Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is almost here!  Have you sent your Valentine's care package yet?  What did you put in it?

I always included a lovey dovey card from me and home made cards from the kids.  My daughter would add lots of pictures she drew.  We'd buy his favorite candy and make heart shaped cookies.  We loved to include Little Debbie snack cakes too.  You know the ones that are decorated for the holiday.  Plenty of sweets to share.  :o)  We'd add favorite magazines too and maybe a movie or two. 

What do you include in your Valentine's care package?

I would love to hear from you!

Have you read my book yet?  You can see a free preview of it right here.  It's in the side bar to the right.  Let me know what you think! 

I'd love to hear your tips and tricks for getting through deployments too.  Share in the comments of any of the posts or feel free to email me! 

Hope to hear from you soon!
Sherri
mommy22ss (at) me.com

Counting down...

So I was thinking this morning about how we count down the deployments.  The little girl in my book uses a paper chain.  She removes a link each day and she can see how the time is passing. 

I've had friends mark days off of calendars, put M and M's in a jar and eat one each day to watch them go down and lots of other ways too.

With my husband's last deployment he did something a little different for us.  He was to leave shortly after Christmas so for Christmas I received a 16 month calendar he had made.  He was to be gone for 15 months. 

He took family photos and used them in the calendar and marked special days, birthdays, anniversaries and such.  He would put only 2 more months in the month title (or what ever was left).  We loved that calendar!!  The kids loved it! 

It was fun at the end of each month to turn the page and see what he put all over that month's calendar.  If there wasn't much going on that month he would put little notes on some of the days... "I really miss you!" or "Go out for ice cream tonight and eat some for me!"  It was such fun. 

It gave us something to look forward to as time marched on for us... I think it helped time to march on too.  My husband would call and ask us if we looked at the calendar too.   It was a nice conversation starter those days when it was hard to get the kids to talk. 

He had the calendar printed at a Kinko's and it was wonderful quality and really beautiful.  It was one of my favorite Christmas gifts ever!  I even saved it after the deployment was over.  A special momento for me of my husband's love.

So, what does your family do to count down the days?  Please share in the comments.

Care Packages

So, what kind of items do you put in your care packages? 

Some of our favorite items were:

Magazines (Men's Health, The Week, Time... one's we had subscriptions to and some we didn't),
gum,
beef jerky,
pictures and letters from the kids,
romantic cards from me,
photographs or cds with movies of the kids,
movies/tv shows that we found for $5 each or so,
silly stress reliever type toys (my kids favorite!)

Sometimes we would put baked goods in or store bought goodies but the last time my husband deployed he asked us not to send too much of that stuff.   :o)

So what about you?  What kinds of goodies do you put in the care packages you send?  Share your ideas in the comments section.

New Review!

Here is a new review of my book.  You can see it here or I'll post the content below.  It's wonderful and I so appreciate it!

Jan. 12, 2012 By Jeanne Lanier

What a wonderful book! I teach music lessons to lots of military students, and I highly recommend this book to every family. The idea of a "deployment paper chain" that runs throughout the book is a great visual to help children count down the days until their parent returns from deployment. Sherri's book is loaded with creative ideas of things children can do to stay in touch with the deployed parent. You can be in any branch of the Armed Forces and get much from this book for your children. The theme is not Army; it's deployment. If you have a military friend, buy this for their children.

Leaving time....

So, do you have any thing that is a kind of tradition that you do when your loved one is deploying or going TDY?

Just before my husband leaves we usually try to do something special together.  A dinner out or fix a favorite meal at home, a movie, a game.  Something we can all do together to get that quality time we'll miss while he is away.

My kids and I usually go out for ice cream after we drop Daddy off where ever it is he needs to be dropped off.  As my kids have gotten older it's kind of become a joke for us.

My daughter gave my husband a teddy bear for Christmas to take with him on his many travels.  I heard of some taking photos with the bear or animal at different places where they go and sending them home to the kids.  I think that's a really neat idea.

So what do you do?  What are you ideas?

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope you all have had a beautiful Mother's Day!  I had a very nice one.  My family was very good to me this year.

I remember a few Mother's Days that were a little more difficult though.  The holidays can be hard when you spouse is deployed.  Mother's Day or Father's Day or even your birthday can be a little harder to get through when you have little ones who want to do for you but don't have a way to do it by them self.

One year we had a friend offer to take the kids shopping, another year I asked a friend to take them and then another my parents happened to be visiting and so they took them.  Reach out and go ahead and ask a friend to help you with this.  I know it's hard and it seems weird but your kids really do want to surprise you and your friends really do want to help you so .... Just ask!  It really is okay.  :o)

If you are a friend or family member reading here, please offer to do this without their asking.  It's so hard to ask for something like this so please if you know someone whose spouse is deployed, just do, don't ask, just do.