Valentine Boxes

As you may remember from past posts, the girls' elementary school hosts a Valentine's Day box contest every year. Each grade has a different theme for their boxes. This type of thing stresses me out because I am not creative at all (and don't mind sayin' it). This year I was really excited at the thought of Lee being here to help the girls. Here's how everything turned out:

Brynne is wearing a paper with thumbprints because it was also the 100th day of kindergarten and the kids had to wear 100 of something on their shirts (for those of you who are counting; no there are not 100 on the front -- she actually has another paper on her back with the rest of the thumbprints).

It turns out I didn't need to worry about Brynne's box at all. As soon as she heard she was supposed to make a box with the theme "Nursery Rhymes," she came right home and made her own box all by herself. That first box was "The Mouse Ran Up the Clock." It was really cute and I wish I'd taken a picture, because then she decided she'd rather do something else and took it all apart. Then she made this box:

Brynne did the whole box all by herself (except that I helped cut a hole on the side).

Morgan's 3rd grade theme was "Simple Machines." Hello! Are you serious?? Morgan had all sorts of ideas of what she wanted to do, but all of them were way too complex for me. Thankfully, Lee was here the week before the boxes were due. In the end, Morgan settled on doing a box with an "inclined plane" (who knew that was a simple machine??). Lee helped cut out the wood needed to assemble the box, and then Morgan and I put the box together. Morgan had mini M&Ms in the little container on top that people could drop down the board. You can see the slots at the bottom spelled out "I LOVE YOU".

Can I just tell you how glad I am to be done with the boxes! I think Brynne's already planning her 1st grade "I love to read" box, so we'll just have to make a "Utah" box for Morgan. Why is it that Valentine's Day is now a holiday I dread...