I have a confession y'all....I don't love crafts.

Don't get me wrong, we're all about "the arts" in this house. We listen to music, we encourage dance, creativity, and free expression. However, I don't do crafts. I don't make glittered portraits, or paper bag turkeys, or homemade Christmas ornaments.  I don't enjoy carving pumpkins or decorating Christmas cookies, but I suck it up and do it every year so my boys won't tell their future wives or husbands " My Mom never did any of this when we were growing up."

Maybe if I had girls it would be different. However, I don't. I have two boys whose "crafts" always end in epic mess, crying fits, glitter in the eyeballs after trying to snort it up the noses, glue on my couches, marker on the dog. I always end up needing a stiff drink when it's all said and done.

BUT, like I said before, I suck it up in an effort to 'one up' my future daughter/son-in-laws. I must form lasting memories so these kids have nothing to bitch about when their grown. 

THIS all being said. I present to you

MY FIRST EVER

Craft Blog

I loath the broken crayon. I especially loath the broken brown or white crayon. So I decided that the monthly Prater, memory forming, craft project would be..

Crayon Cupcakes.

Naturally I took pictures to prove to my future daughter/son-in-law that I was a damn good mom, BITCH...Um, sorry that just came out. 

So we started by taking the wrappers off the old crayons. This got old fast for the boys so I spent about 45 minutes doing it myself. Finally I! was done undressing the crayons. I had crayon shaving in my nails and teeth and my freshly mopped floors were covered in rainbow snow and crayon wrappers. 

Then the kids took interest. Crayon pieces were kinda layered by color in the Sponge Bob cupcake tins...

Interest was waning...but they pulled through...

Jaxon made sure Bodhi didn't screw up the "order" of things, by pushing him off the chair onto the floor. Bodhi says " I sorry Brother"

 Bodhi then questions the picture taking.... He might be on to me, y'all

The "cupcakes" finally go in the oven... The kids wait...and wait...and wait...and bitch...then wait..then wait some more...finally they melt ( the crayons and the kids)

They ( the cupcakes, not the kids) come out of the oven and then we wait.. and wait.. and wait for them to harden.... (we got eat dinner)

Then Voila! MEMORY FORMATION! 

( Dude check of that neck vein on sweet Bodhi)

 They "LOVED" their "craft project" and spent about 10 ENTIRE minutes coloring with the useless piece of messed up crayon until they lost complete interest...and then tried to start eating them.

Stay tuned for next months, Craft blog...it might even involve a cornucopia.

A couple years ago I had this great idea that for every Halloween Justin and I would make the kids costumes. We had the homemade robot and the Kings of Leon "Texas on Fire".  I had grand visions of creating all their costumes for the next 40 years (alright, maybe only 20)

This year Jaxon's original costume idea was "Hip Hop".  As in Usher.  He once saw Usher perform "OMG" on Oprah and that moment combined with his mothers VERY unhealthy obsession with So You Think You Can Dance, has created the worlds most lyrical "Hip Hop" 5 year old.  He loves to rummage though clothes and find the most "Hip Hop" costumes he can. Then he performs the most un "Hip Hop" routines ever. Case in point, this is one of his many afternoon performances...

So when he told me he wanted to be "hip hop" I had such grand homemade costume visions. I was going to totally bling him out!  Then something horrible happened. He turned on me, y'all The kid, turned on me. A couple weeks later he decided he wanted to be a Ninja. A Ninja!  I didn't panic.  I used my parenting brainwashing persuasion tactics to try and convince him that "Hip Hop" was waaaay cooler. Like, "icarly would totally dress Hip Hop for Halloween" And, "I totally overheard a group of teenage boys discussing their Halloween costumes and they're dressing up hip hop this year."

But, something went wrong. Terrible wrong. He wasn't caving. Ninja! it was. Damn it y'all, he's starting to make decisions and form opinions of his own, my brainwashing persuasion tactics aren't always working..it truly pains me.  

I suppose I could have made Ninja, but really? Black sweats and a pillowcase with a hole cut in it? It would've sucked, and I'm big enough to admit that. I would never make him wear a sucky homemade costume. It just screams future teenage animal torturer to me. So we went to Target to get his awesome, polyester, made in Cambodia, generic Ninja. We had 2 options...$20 Ninja with 3 tie things, a sword, and some kind of weird armor thing and  $7 Ninja with 1 tie and no sword. I wasn't about to spend money on a piece of cloth that I knew would be destroyed in 25 minutes. $20 Ninja was for suckers. I, I am not a sucker.

I brainwashed convinced him into thinking that $7 Ninja was way super cooler because it was yellow and black. Yellow and black is always the super crazy cool Ninja color. The "other" Ninja's wear red and black. Total coincidence that $20 Ninja was red and black, not my fault y'all.

He loved his costume. Talked about it every day. He was so excited for Halloween to come and $7 Ninja to come out of the bag. He never even noticed that my dreams of  homemade costume tradition were shattered, just like most other thing I try to make a tradition of and fail miserable at.

My sweet Bodhi is still easily brainwashed persuaded into most things. "Bodhi, its so super cool to clean your room" "Bodhi, your Mom is the most amazing, beautiful,  woman on earth, got that?" So, picking out a Halloween costume on the cheap was a very simple task.  We walked down the aisle, his first choice was Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum, I don't know the difference. I've never seen Alice in Wonderland.  Yeah, I know I totally suck. It scared the living hell out of me as a child and as an adult, I haven't found the time nor interest. So naturally I didn't want Bodhi wearing a costume of a character I didn't even know. His next choice, Thomas The Train. I actually entertained the idea because he loves trains so much but then I saw the price tag, $28. Then I spotted the $12 superman.  "Bodhi, check this out!" "Bodhi, I can't believe they have this here!" "Bodhi, look its SUPERMAN!!!!!" Bodhi let out the cutest little squeal and said "SUPERMAN! I BE SUPERMAN!!!" Easy enough, mission accomplished.

However, I realize 2 weeks later that we had 3 dress up Halloween events to attend before Halloween. Homemade "Hip Hop" would have totally stood the wear and tear.  Polyester tissue paper Ninja, wouldn't even last 25 minutes. So what did I do? I had to go BACK to Target 2 days before Halloween an buy 2 more costumes. Thankfully, there was a 15% off sale, with the slimmest pickings ever. My choices for Bodhi were Tweedle Dee/Dum or Garden Gnome. Garden gnome was so adorable. He will totally HATE me 10 years from now when I bust out the pictures of his adorableness. As for now, I had to have it.  And there just so happened to be another Ninja costume for $12. Thank the lawd it was not red and black. 

So Halloween costumes set, Halloween parties done, Halloween candy fest accomplished. It may not have been homeade but they looked damn cute in their costumes.
Maybe next year, I can make something adorable.  Maybe...

Oh and I did make a Betty Draper homemade momstume, so I guess I didn't fail completley.