This year, I thought it would be fun for the boys to paint a tree because painting is probably their most favorite thing to do.
My husband had a piece of scrap wood that he sanded smooth for us. I went ahead and painted a tree trunk and branches using brown acrylic paint.
After the that paint dried, Buddy and I began mixing colors for the hand print leaves. Even though the acrylic paints make nicer shades, acrylic is very hard to wash off of the hands, so I decided to use Tempera paints. Our temperas are very bright so Buddy and I toned them down by doing a little custom color creation. While we were standing side by side, he leaned over and kissed my hand. He is a sweetheart!
We made a nice brownish red, a reddish orange, and golden yellow. To not further mix the colors and end up with a solid color tree, I gave the boys their own paper plate with one color.
They each worked with their color and then switched sides so that the colors were pretty even.
We started out with the idea of doing hand prints, but ended up just letting them do their own thing. They did some hand prints, some smearing and used brushes.
I told Little Man to smile for me. This is what I got...
When they were finished with the main two colors, I sat out the plate of golden yellow and let them add that in.
The tree turned out to be quite a piece of art. I added "Medlin Family Thanksgiving 2011" up the side to commemorate the day.
I brought a bunch of Sharpies with us to dinner, and each member of the family wrote what they were thankful for on the leaves of the tree. After dinner, we all took turns sharing. Buddy was sitting on my lap and whispered to me that he wanted to share. When it was his turn, he said that he was thankful for...
Captain America
His Toys
His Mom, Dad and Brother
It was so cool to see that he understood what was going on and chose to participate completely on his own. My baby is growing up!
Today we hung out around the house, ate leftovers and hung the icicle lights outside the house. Buddy ran out and exclaimed "It looks beautiful!", which made every second of it worthwhile. Have you started decorating for Christmas?
Always,
Amanda
