Heart Monsters: Easiest Valentine's Day Craft EVER

Okay, so the Zoloft must be helping because I've come up with several fun things to brighten up our February.

Our family made a heart and snowflake tree for Family Night last week. We filled each heart with compliments for each other. My oldest calls it our "Positivity Tree".  I love it. I think we'll have to do it again next year. We also tried making candy from scratch and we're in the thick of the school science fair preparation and we even had a small Chinese New Year's celebration. Oh, and don't forget all the valentines for the three big kids' classes.

The laundry isn't done. My dishes are piling up. Every couch has blankets strewn across them. There are Legos spilled on every carpeted area. My house is such a mess you can't walk anywhere without stepping on some sort of crafting material

But we're having fun, so I'm okay with it. We can always clean up later, right?

My favorite craft of this season, besides the Positivity Tree has to be Heart Monsters. I birthed this out of my own little brain for the oldest Valentine's Day party at school (although a friend of mine told me that she made them in elementary school way back when). I think I've improved upon the (apparently) original design that involved construction paper, glue, and crayons.

Here's the How-To:

1) Purchase a variety of large-ish foam hearts, a variety of small foam hearts, some pipe cleaners, heart beads and googly eyes. Make sure that all your foam hearts and googly eyes are self-adhesive. This project would be no fun if you had to wait for glue or try to manage a glue gun.

2) Choose two large-ish hearts and a couple pipe cleaners. Take the paper off the back of one heart and stick pipe cleaner to it. Twirl, bend, and fold pipe cleaners to create the monster's appendages and hair. The whackier the better :)

3) Match second large-ish foam heart and remove paper. Match it's sticky side to the sticky side of your first heart, thereby sandwiching the pipe cleaners in between the two hearts.

4) Embellish! Add beads to the arms, legs, and hair. Add small hearts to the face, hair, or legs. Stick one, two, or even three googly eyes on your monster's face.  Use a Sharpie to draw a smile or add other features.

Surprise your loved one Valentine's Day morning with them or hang out with your kids for a while and make enough to decorate your dinner table. These were so simple and fun I couldn't help but share.
                                            

                                                           Happy Valentine's Day!

A somewhat depressing update.

So remember a while back when I was all, "Oh, my depression is so well-managed right now. . . I can finally focus on other things. . .blah, blah, blah. . . I'm so well-adjusted, blah, blah. . ." well, that was only sort of true.

I'm sparing you (actually myself) the details because they are a little tedious and very pitiful, but suffice it to say this has been a difficult winter. I had a few panic attacks. I've had more suicidal episodes in quicker succession than I can ever remember having. I have NOT acted on anything--no 72 hour holds for this girl!--but there have been some long dark nights.

We've adjusted my meds 3 times and I'm hopeful that we've found something that works. I'm on Zoloft now. Hopefully that will cover things.

I'm back in therapy--this time with the DH because it looks like some of these suicidal episodes are some sort of PTSD that he might possibly be triggering. Writing that feels unfair because he most certainly doesn't mean to and the truth is that this is more about my dysfunctional mind than his actions, but we will have to work together to put this behind us. I'm mostly hopeful about this.

My oldest is doing some therapy. I don't want to go into details (you're not surprised about that are you? That seems to be the theme of this post.) but I'm hoping that a little therapy now will save us pain during the teenage years. She's a good kid--intelligent, kind hearted, she tries hard--she'll pull through this.

Also this winter has been  pretty hard on my son's atopy. It's been ugly this year. Maybe because everything's so dry.

So there it is. My somewhat depressing update. But, well, it hasn't been all bad. There have been a few moments like this:

And that brings back some balance.