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.

So it's been a while...

... and maybe it will be a while yet again.  In fact, if I were you and you had the opportunity, I'd put big money on that bet.  But for here, today, I'm trying this again.

I can't believe the date on the last post.  July 15.  We were gearing up for a trip to the Keys and I didn't even mention it?  Wow.  It was a sucktastic trip, though.  The boys had a decent time but I cried for most of it.  The first morning we were out on the road, in a hotel room, an early phone call gave me the news that my dear Granny had died.  She had been sick, but not THAT sick, at least not the way the doctors were treating her.  She died July 19th, just a few hours into the early morning past the 1 year anniversary of the passing of her soul mate, Boom-pa.   He died on July 18th and honestly, I didn't realize how much she was suffering without him.  She missed him so, even though he'd been bedridden and barely able to even talk for the longest while.

I flew home for the funeral, that was so hard.  That HOME.  The truest home I had ever known, it was always there and always full of THEM and their love and warmth.  It needed to be emptied and sold.  It was overwhelmingly gut wrenching at times, and then suddenly a rush of warm happy bubbles came spilling out in those tears as we'd uncover a bit of love history we hadn't even seen before.  Finding old notes and love letters that Granny kept for soooo many years, even my old letters I'd written to her back as far as age 7, maybe even earlier.  She loved us so much. She also didn't shy away from telling you something if she felt you needed to hear it.  But she always knew how to respect me and my boundaries and the boundaries of my family...if that meant taking me away privately to say her piece quietly, so be it. I learned a hard lesson last year about people who don't tell you when something's bothering them and instead let it fester and blow up into a hugely disproportionate bomb of nastiness, while walking away from you and out of your life, your kids' lives, forever.  I still feel the shrapnel from that, and perhaps it was one more reason why losing Granny was so hard...she taught me how true family love works and for that I am eternally grateful.

A note we found from Boom-pa, to his beloved.

Forever and always, together again.  Miss you both so much.

Back in February...

So ummmm...I took at least one photo of Owen, we made Valentines, Zach and a classmate worked on their recipe for using the solar cooker (and later in May, they WON! *faint*), a turtle and a tortoise got in the way of my camera, and I went to the zoo zipline course with Zach.  I am in AWE that I made it through that course without breaking my camera.

I turned 40!

A good friend of mine suggested we go to Medieval Times to celebrate my 'coming of age' haha.  And she FORCED me to make princess hats and get dressed up.  Oh em gee, it was really a lot of fun.  So thank-you, S, for all your pushing, love and celebratory support <3  And thank YOU, Squire Tim, for being so pretty.

Adios, Discovery...Saying good-bye to the shuttle

Good-bye, Discovery :(

It was a bit bizarre, feeling so nostalgic.  I wasn't in Florida for most of the big space age heyday, but I felt a loss as I watched the shuttle leave.  We were lucky enough to see Endeavor's last flight back in the spring, and I'm so grateful we got to witness a closer look, feel the air shake, immersed in the awe of space flight.

I woke Owen up at about 5am so we could be in Cocoa Beach by 6am or so.  He was so excited.  Unfortunately, Zach had school that day, it was during FCAT week so I couldn't let him play hooky.  He was pretty sad, because he is showing some bit of interest in photography and is antsy for a sunrise shoot.  I met up with my friend Kathy (who has a much better zoom lens than I do) and it was really nice, having a completely different agenda for the morning...aside from the fact that I'd usually still be sleeping ;)

I also got to play with a newer wide-angle lens, which I found pretty awesome for capturing the colors of the landscape as the sun peeked up over the ocean.  Owen had a BLAST.  It was all so new and magical.  Of course, he later fell asleep in school.  Oops.

Wow, is this place still here?  I won't even try to muddle with words right now, it's obvious I've taken a bit of a vacation from here.  *ahem*

Ok, I'll just post some photos.  My boys have gotten so big ♥ and solar cooker competitions are a lot of work.  Just saying.