Treat bags!

Leaving my boys for a week feels like nothing compared to the 6 weeks we left them to go to Ukraine. Leaving Oksana for a week, however, feels a bit like an eternity! She will be in great hands with my mom but the most we have ever left her before this is a weekend. As the reality of travel came closer I was thinking that I wanted to do a couple of things for Oksana. First, I wanted to have something that she could use to count down our time apart. Kind of like a paper chain where you remove one each day until the end. I also wanted a small incentive for her to behave herself while we are gone!! In the end I combined the 2 ideas and came up with what she calls "treat bags".

I made them for all 3 kids even though they are primarily for Oksana. Still, they are fun and I wanted the boys to enjoy them too! Each day we are gone (not including the day we leave or the day we come home) Oksana and the boys will each have a paper bag with their name and the day of the week on it. Inside is a small surprise. Oksana has things like balloons (of course), a book, bubbles, those fuzzy balls like Anya got, etc. The boys both have things like Lego mini figures, silly string, Pokemon cards, etc. All 3 kids have a coupon in their last bag (Friday) to go out for ice cream! I hope they enjoy them. We had a lot of fun putting them together! I'm not sure if we will do this for our second trip. It was hard enough to come up with ideas to fill all of those bags without breaking the bank! I'm going to have to get creative and come up with something different next time.