Valentine Color Love: Crayon Hearts!

2012-02-10T11:29:00.004-06:00

I saw these in one of the million magazines I get in the mail and just had to make them for Monkey's new preschool class for the Valentine's Day ice cream party!

They were super quick and easy to make (even with my total lack of domestic skills and very busy schedule)...

The easiest way to start is by throwing an entire box of crayons into some warm/hot water. This will loosen up the paper wrappers. I pulled off the wrappers, allowed Monkey to help break up the crayons and sorted into color-coordinating matches. I picked 3-5 colors for most of ours.

I already had this heart mold from the Target dollar spot. It is meant for cupcakes and larger than the ones I had seen in the magazine. It took 5 crayons to fill up each mold. Stick in the oven at 250F for about 15 minutes until all of the crayons are melted.

Allow to cool and completely harden in the mold. This took about 15-20 minutes for the large hearts. I was able to easily pop them out of the mold.

I let them cool a little bit longer to make sure that the wax was completely hard and room temperature before wrapping them up.

I took each individual crayon and wrapped it in clear wrap and tied it with a ribbon.

I placed them in cute little robot boxes (again from Target) with a bag of candy, a tube of bubbles, and a Hershey's kiss!

Ready for Monkey's preschool class!

A Day of Firsts!

2012-02-04T11:19:00.001-06:00

Monkey had his first day of preschool this week. Seriously?! Oh my gosh... I cannot believe my little guy is growing up and old enough for school! We decided that he really needed some more social interaction with kids his age, so we started him in gymnastics a few weeks ago. He loves it! He runs around like a wild little monkey, jumping on the trampoline, swinging from the rings, etc. but it showed us that he really ought to be around kids his own age more often. We signed him up for the "kiddie academy" at the same place he does gymnastics. The program seems to focus a lot of gross motor skills and is very active play-based, which is exactly what we were looking to give him. He isn't a sit down and do your work kind of kid, and he is too young for that. We wanted him to run around, have fun with friends, and maybe learn a little something, too! His first day was last Wednesday and he was so excited! He had a blast, and his teacher said he did really well. He only goes two days a week, plus one day of gymnastics. We'll see how it goes... but he had an awesome first day!

Little Monkey thinks he is "too cool for preschool!"

Off for his first day with his backpack!

"Bye, Monkey! Have fun!"

And if that wasn't enough of a first this week.... Chunky started gymnastics! Now that Stays At Home Dad has some free time with out Monkey, we thought it would be a great idea to get Chunky into a Daddy-Baby gymnastics class. He started the same day Monkey started school. He was in baby boy heaven! He loved it!

He loved jumping on the trampoline!

He needed to hold on to something for comfort and a little balance - I guess his shorts worked just fine!

The big slide...

that dumped him off into the big foam block pit...

which was his absolutely favorite part of gymnastics!

Chunky and Monkey MD

Valentine Color Love: Crayon Hearts!

A Day of Firsts!