Valentine's Day

Every year for Valentine's Day the kids in our school decorate boxes. Each grade level has a different theme. This year Brynne's theme was "My Community". She wanted to drive around town and take pictures of things around our community to put on the box. I think she did a great job! :)

 Brynne's favorite picture from the 12 that she used was the picture she took of the Spanish Fork Courthouse. It is the top picture on the picture of the box below. She loved it because we got there just as it was getting dark so some of the lights had come on. Fun Tidbit: The bottom picture (below) is of the Icelandic Memorial just down the road from our house. It is a monument to honor/recognize the Icelandic people who were the original settlers of Spanish Fork. Lee's grandfather's name (many generations back) is one of the ones listed at the monument!

Morgan's theme was "I Love Europe". She printed pictures of well-known European monuments and buildings, and then decorated the sides of her box with the pictures.

 You may have noticed all the fun letters the girls had on their boxes. Those came courtesy of my sister Ashley. She also gave me the letters I needed to make a Valentine puzzle for Lee. I put all the letters in a bag and had him figure out what the message was. It was fun to see his sense of humor at work while he attempted to solve the puzzle. :) It didn't take him too long to figure it out. I planned on mounting the letters somehow for him to keep, but he had better plans. Lee immediately set to work making me this:

Then he wrote a little message in response to me on the back of the Valentine he made with the letters:

Lee is always so creative and thoughtful! Here I had done something nice for him, and it came right back to me even better! I am a lucky lady! :)

February -- Science Fair and Valentines

As most of you know, creating is not my thing. I am not creative AT ALL (although I have other talents...), and even the thought of having to create something stresses me out! So you can imagine my excitement when it came time for the 5th Grade Science Fair. Remember those other talents I mentioned? Well, one of my talents is weaseling out of things. Knowing the science fair was coming, last December(ish) I put Lee in charge of helping Morgan. Whew! All done with that stress! But wait... it turns out February has been a super stressful month for Lee. He is taking his final master's course, which has required all of his time. Although he was awesome to make sure Morgan completed her project, I was still given the task of helping with the display board. Thankfully, everything turned out well. Do you think it's too early to start on the 6th Grade Science Fair project?

Melissa was Morgan's helper at the science fair:

Morgan wanted to do her project on how magnets and radio cross to make metal detectors somehow (at least, I think it was something like that). In the end, though, the project became a study on how radar and metal detectors work. Morgan's conclusion was "That we can make metal detectors and radar very easily!" ('Very' was underlined twice, but there's not a button for that...) :)

Here is a picture of Morgan with the final display:

 Just as we were putting the finishing touches on Morgan's display board, I realized that Valentine's was the following week, which meant the girls needed to make Valentine boxes for school. Thankfully, they both did their boxes almost completely on their own!

The theme for 2nd Grade was "I love bugs," so Brynne set to work making a super duper cute lady bug and finding a way to attach her to a box. That kid totally amazes me. She sees the finished product and makes it happen. That's where my brain has a disconnect, I can't envision a thing until it's right in front of me. Anyway, check out Brynne's box:

 Morgan's theme was something like "I love the USA." She got really creative with her box and made a pulley system that would open and close the lid on the 'drop in' part of the box. I did help with the logistics of making that happen and with getting the 'drop in' box to fit into the bigger box, but Morgan and her friend Aspen did everything else.

I am so grateful for creative daughters! And just think -- they'll both be around to help Melissa when the time comes!! :)

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...

My Girls, the Teenagers

I can't remember a time when Morgan didn't have a crush on one male or another. In Kindergarten she liked a boy and "flirted" with him constantly. The teacher finally had to tell her that you can't have boyfriends until you're much older. Morgan came home and told me what the teacher had said. Then she said, "Maybe I can be in love with him and just not tell anyone." As time has gone on, Morgan has always had at least one crush. Thankfully, she also seems to be able to play normally with boys as friends, but she always gets a bit giddy with the current crush. I find myself hoping that since she has entered into this time of life early, she'll also depart it early! Meanwhile...

Morgan has passed this silliness on to Brynne. One day over a year ago Brynne asked her good friend Zachary Brown if he wanted to marry her when they grew up. Zachary said he didn't want to. The next day, Brynne brainstormed a list of other male friends who might want to marry her. Brynne seems to take a more serious attitude with this relationship thing, as opposed to Morgan's flirtiness. You can believe we have many talks in our house about friendship--no matter the gender.

