Good-bye, elementary school

Can't believe Zach has graduated 6th grade.  I only hope I haven't screwed him up too much along the way. He sure is handsome, though!

Meet one of the graduating class of 2013, Ocean Breeze Elementary 6th grade, Zachary Hall!

Owen completed Kindergarten, but due to his age and his emotional maturity, we decided to send him to Tk-1 rather than first grade.  I get to keep my baby around another year, and he gets to spend time honing his charm (beware!).  Little fart got a 10 for his instructional reading level, I think for the end of Kg they want them at a 4--no worries there!  It's tough having a smarty pants who thinks he gets all the perks of being the baby in the family ;)  But at least he and Zach got to have one year of school together, it was never going to happen again, no matter what grade he enters next year.  I'm glad they got the chance, no matter how fraught with dissent it may have been, they will look back on it fondly some day.  Some day.  Maybe.  Crossing my fingers.

It's been one week...

...since you looked at me... Yes, I know it's been more than one week but now you hopefully have a fun little #earworm.

I have been legitimately busy!  I swear!  I was emailed by Zach's teacher about a potential opportunity for him/other students.  The county fair is apparently having a youth cooking competition and maybe some of them would be interested?  It wouldn't be a school event, just an extra and I would be in charge of deciding whether or not to go forward.  Of COURSE Zach wanted to do it, anything to cram more stuff into MY life. One of the girls from last year's solar cooking competition (OMG that was crazy) was also mentioned as being interested and she agreed that she'd love to do it.  The catch?  I had about 1 1/2 weeks to prepare because the fair event is on Sunday the 24th.  Eeek.

So I'm still scrambling.  Zach hasn't done a lot of cooking lately and he tends to be a bit scattered, and S, his friend, hasn't done much cooking other than noodles (her words).  I've had 2 cooking days in the past week where I walk them through a meat and veg. with lots of garlic mincing along the way and it's been a big exhausting mess.  The catch to the competition, as I've been told, is that the kids in groups of 2 will have a box of a surprise beef and veg ingredients. They will then have to prepare an entree but will be able to bring 'spices' from home.  It's all up in the air, however, because I can't get the lady to call me back and I don't know if the two are actually registered or not, or if I need a waiver/liability form for S's parents to sign, what 'spices' actually means, etc.  So maybe we'll be cooking and maybe we won't.  Or they, not we.  Whatever.  At least I got dinner cooked for me last night and we made my first ever homemade chimichurri sauce.  Yummy!  No pics, though.  Too many dishes to wash for me to have the energy for the camera.

I did take pics of Zach over the weekend, though.  A few glasses of wine seems to help numb the burning in my hands and arms (woohoo!) so on Sat I indulged and set up my flash remotely so go off at an angle in the garage, hung some black muslin and made Zach grab his newest cloak.  I like what we ended up with.  The problem I had was that in backing up out of the garage to get a wider shot, I'd end up in the sun which was somehow affecting my ability to focus or skewed my light sensing or something, I'm not sure what.  So most of the shots had me too close to really get it all, but hey, it was an experiment and it was fun and that's what counts, right?

And how can I leave without posting one of my smaller spawn? ♥  He can't NOT make a face when I try to take a photo of him.  So rotten.  So lovable.

See Spot Run.

School sure has changed a lot since I was a wee one.

Yesterday I was asked by Owen's teacher to help her with a project...the kids have 40 sight words that they need to have memorized by the end of the year and thanks to Pinterest, she found something that she thinks will be helpful in making it more fun, which for a kid (well, for anyone really) equals 'more likely to be accomplished'.  Each child held up a large printed word which I took photos of, then she will turn the digital files into a PowerPoint presentation. Seeing their classmates faces with the words is certainly more entertaining than the typical flash card system, no?

Here is my hooligan with two of the words.  He's such a little stinker.  But his teacher is pretty awesome.  I really should have found a less distracting background space, but I was focused on making sure I had a good bounce/light source and with me, one thought tends to take over, sneering back over its shoulder at all the other valid ideas pounding and screaming on the soundproof glass of my mind. And since my hands are all effed up, I wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. /end excuses. C'est la vie.

Monsters need love, too.

Happy Valentine's Day!  I don't have great pics of this but I am going to post anyway and even *gasp* attempt to pin it to pinterest.  We'll see how that goes.  This old dog is finding it harder and harder to learn new tricks.  Or maybe it's just b/c I put them off until I ...oh wait, I need to get that laundry out of the washer before it starts to smell!...

