J and C and Me

As I’ve mentioned before, I like having a theme tree each year.  A family friendly theme tree.  I figure once my kids have moved out I can have the fancy smancy Martha-Stewart-Southern-Living-Historic-Homes-HGTV tree.  But right now, I know my kids (at least the little one) will pull it apart, so we have some fun with it.

I’ve had the idea of a nativity tree since last year.  Celia is of an age to get the meaning behind the celebration, so I’m hoping to talk a lot about it and work the tree into it.  I had this really cute plan with yarn and pipe cleaners, which ended in the voodoo angels….so I needed a new plan.

And I’ve got one….bigger and better (and really, more kid participation) than the old one.

Step One….make some sheep.  Everyone knows that shepherds need sheep…so we’re making a herd.  They will make up the lower left quadrant of my tree.

In case you’ve never made a pom pom, it’s really easy….here are a few more directions than are provided in Family Fun.

Start wrapping the yarn around your hand (I did this in advance for my kids.  Older kids could probably help with this.)

Wrap loosely until you get a nice thick wad of yarn.  More for fluffy sheep…less for scraggley ones.

Slip the yarn off your hand and tie with another piece of yarn.  Tie it tight.  The younger your kids are, the tighter you must tie this so that they don’t pull little balls of yarn apart all over your living room.  Tie it REALLY tight, for your own sanity.

Then cut the loops of yarn so you have little fringies.

Then do the other side.  Fluff the yarn around, trim any long stragglers you have.  Let your kids decorate with felt faces, pipe cleaner legs, and googly eyes (we do eyes on face, then peel the sticky off the felt…I use the self stick stuff…..face on sheep, then put a glob of glue on the top of a delta of pipecleaner and stick it in there for legs).

Here’s my prototype sheep.

Will post pics of the actual children making sheep soon.  Pardon the awful backdrop.  The girl was sleeping, the dog was sleeping, and I wanted nothing more than to sit on the couch and cut things out.  So that’s what you got pictures of.  Frankly, I’m not too worried about it because anyone who pays any attention to these photos must be a mom, who will truly understand why I would lounge on the couch and make sheep instead of fixing up a good photo shoot spot to assemble them.