Shoe Box

I cannot believe that we are getting ready to start this Christmas season! Days seem to just fly around here! Our favorite thing to do every year is make our Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. This year I stockpiled items throughout the year to cut back on expenses of the boxes. Last year we made 3 boxes and I spent about $35. This year we made 6 boxes and I spent about $15-$20!! Double the boxes for 1/2 the price!! I had Matt collect all the soap from the hotels he stayed at for work - so each box was able to get 3 bars of soap. I also got a bunch of free toothpaste that we added in them. I got the school supplies for cheap in August. I did mess up and I should have purchased the hard candy after Halloween, but we just never made it to the stores. I also got some flip flops for a quarter during the summer and lots of other stuff after holidays. All this cut our cost drastically. So what did we do with our savings? Samaratins Purse sent out a gift catalog so I told the kids they could pick out a gift that would be sent to those kids that would help them out. We went through the whole catalog and I explained what each gift would be used for. Carly immediately picked out a mosquito net so the kids wouldn't get bug bites when they sleep. She could sympathizes with them about the bugs, so she was bound and determined about purchasing the nets. Chloe loves cows, so she chose a dairy animal (probably a goat). And Harper purchased water for a community. He wanted people to have good drinks. They were very sweet about their purchases! I enjoyed going through the catalog with them. I love starting the holiday season with giving to others.

Here they are shopping through the catalog.
All the boxes lined up! They love packing the boxes. We can't wait to see where they go this year. Last years went to Madagascar!