A couple of days ago, Brynne made the above "Valentine" for her friend Kade. Kade lives just down the street from us and goes to preschool with Brynne. Brynne has always loved making cards for all of her friends, but lately she has made a lot for Kade. She told me that Kade doesn't seem to be comfortable around her, so she's hoping the cards will win him over. Last week I talked to Kade's mom. I told her Brynne was hoping Kade would want to be her friend. Kade's mom told me that Kade doesn't like girls. My first thought was, "How can a kid that young decide to not like girls?" but then I remembered my sweet girls with their crushes and wondered instead how she had gotten Kade to fall on the 'not liking the other gender' side of the fence; because my girls seemed to have landed headfirst on the other side. :)

As I was typing this, I remembered I had some fun pictures of Morgan with her friend Tyler Brown. Cute couple, don't you think! :)

P.S. I'm really hoping anyone who reads this post realizes it's supposed to be cute and funny. Although I'm well aware that we are in for some interesting teenage years, I'm not really worried about my girls yet. We talk about appropriate behaviors and relationships, but then I just let the kids be kids! i.e. I didn't post this blog for any serious responses - (except maybe from Lee)! :)

Valentine Box, Take Two...

I don't know how many of you read my entry last February titled Valentine Box, but we were "blessed" with a repeat performance this year. For some reason when I got notice last year that we needed to make a Valentine Box for school it didn't click in my brain that it would be a yearly thing. When I got notice that we needed to make a box this year, my brain instantly calculated how many boxes that means I'll have to help the kids make in the course of their Elementary School career. I ran to the calendar to see if Lee would make it home before the box was due, but he wasn't due to arrive until two days after the due date. Bummer! So once again, Morgan and I tackled the project. The theme for second graders was "Love Bugs", so Morgan made a "Love Bug Hotel".

I realize a lot of times the work is actually done by the parents, but this was almost all Morgan. It took me several days to accept the fact that I was the lone adult to help Morgan with her project. I finally turned on the computer and searched for different ideas. I then let Morgan pick what she wanted to do. The internet just gave us a general idea; we had to brainstorm some specifics. I helped with a little of the brainstorming and taping, but Morgan did almost all of the box. I actually felt really good about the box when we were done.



All the boxes were on display at the school last Thursday, so the girls and I walked around to see them all. I was amazed at the amount of detail and supplies that went into a lot of the boxes. Morgan's suddenly seemed so basic. Thankfully, though, Morgan didn't compare her box to the others (a habit I'm trying to break and make sure I don't pass onto my kids by keeping my thoughts to myself) and was quite pleased with it. And I actually managed to keep the stress level low while helping her.



Next year's theme is "Simple Machines". I totally smell an airplane! And since I have a head's up on what the theme is and knowing when it will need done, you can bet I'll make sure the box gets made when Daddy is home! :)

Valentine Box

There's one thing about having kids in school that I had forgotten about -- the creative contests the schools periodically sponsor to see what kind of parents the kids have. You know, the kind that are supposed to be done as much as possible by the kids, which really just means even more work for the parents. Anyway, last week we got a paper from school saying they were having a Valentine's Day Box contest. Every child was invited to participate, and the theme for 1st grade was "I Love Reading." Here is the finished project:

This was a tough thing for me because I have not an ounce of creativity in me. Because of this, however, I've always felt it very important to try and nurture the creative side in my kids. I was really wishing Lee were here for the project because he is extremely creative, and also has a lot of patience for helping the kids with things like this. But Lee wasn't here, so I was left to my own devices if I wanted Morgan to participate. We brainstormed ideas together, but then I had her do all the wrapping, cutting, taping, and pasting. The best part is that we did it all in just two hours -- only 30 minutes past bedtime -- Whew!

I feel a great deal of satisfaction at having been part of a creative endeavor. The thing I'm most excited about is that I got really brave and used my new printer/copier/scanner. I took a picture of Morgan reading (the big picture on top of the box) and then printed it. I also found three pictures from years passed (the other two pictures on top of the box and the one on the front side, which is the bottom of the picture below), and I scanned the pictures, then cropped them and resized them before printing them and having Morgan cut them. Some of you realize how big of an achievement this is for my non-computer age brain! (I noticed the hole we cut in the box looks lopsided in this picture, so I'd like to make sure you know it's a perfectly rectangular hole!) :)

My friend Denise just called and told me that her son's 1st grade class made Valentine bags as part of an art project at school. Now why didn't our school think of that? They must think that a child's education is supposed to extend to the parents (i.e. they like the parents to learn things too -- like how to be creative). I learned my lesson, so can I be done?!!!

(Written at 6:30 p.m. the day after making the Valentine's Day box): Brynne and I picked Morgan up from school today so we could look at the display of all the Valentine's boxes that were made. My initial reaction was that my confidence was shattered -- there were some really creative boxes! -- but then I decided to focus on the fact that probably only 1 out of every 15 or 20 students even did a box. That makes our box better than the 95% that didn't even do them! And most important, Morgan is still proud of her box. (And now I've got more ideas for next year -- bring it on!!!!)