special indeed

Leighton had his first big Valentine party at his preschool this year. 

Wow, somebody stop the presses! My little teeny tiny firstborn, little squishy rolly polly 8lb newborn with a little patch of dark hair on his lower back like his mama is HAVING A VALENTINE PARTY

.........AT SCHOOL!!!!! 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! 

Somebody get some ice cold water and throw it in my face and wake me up from this dream!!! 

(wait, this isn't a dream, my husband actually tried to do that to me the other day while i was in the shower that bleepin bleeper!) -payback is gonna be chilly baby. chil-ly. 

I'm getting all sorts of off topic here so let's return to the point. Ahem.

Those cardboard boxes and frilly papers and stickers that Leighton's school gave us to make his first Valentines box sent me back in time to the days of making my own fun boxes. 

Writing little x's and o's on the Care Bear or Fivel cards. 

A few extra x's for the boys I had crushes on. Duh.

 I always wanted to have a cool box. However, I have no idea if I ever had a cool box because my wonderful mother is allergic to any piece of equipment that might have say a lens, a flash and might require one to look through a hole, line some stuff up and snap the button to save the memory.  

and while we don't have many photographs of our school stuff, my middle brother on the other hand...

he can take pictures. just not of like humans. mostly dead geese that he shot. and an occasional buck. sometimes you would find pictures of him and one of his buddies clad in gigantic camoflauge suits  holding up the dead geese by their necks in pure victory. i think there are some with said people sprawled out over the tops of their trophy bucks. 

and to make the lack of pictures problem even worse, my brother actually took my moms adorable 80s style pink fabric album with crocheted borders, which held the very few photos that we did have of our family (sniff, sniff) and replaced it with photos of the dead geese laying in pools of their own blood.

Again, this is so inappropriate how I keep going off on unrelated tangents. 

So, back to Leighton and his project.  His school sent us home with supplies and gave us a few ideas of where to start. Which is great if you are craftirifically challenged like me. :) 

Yes, I just said "craftirifically". 

So......because I can't seem to tame the beast known as Pinterest, I had visions of a really cute box for Leighton. Just like the ones that I think I had when I was little. In my head. 

My vision went something like this. 

{except with more blue and way more manly}

However, I quickly realized we are not quite at the age where we can make a project this neatly. At least, I probably could. And that's a big maybe. But, Leighton probably wouldnt' be able to participate because I would get so flustered at my own un-crafty abilities and would end up taking it out on him. 

Instead, I just let him make his own. Not quite the perfectly crafted box I had in mind. 

Yet, it was quite, perfect. 

Look how much he loves it! He did that sucker completely on his own. 

Except I made the hot glue dots where he told me to put them. 

He did the rest. 

I am so proud of him and his first Valentine box!

And here's one of his little brothers. Chase had to make his own box as well. 

Seriously, this kid, just totally gets me. I see him in this picture and I just start smiling. 

Leighton was also very excited about making his little airplane valentine treats. 

These were pretty dang cute and pretty dang easy. Perhaps I will do a tutorial on these in another post. 

I love you, Pinterest. You make my totally uncrafty brain function 

at one notch higher in the crafty scale. Keep in mind that puts me at about 17 notches below normal.

Well, this Valentines Day was extra special. Leighton's first project. A new valentine (Beckett) in our family. And some sweet brother lovin action.

Special, indeed.