Christmas Child 2011

in years past we've had fun and failed attempts to learn the art of giving by way of operation christmas child.  we have a new approach this year, and i must say, it was quite successful on all accounts. 



this year, we decided that the boys should earn their own money to go make purchases for "their" child.  they ate it up.  we always go to the ole dollar discount (everything's a dollar) (awesome) to fill our boxes so the fellas earned $1 for each chore.  they swept, cleaned, made beds, washed windows, and, as seen here, vacuumed. 



it took a couple of weeks for them to each earn $10, one at a time, to go load up their boxes.



the big bros also had to help rowan earn his $10 which meant they both did extra work, received the dollar and proudly handed it to their baby brother.  they really did it so joyfully, and everytime rowan said, "dolla moomy! dolla!"



finn earned almost all of rowan's money for him.  he really did work hard.



it was kinda crazy taking three super excited boys, each armed with 10 one dollar bills, by myself into the jam packed dollar discount. 



we laid out the booty and filled up the boxes.  also crazy.



there were no whines asking to keep everything for themselves this year though.  i think i just realized that.









jack and finn wrote notes.



and one for row baby.





attach the label and...done!  jon and i wrote the check for the $7 shipping per box in case you were worried about the slave labor ;)