For the next few posts, I’ll share some of our valentine’s day fun.

I like to make my life easy, so we pick up premade paper cards for the kids. With 3 boys in school, we had 48 valentines (minimum) flying out of our house, I just don’t have the energy to do completely handmade. But, crafty as I am, I had to help my crafty kids add a unique touch. We love melting crayons in this house, so when I saw silicone ice cube trays in heart shapes at Target last month in the ‘dollar’ section (they were actually $2.50 for 2 trays), I knew what we had to do.

There are instructions for melting crayons all over the internet, so let me just share my tips.

• I like to melt at 250 degrees. It takes a bit, sometimes up to 10-15 minutes depending on your oven and the brand of crayon, but just keep an eye on it. I set the timer for 8 minutes to start, then check every 2-3 after until they have turned to liquid.
• The most difficult part of this project is prepping the crayons. I highly recommend using a craft (X-Acto) knife to slice the paper off and then to chop the crayons into appropriate size pieces for your mold.
• Don’t worry about gaps. I just place crayons inside the mold in a single layer, with a few gaps, so you get a nice flat result.
• Watch your brands! You can see in the photos we had a few restaurant crayons sneak their way in. Some brands just won’t melt. I only buy Crayola crayons for our house for many reasons, the easy way they melt is one of those. Don’t fret though, if you have bad crayons weasel their way in, it just makes for some unique texture.
• If you don’t have shaped molds, my favorite melting containers are individual silicone mini cupcake cups. With ridges that mimic paper liners, they create great edges the kids love to color with!
• We used hot glue to fix them to the paper valentines. This was tricky and may not be the best solution. I used a generous amount of hot glue, let it cool a bit (so it didn’t melt the wax too much), then pressed the flat side of the crayon into it. Some I didn’t let cool enough and they melted, some cooled too much and they popped off. At their best they removed easily, but it made them stick long enough to travel to school and make it into valentine boxes.

If you had fun, crafty ideas you used this year for classrooms, be sure to leave a description and link in the comments to share with me!

Before those of you within the multiples community hang me out to dry, I thought I’d share my thoughts about it. First, as you read yesterday in my back to school post, we take each kid on a case by case basis, and each year as a separate issue. There’s always room for re-evaluation and change. This is our families’ choice, guided by the kids, and the school professionals.

For those of you considering it, I know there are numerous articles and posts out there about keeping twins together, but let me share some of what we hope will be advantages of spliting them.

#1 We have BOYS. Have you ever spent any serious amount of time around 5 year old boys? Do you know what kind of mischief they can cook up? Then when you add the twin factor in… oh. my. goodness. Mario & Luigi (not real names, our family online names) are crafty. They do this incredibly accurate impersonation of the two-headed monster from Sesame Street. I kid you not. And when they decide something is funny, it’s like the never ending inside joke. Frat boys have nothing on my twins.

#2 They are identical. When discussing with the boys individually the potential benefits I asked them how they felt when they were called the other’s name, even when it was an accident. I was shocked at how much it bothered them both. Strangers do it all the time, family does it less often but it still occurs. And I, like any mom, frequently have to go down the list of names to get the right one. Heck, I’ve even called a child by the dog’s name while yelling before. With two separate classrooms comes a bit of space. Some of the kindergartners may not know for quite a while that they are even twins, helping them to establish their own identity.

Truthfully, like any twins, they get treated like a 2 for 1 package deal all the time. Sometimes even by myself. We try our best not to, but because they share the same room, are the same age, are both boys… there is quite a bit of this. My prayer for them is that they each find out who they are.

#3 They think differently. So why wouldn’t 2 different teachers be a good thing? The school has a system to place kids with the best teacher possible. We fill out a survey about who they are, games they play, strengths and weaknesses. If we insisted that they are together, one of our children could potentially get shortchanged and not end up with the best classroom teacher for their style of learning. How would we choose which child is sacrificed for the sake of togetherness?

Those are the major logical points, but it really came down to God’s intervention. I’d been praying for all the boys; for what was best for the coming school year; that God, who knows more than I, would lead our family. I spoke with the school counselor about considering splitting the boys, while it was uncertain whether the new teacher would be an AM or PM teacher. I expected a call if it would fall into our category, but the call I received was that they’d already been split. We of course had a few days to consider it and request a change. After more prayer and discussions with my husband, we opted to let it ride. We know we’ve been led to put our children into public schools, we know we were led to purchase this house in this district, we believe God knows what’s best and we are at peace that this is the right decision for our family.

I know this is a hot topic among parents of multiples, but I thought I’d share with you part of our family’s thoughts and processes. I’d love to hear about your choices and your reasons for them. Drop me a note in the comments and a link to your blog!