shoeboxes

I don't know why I can't get my act together,

but once again,

we just barely managed to squeak in our shoeboxes.

Today is the last day to get them on the truck.

We're good though, 'cause Tyler dropped them off on his way to work.

(thanks, Hon!)

We went to Walmart and the boys and girls split up with our allotted money.

(The boys went over budget by $3, but the girls were under by $5, so we're okay)

I was really proud of Lily;

she was really purposeful and thoughtful with her selections.

(I imagine the boys were, too, but I wasn't with them...)

Some items she shunned because they'd take up too much room in the box,

others she thought wouldn't provide long-term enjoyment, so we passed.

Lexi, on the other hand, was wowed by glitz;

she didn't end up with a lot of say in the contents,

although we did go with her choice when we could.

We had a small Tinkerbell back-pack that we were really unsure of.

It was cute, but probably not very durable.

But it was cute....

So we prayed while we were waking through the store that God would help us decide.

And I immediately thought of fabric.

Lily and Lexi play with fabric more than just about anything;

the same piece of cloth can be a dress, a cape, a veil, a bag, a picnic blanket, etc

(all in the same day, even....)

We put the back-pack back and went to the fabric dept.

All the fabric we liked would put us over-budget,

but then I remembered that I had a whole bolt of cute, colorful polka-dot knit fabric at home!

Perfect!

(which is how we managed to come in under-budget ;-)

Oh ~ we also found a little baby doll without a tag of any kind, but she was by far our favorite.

We looked and looked for another one with tags, even checking the baby department, but didn't find one.

We went back to toys, and grabbed the lone doll, hoping that the cashier would be nice, and sell it to us anyways (maybe for a dollar?) 

She picked up the doll and said, "Do you know how much this is supposed to cost?" 

I told her I was so sorry, but I had no clue; we couldn't find another one anywhere, and she rang it up for $1!!

As soon as we got home, we packed our boxes.

There was a lot of rearranging.

We stuffed 'em so full, we had to tie them shut, but we managed to get everything in.

I paid for the shipping online, so we got a bar-code to tape onto the box,

and we'll be able to track our boxes and find out where the go :-)

Jeremiah kept saying it would be so cool if we could go along to deliver the boxes

and show the kids everything.

Maybe someday, Kiddo; maybe someday....