Making the ornaments...
It was a true "mother of three" production.
It all began during the Christmas of 2008. I'd had the same ornaments since Judd and I had our first Christmas together. They were very non fancy and boring. So last year, I threw them out. I promised myself that for the following year, our tree would get an uplift. About mid summer, Erica, (Judd's Sister) had mentioned something about salt dough ornaments. Sure, why not? I thought. I googled salt dough ornaments, the author of the article raved about the unforgettable memories she promised would be made with my children. Sold.
Once I had collected all of the ingredients, I chose a day to get started. I secured Baby David in his high chair and the two older kids were seated at the kids' table. With 2 pairs of little hands and mine covered in flour and goo, David instantly let me know he wasn't going to cooperate in his chair. I washed my hands of the goo, and very reluctantly left Savannah and Luke to poke around in the dough. David refused to eat his jarred carrots, so I scooped some onto his tray to stimulate his creative side or smear and I returned to kneading the dough. Luke is now upset that he has dough on his hands and asks me to help him wash his hands off. David is screaming mad and is covered in carrot paste from head to toe. I began to wipe David up, and send Luke to the bathroom. "Go wash your hands, Luke. I'll be right there to help." I take David to the bedroom for a breastfeeding. I hear Luke beginning to cry loudly in the hall bathroom. I unlatch David, which makes him very angry. "Hold on a sec, David." I rush to the bathroom where Luke is and for some unknown reason, the drain is clogged and water is gushing over the counter and onto the floor like a waterfall! Strangely enough, there are soap bubbles about a foot and a half tall. Luke is wailing, "Help mom, too many bubbles!" Seriously, there's one to two inches of water covering the bathroom floor!
Oh heck!
I shut the water off, and dry Luke's hands.
Maybe I should check on Savannah...
As I'm racing to the kitchen, she is picking up a very full bag of flour from the counter and lugging it to the table. (David is still wailing) I grab the sack of flour and place it out of reach. There is dough everywhere in the kitchen. I bring both Luke and Savannah into the bedroom with me, so I can finish nursing David. Sweet little David gets his fill and sleeps. I lead Savannah and David into their bedroom, read a few short stories and lay them down for a midday nap. At that point I have no desire to deal with the kitchen, so I go snuggle with David. (I left the kitchen a mess, gasp!) When I wake up, Judd has arrived home. The dough has been rolled out, cut into cookie cutter shapes, boys, girls, stars, and flowers, and they're baking in the oven! I had given up on that dough FOR-EV-ER! The timer sounded and I pulled out of the oven some good looking salt dough Christmas ornaments.
Life continued to go on, and I eventually muster up the courage to add color to the ornaments.
I brought out some old acrylic paints I had stashed away and let the kids paint them. Yes, I, too participated, of course. Luke was generous with his character imprints but then moved on to bigger and better things after a few masterpieces.
The painted ornaments sat for a good week longer.
Next step:
Ribbon and glitter
I bought some discounted red ribbon at Hobby Lobby along with two vials of glitter, Success! This step was the easiest and the most fun. We finally finished the ornaments and hung them up on the tree the day before Christmas Eve. The funny thing is that it took me four weeks to get our tree dressed up. These are indeed the best ornaments we've ever had and very memorable to make. In the tree, there is also a woolly sheep that Luke made at Savannah's preschool event, along with that woolly sheep are about 5 other paper ornaments Savannah and Luke made at church.
Best Christmas tree ever!
1 comment:
This made me so glad to be your friend. You're such a great storyteller.
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