Papaya Mom

We made beautiful ornaments today, a new tradition. Instead of shopping on “Black Friday” we will make homemade ornaments every year. You say you don’t know how? Phooey, we all made them in Kindergarten or at Camp, didn’t we? My Mom also used this recipe for her own Play Dough instead of buying the chemical stuff, go Tutu!

2 Cups Four
1-Cup Salt
1-Cup Water
2 Tbs. Oil

Mix, and roll out on parchment paper. I used the beautiful hand-turned Maple rolling pin that I bought on our trip to Old Forge, NY in August (I plan to hand it down to Papaya someday, when I’m too old to bake, it is meant to be a heirloom). We then pressed in Papaya’s handprints and cut around in a circle using a small rice bowl as a guide. Then we baked them in a 250-degree oven for about 90 minutes. We painted them with watercolors and sprayed them with lacquer. Tomorrow we add ribbon and they become ornaments.

On the back we wrote Papaya and Makenzie’s names, respectively, and Christmas 2005. Julie had me write 25 NOV 05 on hers to remember which day we made them, I plan to do them on the same day each year so no need to worry about remembering (now I’ve jinxed myself). We made three each of handprint, one for Mom, and one for each set of Grandparents. We made one foot print each for the Dads.

It was sweet to see Papaya’s little hands that I expected to fit into the top of a cup, but had to find a bowl to make a circle big enough. Her sweet little feet are big for an ornament, but her sweet curled Petzoldt toes show. I remember when she was born and I thought she had four toes because her pinky toe was curled under, now it is almost all the way flattened out so it is nice to have an imprint of her “baby” foot.

The girls were quite cooperative when they were pressing the dough, but did not see any need to be put down and play alone as we cut out and painted the ornaments. It will be fun when I can let her paint the ornament herself next year. I need to remember it is more important to have her own art then to paint a “perfect” ornament with paint in the lines and such. This year is my chance, the rest are going to be more and more all about her and finding her own artistic sense of what she wants to send to Tutu, Bumpa, Grandma and Grandpa.

Adventure Dad is home from a half day of work and is giving Papaya a bath. She loves bath time, and waving at herself in the mirror afterwards. She is so cute, I’m off to nurse her to “night night time” (yes, that is a real live term in this house of educated adults).

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