Crazyon crayon hearts

So I've never been big on Valentine's Day. Even when Elmer and I were dating and everything looked like love. It's just become another crazy consumer holiday to get sucked into. But the spirit of a seven year old can really make you feel different about love. It is really so great to be seven.

 

If more of the world could operate on the spirit of a seven year old, it would be a better place. Be happy, be nice, share, love. If you're not having fun, do something else. And love unconditionally, because you don't know understand about boyfriends and girlfriends and societies expectations.... or does that stop at 4? Anyway,...

 

We made homemade Valentine's for first and fourth graders last night.  We hadn't made class Valentine Cards since Tigo was in 1st grade, three years ago (and those were AMAZING, by the way). When we were in New Mexico the kids' school didn't celebrate Valentine's Day, so no one was obliged to receive our home made crafts from mid-winter craziness. So this week I was feeling crafty, therefore the kids had no choice to be crafty as well. In the usual style of waiting until the night before the party to prepare, I decided that we would try for the hip "make broken crayons into a heart shaped crayon" to show our love. It's totally easy, fast and lots of fun I was told...... Well not so easy, pretty messy, definitely not fast, and well, still pretty fun.

I felt like I was up to the wee hours of the morning helping put these together. You know, 9:30pm is the wee hours of the night when you want your kid in bed on a school night. But these were created with love and sent on their way this morning.

 



Remove any paper off the crayons and break them into little pieces in a bowl.

 So I'd like to say that we just had all these broken crayons around that we re-purposed into better crayons.... but truth is, that's not what happened. We needed a TON of crayons so we had to break into the stash of new crayons. Setting to make 50 some Valentines, you need a lot of crazyon. (Yes, I said CraZyon, because that's how I was feeling when this was all over, like a crazy crayon lady.)
Go get your crazy on.

 

Ice cube tray that you get from Michael's.

 Yeah, so it's an ice cube tray and I stuck it in the oven. I was a little worried, but it seemed to work up to 230 degrees. I got the cupcake shaped ones first, but they were humongous and there was no way we were making that big of a crayon for everyone. Even if it would have been total cool.

 

Crayons in the tray.

 You really need to pile them on, but not over the edges, they melt all over the place, and don't plan on actually using these trays for ice when this is over. Unless of course you like crayon in your iced drinks.

But this is how they look before you stick them in the oven at 230 degrees for what was supposed to be 15 minutes a batch, but really seemed like 30 minutes to get a good melt.

 

Chevron print card stock paper.

 We got this cute little card stock paper to fold and tape the crayon to inside, and make into "Valentine" Azalea worked really hard to make sure that each of her classmates got a color that she thought they would like best.

 

Example of our original message.

 The message was supposed to read

"Happy Valentine's Day, for Crayon out loud"

but Tigo was too embarrassed to write the joke,

and Azalea was too busy drawing hearts everywhere.

 

Out of the oven.

OK, these took forever to cool. I even stuck them in the freezer for a few minutes. I wouldn't recommend doing that though. I think it messed up the consistency of the melted gunk.

 

Close up of hot melted crayon.

 These really looked a lot cooler on this side of the crayon than the flipped side, which was shown on the card. Oh well.

 

Little crayon hearts layed out like a flower after they've cooled.

 

Finished product.

So this is what they looked like at the end, but for they got bagged up and sent away. I could have made the finished product look more "store bought", but then that would have been me making them (or buying them) and not the kids actually making them. So. The kids are gone now, probably sharing their cards. I hope none of the other kids think that it's candy and try to eat it... you never know. I am also really hoping that they come back with some other fun cards, but if nothing else, I'll steal some of their candy that I'm sure they will have from the day.

 

Happy Valentine's Day folks.

 

At the corral

The young calves are separated from their mamas in the afternoon, so that the mamas can build up their milk supply until they are milked in the morning.

 

The calves line up to eat the grass in the corral.

 All the kids want to go for a ride on the little pygmy horse.

 

 Elmer took Azalea out into the fields where apparently she asked to have this poor little guy run at full speed. I'm kind of glad that I wasn't there to watch my babe run like that bare back. Apparently she wanted to keep doing it over and over.

 

 Tigo's turn.

 

Azalea gets a saddle and gets to ride around the corral on her own. Granted this horse was so perfect in size and temperament, she did pretty amazing on controlling this guy.

 

Azalea and Lola. 

So the kids wouldn't wake up for the 4am morning milking, but they still said they wanted a go at it.

 

 Thing is, this was a little baby cow, and there was no milk. Fondling of cow teats.

 

Abuelo and Elmer watching the crazy people of mine.

