Fun ornaments and an unusual tree

 The big kids painted their ornaments so fast I didn't get a picture of them doing it. These two were pretty precise about making sure all the wood got covered with paint. I am sure if I wouldn't have supervised them they would have both ended up pink and blue from head to toe.

This year I wanted the kids to make their own ornaments. I wanted to find a cheap, easy way to have them make something they like to represent their interests over the last year. I found these unpainted wood ornaments at Michaels a month ago. We finally painted them yesterday and put the pictures on today. These are seriously the easiest cheapest, cutest ornaments we have done so far. I love that the older boys are into some fun characters this year...but they are impossible to find in the stores. So making them was a win all the way around. Ayla is into Elsa more than ever this year so that's what she chose. Gideon picked Superman and I let him pick out his own design on the computer. Zenock LOVES Antman, so he found a good photo of him, and Ammon is loving the game Clash of Clans so that's what he chose. It was fun to sit with each child at the computer and look at photos so they could pick which one they liked the best. I saved the photo on the computer, printed it out on cardstock, cut them out, and glued them onto the painted ornaments. When Gideon saw his all done he was so excited. It was really cute. Ayla kept telling me she wanted to hold her purse...meaning she thought her ornament was a small purse and wanted to play with it. Rydon's ornament is a resin blue stocking with a puppy coming out the top. There was an empty space on the top so I wrote his name and first Christmas on it with marker. I love that I can find fun ornaments to personalize for the kids like that. It is kind of hard to see in the photo below. It is to the left of Gideon's Superman ornament.

This piece of 2'x4' mdf is our Christmas tree this year. We have too many family members that need a place to sit this year, so we can't put a chair out in the garage this year to make room for the Christmas tree. I found this huge tree sticker in my box of leftover stuff so I glued it on the board. Brady drilled 100 holes in this board for a string of lights to fit through. I tied a green garland around the edge, and we hung some of the non-breakable ornaments we had on the lights. It's definitely not the fanciest thing out there, but it fits in our house, Rydon and Ayla can't play with and eat the ornaments, and we still have enough room for our family to sit and watch Christmas movies together. I am really hoping that next year we have a house big enough for an 8 foot tall tree. Because we have given each child an ornament every year since they were born (and I buy at least one for me every year as well), we certainly have enough ornaments to decorate a tree that big!