another box

It's almost valentines day. Not that we are big on celebrating this expensive "holiday"... but we had to make some valentines for daddy. We got out our craft supplies, the colored paper, the pretty stickers, all the markers, crayons and colored pencils we own, and of course.... the tape! My kids LOVE tape. They tape everything just for the sake of using it. K man doesn't quiet understand that tape is used to hold things together, so his was pretty much used to decorate with. Daddy will typically get a picture from K man in every box we send out, that has a tiny bit of coloring on it, and whole lot of tape across it. ;)
So we cut, colored and taped our valentines and made them so pretty. Then K man said "Let's make valentines for daddy's army guy friends!" E agreed "YES!! I want to make hearts for the other army guys, daddy can pass them out!" I spoke up, "GUYS they are SOLDIERS, not just army guys!"  Oh, I love their conversations!
Needless to say, we cut out lots of little hearts and then colored on them and signed names. A few were assigned to daddy only, to go with his other valentines, the rest were to be put into a little baggy, and I had to make it clear to daddy that these were to be passed out to the army guy friends/soldiers as soon as he opened the box!
Daddy will usually make a few requests, knowing that we always have a box going. So there were some books added in, some that he asked for and some that I found while going through our stacks, that I thought he might like. 
This one was pretty much filled to the max with v-day goodies and books.... but typically we will add in some juice boxes and snacks for him. My favorite was the very first box we sent out, K man was eating reese's pieces ( a tiny fun size package ) he ate a couple, and then insisted that I put the rest in a lunch baggy and send it to daddy. He wanted to share. ;)
I'll never forget that! Another time I asked him what we should put in daddy's box and he replied "ME!" 

taped up and ready to go

K man is always saving things for his daddy... always food. As he is eating things he will say "I will save this last one for daddy for when he comes home" or "there is one juice box left in here, it is for daddy ok." he is so sweet!
E and I make sure he has plenty of pretty pictures to decorate with. Missa has colored a few herself. I like to stick little notes in and cards just to give him a smile. There is always a box being filled... once it is full and we pack it up and send it out... we get the next one out and start right back at it. We have a collection of boxes, packing tape and the forms we need to send it through the APO to him. It's hard to surprise him considering we need to write everything that is in the box on this form and it is attached to the top of the box. We have to make him promise not to read it! ;)
This one is not quite going to make for Valentines day, it will be a few days late, unless by some miracle the APO is super fast! Doubtful.... although we did have one package make it to him in about 5 days, I think that is some sort of record! 
He did give us a heads up that he sent some valentines out to us as well. We are looking forward to our special delivery!