.  I somehow managed to make it work. At the moment, I am SICK of cookies.  My husband's company better be thankful! 

On the up-side, tough-boxes are starting to arrive this week...

One of the hubs' signs arrived this week too!!  I made a vague attempt to blur the name on here for security reasons.

I designed my son's Welcome Home shirt this week and it has been ordered.  The back has daddy's name on it as well...

Daddy will be here before we know it!! I can't freaking wait! :D

Are we there yet?

 It's been 11 months, 5 days, 22 hours, and 52 mins since we gave "knucks" to daddy and said "see ya later" at the hanger.  But who's counting, right?  Anyhow...if you're wondering why our goodbye sounds so informal, it's because it was.  I never got out of the car, never unbuckled the boys carseat.  We didn't hug, we didn't kiss...there was no long embrace, no tears.  While some would say that sounds terrible, you should know this...We've done that before.  We did the tears, the hugs, the painful goodbye, and it was HORRIBLE!  It's like having someone you loved ripped from your arms.  We couldn't put our son through that.  He is still too young to fully grasp a deployment, though for weeks leading up to the deployment, we had many many discussions about daddy's job, where he was going and what he would be doing.  He seems to understand, but like I, has not shown much emotion regarding the deployment.  I attribute this to the fact that we don't often refer to it as a sad thing, but instead an honorable situation.  Our son tells his friends, "Daddy is my hero, he's fighting the bad guys".  He is very proud of him.  But as strong as we have all been these past 11 months, the last several weeks are certainly proving to the hardest & most trying.  While I'm doing anything and everything to keep my mind and body busy, the days are CRAWLING!  But even so, I'm seeing signs of a redeployment in our future.  Tough boxes are beginning to show up on our porch, my husband has recently moved out of his room to allow for his replacement soldiers to take over, the FRG's are having redeployment briefings, my "Welcome Home" signs are arriving in the mail this week, and I've been making "Welcome Home" daddy outfits for friends all month.  In case you were wondering why I had not added any new care packages to my posts lately, it's because we've passed the mail cutoff date.  To help my son (and certainly myself) get through these next few weeks, here's some of the things we've done to pass the time and prepare for daddy's return:

 I made my own camo purse...still don't have a name tape for it.

 Making Welcome Home signs at an FRG function. 

Made my own door wreath for daddy's welcome home decor.

I've also created a Popsicle countdown for our son.  He gets one Popsicle per day.  When they are gone, daddy will be home!!

This week, I'm breaking the rules and I am sending out one final care package...it's just a box full of cookies and nothing but cookies...7 dozen cookies to be exact!  My husband has no intentions of keeping them all for himself.  He just wants something to hand out to everyone before they head home.  Hopefully they make it, but if not, no harm...someone else will enjoy them I suppose.  I'm also beginning to nest this week.  I've redecorated my kitchen, started repainting some rooms, replaced bad light bulbs throughout house, organized closets, and there's so many more (unimportant) things to do.   Preparations are finally underway for the hubby's return and I couldn't be more excited!