Jump Start on Valentine's Day!

I have a confession.  I detest cold weather with every fiber of my being.  I can't accurately describe to you just how much I dislike being cold.  I can handle it through December because Christmas totally takes my mind off of it.  But y'all.  January and February are long, hard months for me.  I usually fill up a lot of that time dreaming about warm weather and every wonderful, heavenly thing that comes along with it.  I'll plan an imaginary beach trip online right up to the point where I have to enter our check card information.  Several times.  A week.  It's only January 3rd and we've already got Valentine's goodies ready for the girls' class treats.  I justify this (very irrationally, I might add) by thinking that if we go ahead and knock it out, February 14th will somehow get here quicker.  Which will in turn mean that there are only two more weeks left in these dreaded winter months.  I realize that it's still chilly here in March, but March always signifies the coming of Spring for me.  And it can't get here fast enough for this girl who would rather be baking in the sun rather than freezing in 20 degree weather!  That said, I came up with a fun little Valentine's project to keep us busy the other day.  You know, because if we get the ball rolling on Valentine's then it will obviously feel like it's just right around the corner.  We kicked it off by peeling the paper off of dozens of crayons...

I should add a disclaimer.  This will ruin your fingernails and is the least fun part of it all.  The girls lasted approximately three minutes before they bailed and left me to do this part on my own!

They reappeared and were ready to join me again when it was time to break all the crayons into little pieces...

FYI, we stuck with trusty Crayolas instead of the off brand.

Then we put them in these cute heart-shaped silicone baking molds that we scored from the dollar aisle at Target... 

I'm sure this is a one-time use sort of thing being that they were only $2.50 each, but it worked like a charm!

After a few minutes of baking at 350 degrees, they came out melted, bubbly, and oh so swirly...

Thirty minutes later we had pretty cool heart-shaped crayons that we'll put in clear bags with a fun label of some sort...

What was really neat was the one Towns made with silver, gold and white crayons.  After seeing how she could customize her crayons for the perfect color combinations, she's decided that she wants to redo them all with a few favorite colors of each of her classmates.  And of course she wants to add some kind of sparkle to them.  We'll see if we can tackle that later on!  Maybe after a week or two of a strict regimen of getting my fingernails back to normal.  Only to do it all over again!

With the girls being out of school and having lots of time to spend together, I've had to pull out my trusty sidekick quite a few times...

If you don't have it, get it.  It'll be the best investment you can make if you have young children.  It's suggested for ages 8-12, but our girls are 6 and 4 and understand most of it perfectly.  We've had lessons in...

And this...

Raise your hand if you're with me.  I love our children dearly and most of the time they are well behaved and all, but I have to keep it real.  The more they're together, the more they fight.  It's an argument over whose hand stand is better, who has more strawberries on their plate at breakfast, who's taller, whose foot is bigger, who loves their mama more...you get the picture.
I've personally wrestled with this one...

And this one...

What can I say? I'm a work in progress.  And I'm glad I have children who keep me in check just as much as I try to keep them in check.  They're the first to tell me to put down the phone so I can give them my full attention.  Even as I type Cate is literally sitting on my shoulders which is her attempt to tell me that she's ready to go to the library like I've been promising all day.  Time to put my money where my mouth is.  Actually, I'll probably be putting my money in the hand of the lady at the library because I'm pretty sure we have overdue fines!  I wonder what the Bible says about that.  In Heaven there will be no overdue books.  I just know it...