Pintrest: More Than Just a Time Suck...sort of.

So we are finally at a school where holidays are actually acknowledged. Since my own teaching days, I have found myself always associated with schools (both public & private) that refuse to accept that you can put on a cowboy costume and not be a devil worshipper, or offend those people who think putting on a cowboy costume (or G-d forbid, a Harry Potter costume) makes you a devil worshipper. And Valentines Day has always been shunned in the class room either because of the inevitability of 25 children going face-down in piles of chocolate, thereby falling into sugar comas & inching this much closer to a life of morbid obesity, or oft-left out word "Saint" in front of it, which I guess makes it a religious holiday. And heaven forbid we offend anyone who doesn't acknowledge saints by eating a chocolate heart and a heart-shaped mold of sugar with the word "cutie" on it. I don't acknowledge saints as any sort of demi-gods, but I do love me a red velvet cupcake, so.....

We've already reveled in the joy that was dressing up for Halloween in kindergarten. Ethan donned his Transformers costume (and somehow managed to elude the clutches of Satan) and paraded around school with his friends. We did a craft and ate some treats (a mixture of uber healthy straw and kibble mixed in with the standard sugar overload one associates with Halloweens of old. And lo and behold, we all survived, both the threat of demonic possession and the risk of Type-II diabetes. Miraculous.

So as we neared the next formerly taboo holiday, I roamed the aisles of Target (starting promptly on Jan 2nd, before the ChristmaHannuKwanziKah and New Year Stuff was cold in its grave) looking at the variety of Valentines candies and crafts available for our mass consumption in the coming month. I was most delighted by the glitter Darth Moll boxed heart o' chocolates I found, because if Darth Moll isn't the very spitting image of baby Cupid, I don't know who is....right?

Imagine my disappointment when I found out that we were "strongly discouraged" from bringing candy into school attached to our valentines cards. Will the assault on traditional values never end? Sigh.

I kid. I'm actually relieved that Ethan won't be coming home from his party today with a bag full of chocolate covered goodies because when he does that, I gain 5lbs from the contact high of being that close to that much chocolates. And also, I eat them. all.

And really, Ethan's feelings for chocolate run very tepid. He doesn't get all swirling-optical-illusion eyes hypnotized by it like I do. So he doesn't care. When the kindergarten moms bring in treats for the parties, he is far more likely to knock a classmate over to get to the watermelon and grapes than the cupcakes. He has asked me, "Mommy, when will my sweet tooth come in?" I hope soon, because right now I'm the only one in the family with a sweet tooth, which means either we partake of NO sweets at all, or I eat ALL the sweets. Neither is an acceptable scenario in my book.

So, candy treats were out. I wracked my brain to think of something non-sugar/chocolate/delicious to go along with Ethan's store-bought Valentines (nothing says "I put a lot of time into this" like a fold over picture of Annakin Skywalker brandishing his lightsaber at you). And then I remembered one of the first things I'd every pinned on Pintrest, wayyyyyy back when.

You take bits of crayons (ideally the nubs of old, used up crayons--in our case, a brand new box of 48 because Ethan wasn't willing to part with his old 1/2 used crayons, and could not see the logic in claiming the new box as his own and chopping up the old crayons. Okay), chop them up, put the pieces in heart-shaped silicon molds, stick 'em in the oven for 10 minutes at 230 degees and VOILA! You have a plethora of funky, swirly, totally usable mult-colored crayon hearts.

Fun mother-son bonding, a handmade gift to go along w/ the store-bought-because-most-of-the-kids-can't-read-anyway cards, and? Zero calories (except for the little heart-shaped box of mini reeces peanut butter cups we split between us during production (and by "split between us" I mean I think Ethan might have eaten one)....so......)

Where does he get that penchant for flirting????.....

....oh. (me, circa 1976)

first we had to peel all the brand new crayons. This might have made me a little twitchy, but I kept reminding myself "they were only $2. they were only $2."

it was a lot of recycling....

then we smashed the pieces so they were nice and small...

While I chopped the crayons up handily with a knife, Ethan stirred the pieces up ever so helpfully in our mixing bowl, to ensure a pleasing color mixture. He begged to be able to chop up the crayons, but the pintrest "recipe" is for melted crayon hearts, not for melted lopped-off finger hearts. So.

Yeah, that cutting board is so trashed.

into the oven @ 230 degrees for 10 minutes...

oooooh, swirly....''

We popped them out of the silicon mold, taped them to the cards & mission accomplished!

We even had a few left over for ourselves to play with.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!