 

 Is that a cow? Um yes, actually it is a cow. Normally you people don't ride cows you say. Yeah, that's pretty accurate. Maybe it's early training for the bull riding.... No, I'm not going to encourage that.

 

In the end, salty, sweaty hands make a little boy feel loved.

 

What's next?

That History Town

There's 104 days of summer vacation and school comes along just to end it.

So the annual question for our generation is finding the best way to spend it.

Labor day was our last day of summer vacation. This year felt lie the endless summer with the kids getting out way back at Memorial Day weekend and then not having to go back to school until Labor Day. A true full summer vacation.  My vision of homeschooling slipped away again this year, but why not have that last day of summer, be a little educational

So we went to "that History town" as Azalea likes to refer to Harpers Ferry.

I tried to give the kids a Wikipedia synopsis of Harper's Ferry's  history while they were strapped into their seatbelts. They had no way to get out of the moving car while I fill them with important facts about Frederick Douglass and the Civil War.

While Azalea was pretty excited and Tigo was intrugued, yet frightened, we skipped the Ghost Tours.

You don't have to look too far to see where the stone for these old buildings came from. And if you look close enough there is one of the earliest billboards around. They have never been pretty, especially when they are painted permanently on the side of a mountain.

What good is visiting a small tourist town with out checking out the trinket stores, where you can get all the things that you don't need.

But I do love when I see that there are still stores that haven't subscribed to the overbearing world of credit cards and corporations.

 

And then there are the amazing rivers. The Shenandoah River flows into the Patomack (or Potomac for y'all in the new millenium). The rivers are so beautiful and gently flowing into rapids. Next summer we will most definitely be doing many tubing trips down the Shenandoah.

West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia meet here.

My silly peeps.

We are all about rock stacking. It was a favorite of ours in NM, so it was pretty cool to see this amazing random display on a weird obscure wall.

 

The last time I came to Harpers Ferry was over 15 years ago and I went camping with my friend Tiffany. If I remember correctly, we checked out the town, then hiked up the mountain, and found some random patch of forest floor to sleep on and told ghost stories, freaked each other out and claimed we heard a bear in the night. Exploration changes form with kids.

Fitting in vs Belonging

‎12 year old wisdom on fitting-in vs. belonging: "If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, it's fitting in." Amen.

Above is a Facebook post that Brene' Brown posted this morning. A quote that came from the mouth of a tween I know not, but the actions that flow in and out of our house, echo with that sentiment.

It all started about four and half years ago while my family was hanging out with my cousin and her family. Her great husband, who at that time only had sons, suggested to my then 7 year old daughter that her hair would look super cool if she put some funky red streaks in it, or maybe colored the bottom half of it. Really? Thanks a lot, Adam.

No, it didn't really start four and half years ago, it started the day she was born. She is her own person, she always has been and she wants to reflect that, and their conversation was merely a catalyst for an idea in motion. (But doesn't it feel good to have someone to blame when they aren't around to defend themselves.)

So now she is in middle school.

Sometimes I feel like that's all I need to say and we all (all of us who are past middle school, and not in it's midst) will collectively understand. We will all simultaneously roll our eyes, cringe from memories we try to block and sigh, "yeah, that's tough." And the conversation can be over.... except when you have a 12 year old daughter living it, and therefore, the escape exit is locked.

Today is picture day in seventh grade.

I completely expected today to have a fun before and after post of the hair dying party that we did last night. Through the process, I was so nervous I kept asking... What if you don't like how it turns out? It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. And so it goes, the only outcome we had not discussed, is the one that happened.

Or didn't happen. (By the way, it mattered).

My girl has stick straight, shiny lustrous dark brown hair. The kind you can sell on the streets. Strangers ask if they can touch it (for real). Everyone loves it, except the girl who is growing it out of her head. She is always asking to color it, change it, color it, style it, color it, braid it, color it, curl it, color it.... you get the idea.

One of my big griefs with her coloring her hair (so I argue) is the chemicals. Mostly those involving striping her hair of the dark color so that the other color of choice (RED in this case) can be added. I felt like we came to a great compromise. No stripping, and we would use Henna hair dye. More natural, less chemicals, hopefully the same effect.

When I took her to the store to get it, she thanked me about nine million times. She skipped through the aisles.  We went home, did home work and then the serious business of following small print directions and dying hair began. (I mean really, color your hair before 7th grade picture day starting at a new school where you don't know more than a handful of people... who is that risky?)

