Monday, February 26, 2007

Love and candy...

I realize that my blogging world is quite delayed compared to my real world. Yet, I am of the mindset that sometimes it really is better late than never. I give to you No. 3485 of my daily head list. This one has officially been removed from the list that runs through my head on a constant basis.

Behold, the Moosie Valentine Turtle. Concepted, designed & engineered mostly by Moosie. The children were to bring a decorated box to hold the classmate valentines that were requested (read demanded) by the teacher. She worked long & hard on this hand-crafted original and did not win any class prizes. The "shell" is an old plant container that I cut down to her specifications, ran wire from the drain holes through the box for stability and we covered the holes with a green milk lid. She drew the face, then traced her sock feet on paper & cut that out for the turtle feet. The turtle also is sporting a fine orange tail at the rear of the box.


Here is the Rokimus love container. It was a rush job, done mostly by me with him being the supervisor. Of course, it's tough to try to do this silly stuff for school when you're busy being a tractor repairman, welder and horse wrangler. He did some work on it and earned 2nd place in the class competition. Moosie was not impressed. Those "tires" are stolen from my dark room supplies and are film processing reels. The jug is a vinegar jug and the lettering came from his dad's race car designs that I did last year, including the sponsor on the bottom. The part where the handle is lifts up, like on a car hood.

Lastly, we come to the valentines that my kids handed out to the other children in their class. Yes, even the one that has physically harmed my Moosie. Now, I realize that I could have gone out and bought some of those cute, colorful, sugar-laden valentines, but in my warped head, that would not do for their first ever valentine swapping event. Therefor, in the midst of planning, shopping and coordinating a 50th anniversary and dealing with a strep sick child, I came up with the following:
What you are looking at is this:
Blank Index Cards with hand-cut hearts. Attached to the hearts are the words "You color my world Insert Name Here" and various stickers that the kids chose. Attached to the cardstock are hand-made crayons made from little broken bits melted down into little rounds. I took the round multi-colored crayons, melted a hole through the middle, ran red ribbon through that hole to the hole in the card and finished it off with gum for the Rokimus hand outs & candy for the Moosie ones.

Yes, that should win me Mom Mom of the Year. No, I probably will not be doing that again next year. Although, I did think of another neat idea... :)

2 comments:

tlm said...

My thoughts run hot and cold on how much help you need. On the one hand, you have clearly lost your mind - on the other hand, you've obviously got time on your hands to do all this stuff for others. Wait - I remember now. . . what else is there to do in the middle of nowhere? Seriously, the party looks perfect, the valentie boxes are adorable, and the cards themselves, well, they are amazing. Please, do the other moms a favor and buy valenitines in the future - you are only making us look bad with cards like these.

Marcus said...

This reminds me of all the crap that first-time parents haul around in a diaper bag: 14 outfits, medicines, lotions, shampoo, diapers, wipes, booty creme, blankets, suction bulb, spit-up towels, and God-only-knows what else. Then, by the second kid, they may carry a bag, but only with a couple of diapers, a few wipes in a Ziploc, and maybe one extra outfit. By the third, no bag at all. A few diapers and wipes in the trunk of the car, and if an extra outfit is needed, then it must be purchased when passing Target.

You'll be alright. The "new & cute" idea of school activities will come to a sudden and definitive end, if it hasn't already. You do deserve some kind of award, though. That is tremendous effort for Valentine's day.