Where was I?  Ahh yes.  VD.  My dear child Owen had to bring a 'mailbox' to school today to collect valentines.  This is his first year of getting the chance to go all out but I have been feeling rather craptastic and I didn't get my usual burst of 'oohh let's get ready for cute Valentine crafty stuff' energy, no photos, no supplies, nada.  Briefly discussed an idea with him and ran to Target, coming back with ONE item to work with, and only b/c I thought they were cute.  Had no idea what to do with them, though.  Paper straws.

Owen tends to think outside the box, so rather than go all 'pink hearts! glitter! red flowers! Valentines!' he decided to make a monster whose mouth would be the opening for valentines to fit into.  Dh said we had plenty of boxes in the garage, but of course come crunch time, there really weren't any.  I spied a box up on top of the freezer that (upon inspection) had been there for over two years (wtf? it was the box that held the bonsai I'd bought my uncle one year for Christmas) and it was a little large but it would work.  I drew a rough set of eyes and a mouth, got the ok from Owen and sawed a u-shape for the mouth.  Then I sawed a door opening in the back for retrieval of items (those old steak knives come in handy).  Then I covered it all up (old dusty box, remember, with packing and shipping info on it) with brown packing paper (hey, it was the only solid/plain type paper I had) and then re-cut the previously sawed places.  FYI, Elmer's glue is better for gluing that paper down, we went through a whole glue stick and THEN some.

In the bottom of my kid-crafts drawer I found some pipe cleaners all bent out of shape, some foam sheets from a bday party (when Zach turned 3 I believe), left over sparklies and glue from our Christmas ornament craft (and I must say that Beacon's Ornament glue is the bomb diggity of glues) and some mini craft sticks.  I asked dh if we had an old drawer pull somewhere, surely we must, we are certifiable pack rats so he went looking.  Owen and I twisted the pipe cleaners around our fingers for curly hair.  A tiny slit on each side of the box to fit a mini craft stick, and two on top, with glue to help hold them in place.  We carefully doused the ends of the curlicues with glue and lined them up on the top of the box (Owen was very particular about the color pattern). It had to sit and dry for a bit so the pipe cleaner hair wouldn't fall off, and during that time Owen glued some blue buttons onto white foam circles for eyes (three of them!) and decided a bit of sparkle in the center of each would be even better.  He sneaked and glued the eyes in place when I wasn't looking, causing one of the curls to fall off.  Oops!  Stay away from the table, Owen!

Anyway, once it was all dried enough to maneuver a little, I got to use my PAPER STRAWS which we globbed with glue and slid over the mini craft sticks.  I got my vday hearts in, though, check out those hands. Two more for antennae on top,complete with scrounged up pom pom balls.  Dh found a wooden drawer pull, Owen turned it red with the help of a Sharpie (thank goodness I let him go shirtless for that one).  We punched a hold in the mouth flap and screwed it in.  Still missing something...jagged teeth!  More white foam cut outs, more glue...voila.

(See?  He really did need those teeth)

But the finishing touch was ALL Owen.

"Mom, you need to write 'Feed me valentines' down here!"

Oh, yeah, that actually is exactly what it needs!  But you write it.

So he did.

I think it's the best Valentine's Day mailbox EVER.

....and now that I have the mouthy monster back in hand, I took a few 'real' photos, as much as you can call them real.  I REALLY need to learn to tilt the camera the other way, while I'm at it.  Everybody lean to the right...

Looks like he got a little scribble love while at school.  I heard he was a huge hit!

I inserted the little craft sticks into slits cut into the side, then generously applied glue to the inside of the paper straw when I was ready to slide it on. Once it was all dry, I use another tiny craft stick and glued it to the back of the heart/hand, and then glued the other end to the inside of the straw.  Viola!  Well, I don't think he could play the viola with only two rather chubby digits like that...

Curly hair!  Crazy easy.  

Back view of antennae and hair.  Same technique to get the straws on top of the head.  Sorry, photo is oof, somebody was antsy to go digging inside for mad vday loot.

Oops!  Who's that sneaking into my frame?

Oh yeah...the opening in the back?  The one to more easily reach in and retrieve valentines?  Well, apparently when you do that, you are making the monster poop.  Best part of the whole creation.