I will spare you many of the details, but let you know she had a plan. Only the bangs and the under half of her hair was addressed, there was a style to it, we followed the instructions and let it sit (an hour probably wasn't enough) we washed the henna out of her hair, blew her hair dry to confirm.... and it was..... exactly the same color. Not the same color as on the container, the same color hair as when we started.

"I just wanted to do something different."

The quiet mourning began. The somber effect and let down of trying to express yourself and it not working out.

So here we are, still, trying to figure out what it means to be yourself. What it means to stand out but not for the sake of standing out. Learning to be different for different's sake is something that has always bothered me with passing fashions. But being different because your soul wants to stand out and say "I am not the same as you."

Can hair do that? Can hair make your soul tell another person that you are different? That you belong because you are yourself, and not the same as someone else. You belong, not because you fit in to be accepted.  But to be accepted for who you are. This is a hard courage to walk along side of. Coming of age and becoming yourself is a fine line.

The beginning.... these were the photos that were supposed to show before and afters...

The Red Henna as we were just getting started.
(you know, I didn't think it looked that red either...)

I'm so happy, right now.

Jeez, look at my face. I'm a little confused, scared, worried (grossed out).

Vasoline on the ears to avoid staining. Wouldn't that have been awful if the hair didn't change, but her ears did! Ack!

 

Mucky, muck, muck. Still doesn't look red to me... should it? I'm new at this.

You can see my technique has skills to be desired.

And the last photo before we forgot, left the kitchen, did some homework, blow drying, eventually washing, and then quiet mourning....

 



So what's next?

Everybody loves a sound of a train in the distance...

Everybody knows it's true.

 

 

For three years I was promising the kids that we would take the train to Santa Fe.

We would watch the mighty RailRunner go by nearly everyday. We always seemed to be commuting to either gymnastics or soccer as the afternoon train would roll by.

 

 

And we would count the trains coming and going from Santa Fe.

And so we had to go. We always drove when we went to Santa Fe. It was always easier for timing, and a family of 5 commuting to the Plaza. But this time it was the train.

 

Of course there was texting, and gaming and chatting. But the real joy was seeing all the things that could barely be captured by a photograph. Kind of like driving along the road, when you see something that passes so quickly but you can't take a photo of it.

 

Elmer saw a calf on our way up north. It was all alone caught in a barbed wire fence, alive and struggling to get free. A calf, that if he weren't rescued sometime soon by his rancher, he would probably die from hurting himself trying to escape.  We thought about that scared little baby all day long. Wondering if he got released or not. We looked for him on the return trip and didn't see him.

 

We found Santa Fe and we walked the streets, zigzaging our way to the old Plaza.

 

There was an imported rug store that I have been dying to go into for over a decade. For whatever reason, I never went until this day. The kids and I browsed through gorgeous wood carvings and handmade rugs from all over. The owner, or manager, or whoever, treated us like the scum of the Earth. Followed us around and asked us to leave his store, though we did no trouble other than me traveling with 3 children. It was the worst I had ever seen of Santa Fe's hosts. I will never go back.

 

And what is Santa Fe with out a wealthy woman sitting on a balcony overlooking the Plaza in her Cowgirl hat. These balconies don't come cheap, but I'm guessing there is some pretty good people watching from there.

 

Oh the peppers. How I will miss all the peppers. Oh I miss them right now, just thinking about all those peppers hanging in all those places that seem just right, and beautiful.

Me gusta Frida (that's her on the yellow bags in the back).

 

 

While we were sitting right here in this spot, Lola watched a man get down on his knee and propose to the woman he loves.  Tigo and Azalea missed it as they were wrestling in the grass. After Lola told us what had just happened, we watched them hug and kiss and then walk off to buy a freshly squeezed Lemonade, because that is what everyone should do when they become engaged on a hot, high desert, summer day.

 

 

 

Not the most flattering picture, taken by Lola laying in the grass. But it was so nice seeing Shana almost everytime I went to Santa Fe. And with her mom there this time it was even better.

 

The wild sunflowers overtaking the sidewalk. With so many red doors we pass.

 

Santa Fe Trail

 

It's a bit hard to read, here, but the photograph is of a License for Prostitution. Oh, the good ole days.

 

 

This was close to my favorite picture.

 

In the end. We were glad we went. It was fun. The train ride was cool. We got to look at old adobe buildings falling down and being reconstructed again. We saw Reservation land in an area that we normally didn't go. The "Carny" folk on the train were interesting. From bicycling commuters, to goth pharmacists, to teenage grandchildren visiting their grandparents, to Native Americans commuting from one Reservation to another, to part-time tourists like us. It was a Sunday, so the work crowd was gone.

 

I'd go back again.