Hands and More

Yesterday I let Summer make the salt dough for hand ornaments.  I let her put the 1 cup into the bag of flour and watched as she tried to pull it out, creating a big ball of flour dust that flew all over the place.  I just smiled at her and told her to try again.  And again.  Then I had her fill up the salt and watched as sprinkles got all over the cabinet, then the floor.  I watched as she tried mixing the sticky mess together and of course I helped.  Then I pushed her hand into the dough twice since we messed up the first time.  During this time Pepper was standing on the step stool while I held onto her as she watched and touched.  I let her take half of the dough and walk away with it.  She tasted it, make a yucky sound, and threw it on the floor.  I picked it up and made a flat area for her to push her hand in.  Then I baked the hands for an hour.

Today I asked Kris to help me paint the hands and I let Summer paint some trees that we also made with the leftovers.  Kris did a very good job!

If you are wondering why the hole is on the bottom of the hand, well, all I can say about that is oops :o)  They are suppose to be tree ornaments but I guess they will be upside down.  

Do you want to make your own?  I used 1 cup of flour, 1/4 cup of salt and water - maybe more water.  I then baked it for an hour at about 220?  They don't seem as hard as they should be but maybe they will get harder still over time.  I need to write their names on the back and the year.

In other news all those kindergarten kids were killed today in Connecticut.  Many people are posting about it on facebook, about how they can't imagine how it would feel like, well I can imagine what it would be like.  I would want to die if I lost my child.  We had just finished getting a few more Christmas gifts for the girls when we heard about it and I was thinking about how those kids probably had gifts at home they will never get, and how the parents are going to have to deal with that too.  Bad things happen all the time and it sucks and isn't fair but I guess that is just another part of life, the harder part.  I really try to avoid the news because I would rather not know about the bad parts.