Favorite Handmade Ornaments

This year I thought I'd photograph some of my favorite ornaments on our tree.  When we put ornaments on the tree is a very special and sometimes emotional time for me.  I take the ornaments out and hand them to one of the kids.  As I do this, I awwww and tell stories about some of the ornaments.  The kids hate it but I love it and ignore the kids. ha-ha-ha.  I'm the mom afterall, in my house, I can do what I want!

This is an ornament from Grandma Dottie, my mom for Sarah for her first Christmas.  Sarah was 5 days away from being 1 on her first Christmas.  I always felt sorry for her being born so close to Christmas.  Sometimes it was hard to get family together for Christmas then her birthday.  Her first birthday party was celebrated at Christmas with family.  She was so sick I felt so badly for her.

 This is on of those flour dough ornaments that Ben made at school.  I treasure the handmade ornaments the most.  It was made with his own two, little hands for us.  It's a heart ornament with little colored balls all around it.

 The next two ornaments are made from juice can lids.  I helped Ben and Sarah make these for all the family one Christmas.  We had a pattern that was taped to the lid.  I held the nail and they hammered it into the lid.  Then I finished it with hot glue.  After all their hard work, I let them make on for themselves.

 This was an ornament made at school.  Does this bring back memories for you?  Our teachers made sure we had something for mom and dad each year.

 Sarah made this at school.  It's a candy cand made of red and white beads strung together on wire. It's obviously not been bent the right way but you get the idea.

 This is a stamped frame for our 2007 photo.  We joke about this because some of  our ornaments were purchased the the idea of including our photo, which didn't get done, so people we don't know are in the photo.

 This was a school ornament made at the Christmas party. Not sure if it was first grade or not.

 The same room mom that Ben's class had was the same room mom for Sarah's class.  Many classes had siblings 2 years apart.

 This was from Kindergarten.  The teacher took a picture of each student the first day of school, then added that to the ornament.

 Another fun ornament from the Christmas party.  The glass ornament next to it was made at a fun, family ornament class.  We signed up for a night class through our school district and made about 8 of these ornaments.  We used clear ornamenets and added acrylic paint and kids moved the paint around then we turned them upside-down on a paper cup so the paint could dry.  It was such a fun thing to do.

We signed up for Saturday classes as a family and did some cool science things together too.  We made a volcano, made a container for a compost pile, built a bat house, made a habitat for a frog.  The kids even got little journals to record results of what we did.  Fun times!

 This is a Kindergarten picture of Sarah.  This teacher always did the same thing for Christmas gifts each year.

This year has really given me a run for my money health-wise.  I need to keep God in my sights so I don't get discouraged.  Living in pain is hard to do.  The physical pain is not the only pain.  There is also emotional pain.  It's not long before I just wanted to sleep through the pain.  That's the battle with pain for me.  Fight it with God's help or just sleep.  I need to trust in God to help me through this hard battle of physical pain.

 I love sunflowers.  When I saw this I knew I had to post it here.  I smile when I see these beautiful flowers.  It it like sunshine to me.  I hope you've enjoyed seeing some of my favorite ornaments.  Tomorrow I'll share some more favorites.

Blessing of the Day:The sun came out. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Blessings,