Paper Ornaments

We usually make salt dough ornaments for Christmas gifts and for our tree. This year, I decided to try something different. We made pressed paper ornaments. It was really simple, and best of all, not tempting to eat...BLEH!


We started out by tearing 3 LARGE sheets of construction paper into small bits and placing them into a food processor or blender.


Next, we added a 1 1/2 cups of very hot water to the blender and let it sit for 5 minutes.


We preheated the oven to 200 degrees and placed a towel on a plate with a paper towel over it. Then we carefully chose a cookie cutter shape for our ornament. We chose an angel.


Turbo pressed the pulse button on the blender for about 30 seconds just so that a good pulp was created. Turbo touched it, but was pretty much finished after this, as getting messy was NOT a part of the deal...Ahhhh me...


Scoop out the mixture and put it into a sieve to squish out the remaining water. Of note, don't make it too dry otherwise the paper won't stick together and keep its cookie cutter shape.


Using your fingers, squish in the pulp so that every inch of your shape is filled. I didn't fill it to the brim, as I wanted to make a few more shapes than it was called for (they said 3, I was able to make 5).


Then carefully poke out the shape onto a cookie sheet and "bake" it in the over for 2 hours or until it is dry, light and firm at 200 degrees.






Like I said, don't get too much moisture out or it will fall apart!



Glue a ribbon/string with hot glue on the back, add glitter before baking or after and give away!

Sending Santa THE LIST

This year, instead of taking Turbo's Christmas wish list to Golden and mailing it to Santa, we decided to do a different twist on the whole thing. We were watching a Christmas movie where the list was thrown into a fire place (w/o a fire) and the list floated up and out of the chimney and drifted to Santa in the North Pole. Turbo saw that and was infatuated with it. But I decided to take a step further, because lets face it...that list "ain't" gonna float up and out!

We lit a fire, and then had him toss the list in. We told him that the burnt ashes will float up through the chimney and outside into the night sky and drift to the North Pole where Santa's elves will assemble the list back together again and begin assembling his wish list.



This morning, Turbo asked if I thought that Santa received his list yet. Thinking to myself, I told him that I got a confirmation this morning on email to let me know that Santa received it and that his elves were hard at work! His eyes widened the size of Silver Dollars...and well....that's that. I'm not sure if he was amazed, or just filled with wonder why his mama could be so naieve. Time will only tell.

The Christmas Season

We've started this tradition of having Turbo look through the magazines that stores send out around Christmas time to make his Christmas Wish List. This year, was no different. One thing that changed was that Turbo is now much more likely to think long and hard about his wishes, as he "has experience" playing with toys.

His list was not that much different than any other 5 year old boy, but man!, did he work hard on it!



Our precious cousins from Fruita sent us a great Peanuts Advent Calendar. We have been reading about the story of Christmas each night at dinner and open up a new window. Each night it suggests a great Christmas activity. One evening in particular we were to make some yummy cookies. We made Vanilla Chai Spice Cookies. Kind of like Gingerbread Men.


I've been reading Turbo the Christmas story and we've been using the Nativity Scene figurines along with the story. We have 2 scenes, and Turbo thought that we had to use ALL of the figurines in one stable.

Tanks' First Christmas Craft

Last night, the family decided to do a Christmas craft. Now those of you with boys, and maybe even some girls, know that this is no easy task. Add a 1 year old to the mix and a quirky 5 year old, and you have a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, our Christmas trees turned out great, and our carpet was spared of green splatter paint.

First, we taped paper to the table. Actually, it was a white paper lunch bag, but that was all I had. Then we put blobs of paint on the paper and asked the boys to spread it around. Making it a bit more challenging, I asked Turbo to stay in the lines of the tree. Tank did great! He didn't any of the paint! Not that he didn't try!


Then we traced their hands for the ornaments!

Tank's Creation:


Turbo's Creation: