Cute Idea--Brat Town Bugle

I don't remember how I stumbled on this, but I wish I had found it sooner.  I still might try to find some time for the kids to do it before Gunner gets home.  (Boy, you have less than 10 weeks left, and it's almost like they are coming home tomorrow!)

Anyway, this is a free site, and you can print the pages off, and have the kids create their own newspaper!  What a cute idea, and would have been great to do over Christmas vacation.

Check it out here: Operation We Are Here

Hello, my name is ABW, and I am not organized--Deployment Ideas Part II

Most of my friends might call me a mess.  There's no rhyme or reason as to why I put anything anywhere.  While my house is clean (most of the time), I couldn't tell you where anything important is.

Enter Gunner.

My uber organized husband that loves me dearly.  After he went to Iraq the first time and I had to have my mom sign for housing because I couldn't find my POA--thank goodness he knows me and gave her a POA--he decided he needed to organize me.

He made me an Everything Book.

It was the best thing he could have done.

He made categories, printed out nice little labels, and spent weeks scouring the house for every important piece of paper.  There's a section on the car--titles, insurance copies, dealer information.  One on each child--shot records, passports, birth certificates, daycare information, school information.  There's a deployment section with POA's, orders, rear d information.  He included banking, credit cards, cable, job information, etc.  You name it, it's in this gigantic white binder--housing, camps, contact numbers, addresses, etc.

It's time to start updating it now that we are in a new location.  He'll sort through the piles of mail I don't open and start putting in all the vital information that I might need while he is gone, and if I ever have to go anywhere important, this book goes with me.  (He's also learned and gets more than one POA for me, just in case!)

I won't have to search for anything.

I'm thinking this time he might want to include ideas of things to do or maybe races I can train for?  Maybe a list of books for the kids to read that he loved at their respective ages.

Do you have one of these books?  What do you put in it that I am missing?

Need some ink

Deployment Journal for Kids.

Sacrifices & the Military Challenge

Michelle over at A Cup of Tea with Friends, has a husband who is deploying in the near future. She was challenged to give up three items during his 12-15 month deployment to show her support for her husband and his fellow Soldiers. How can I argue with that! This will be Chris' third deployment and I know I can follow suite.

Three things that I will give up during this deployment:
1. Ice cream. My husband and I love it, and this will be hard but if he can't enjoy Blue Bell, I'll wait until he can.
2. Diet Coke. This will be a hard one too as I have a several-can-a-day diet coke habit.
3. Frappacinos. Another weakness.

Hmmm....all these center around food.

Michelle also takes on the following challenge:

But then I got to thinking. In honor of the freedoms they fight for, maybe I should try three new things because as Americans we have the luxury of making choices, whereas in many other countries people are persecuted for going against their society. So in honor of their fight for our freedoms I will:

1. Try something new every month (they give up their hobbies and liberties to protect us)
2. Workout at least 4 days a week exercising (my husband had to run on a dirt track that surrounded the FOB when in Afghanistan)
3. Participate in at least two activities a month that include other spouses (support is a valuable asset during a deployment.)

These are great!

So I vow to do the following:

1. Try something new every month (this is a great one and will hopefully get me out of the house and help me to meet some new people).
2. Complete an unfinished project a month. Hmmmm...maybe my mom should join me on this one.
3. Complete at least 4 fun runs/walks/rides or something. I really want to do this with my husband, but I'll just be in tip top shape when he gets back. Not to mention if I have to carry three kids on my back across the finish line that will help me along!

I'm off to work, but who else wants to take on this challenge?

Change

Since DH is gone so much he misses out on so much with the girls and Junior. When he returned from Iraq last December Junior was just over 5 months old and he had only seen him for the first 13 days of his life. DH carried Junior in and was going to set him down on the ground as I was busy putting down the diaper bag, etc. I heard him ask the girls if he could sit up yet and they told him no. It kind of hit me then how much he had missed out on and how even with pictures, letters and phone calls he still didn't know his own son. We quickly remedied that and he has always been a very involved father with diaper changes, baths, medicines, etc. with each of our three children.

A lot can change in a month. DH left knowing his son and in that month he grew, changed and started new routines. So yesterday he spent the afternoon and evening learning what his son likes and dislikes now. He learned the new way of putting Junior down for the night and (since he still doesn't sleep through the night)what Junior was looking for at each time of the night--bottle, binky, time to wake up. I didn't realize how much Junior had changed during this time. I mean I knew, but I can't imagine what Chris sees when he comes home to such big changes in a little guy. The girls grow up and change a lot but it is not nearly as drastic as Junior. He is climbing on top of the furniture, starting to throw little fits, knows to wait by the door when it is time to go "bye-bye", can work a lot of his toys and much much more.

So when DH leaves soon I will make a point of putting everything down on paper for him, more scrapbooks, and tons more pictures (if that is possible!). I meant to do it last time but ran out of time, but this time I want to do a Year in Review album and put down the highlights of each month at the END OF THE MONTH (and now wait since I know I won't have time to do it then) for him to enjoy.