Care Package #4 - Birthday Prep

Since we always need to be thinking a month ahead when preparing care packages, that means I'm thinking about what I want Benjamin to get in August.  For this care package, I was also thinking about the upcoming 1st Birthday in September!!  It seems if I want to be sure he has some fun stuff from us on hand for the BIG day, I surely need to send items now in the event package #5 doesn't get picked up until after the actual birthday.

Therefore, this care package was dedicated to providing a few necessities to celebrate the BIG day.  So hard to find food items to send for a birthday celebration as I can't send a boxed cake with a can of frosting and expect his Foster Mother to make it!!!  So found some fun yet unconventional items.  He should receive this package at his August check-up and hopefully his Foster Mother saves all these goodies for his birthday celebration : ) 

• Happy 1^st Birthday banner....didn't end up fitting : ( 
• Birthday Boy banner
• Happy 1^st Birthday bib
• 1^st Birthday candle
• 1^st Birthday inflatable ring toss game
• Cupcake pet stuffed toy
• 2 tins of cookies
• 2 tubes candy coated sunflower seeds
• 1 package Gerber cookies
• 2 packages Gerber freeze dried yogurt snacks
• 1 pair 12 month jeans
• 1 Hungry Caterpillar 1^st Birthday t-shirt...compliments of Grandma and Grandpa

August Care Package - 11 mo 

Looking forward to preparing his next care package (#5) to be sent in August with all his birthday presents and wishes!! 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

In honor of Benjamin's room decor, this month's book buy was 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar.'  I spent all Saturday priming and painting a hope chest and dresser with the coloring of this cute little caterpillar.  I then realized we hadn't even purchased the book for him yet, so no question to what the book buy of the month would be!

Just a little back story on each of these pieces, which are near and dear to our hearts.  The hope chest was my 15th birthday gift from my parents.  They stained it and placed a little nameplate on the front with the date.  The dresser is from Fred's family.  It was once used by him and a number of his siblings as well as nieces and nephews. So happy to be re-purposing and passing these items on to our little guy.  Still a work in progress with hardware yet needed, but the messy part is over!!

Ground Breaking

Benjamin is going to be one popular little boy since his Daddy is building him a super fabulous play structure.  I was told build it BIG or don't build it at all. We are fortunate that Fred loves power tools and construction projects. So he drew up some plans for review, and with just a couple minor modifications, we're all set to go.  

Initial plans with towers, walkway, slide, sandbox,
fire pole, and swings.   A few tweaks yet to come.

To my surprise, work has begun on this project. Oh and did I mention it's the hottest week of the summer at 100+ degrees and about 100% humidity. Never the less lumber is accumulating, saws are spinning, and bolts are flying.

Grand opening coming this summer!

Who Says Boys Clothes Aren't Cute!?!

While shopping with my mom one day last month, we popped into a few kids stores to see what things we could find for care packages.  To our surprise there was quite the selection of cute clothing items with one of the trends this year being sea creatures...hello love sea creatures!!!  Later that got me thinking, why can't I just start scooping up all these lovelies now and have them on hand next year for our little guy?  So I took a small poll of the kiddos that just came home as this would be the same age Benjamin comes home.  Of course as we all know each kiddo is different, but the results pretty well showed they are wearing a range of 18 mos to 2T.  So now I was armed with the idea that Benjamin will probably be on target to wear his age or a even a little bit smaller.

While up in the Chicago area a couple weeks back, I started my hunt.  It felt great to have purpose in starting to fill up Benjamin's empty closet, and BONUS you get so much more for your dollar with kids clothes especially when all summer stuff is already on clearance! I continued my hunt yesterday with a dear friend while scouring the Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora.  This was truly the Mecca of kids clothing....Gymboree, Carters, The Children's Place, Gap Kids, Oshkosh...we hit them all!!  It was so great to have her there to ask questions and bounce ideas about what is needed...well with having 3 boys of her own and all : )

A few of my favorite recent finds...loving plaid and overalls!

 

The closet is filling up...time to get the dresser painted!

 


Don't worry I'm not going too crazy, but hope to have just a small amount for Benjamin's arrival home.  It sounds like the last thing I want to do the first month we're home is hit the shopping scene!