The House on the Hill: homemade ornaments

We went yesterday to cut our Christmas tree! We are firm believers that the tree shouldn't be up before Thanksgiving. We had to take advantage of the 60 degree temperatures yesterday! While we have the room for a bigger tree, we chose a smaller tree. It measured in at five and a half feet and it is the perfect height for the kids to decorate it.

Speaking of decorating, I'm a big fan of making our own Christmas tree decorations. Two years ago, Kole and I made cinnamon ornaments. When I ran across a recipe for chocolate salt dough from Fun at Home With Kids, I knew we had to give it a go.

I'm so thankful for our stand mixer when it comes to making play doughs and salt doughs. It gives it a much smoother texture than I could achieve with kneading it. It could be I'm just a wimp, too!

This stuff smells awesome. Like whoa. The kids had fun digging in. Quite literally for Little J. And of course, some had to go into her mouth. It surely doesn't taste good, but at least there isn't anything toxic about it.

I encouraged Kole to use Christmas cookie cutters, but he insisted on machines and tools. It's their tree, so hey! But, much like making cut out cookies, the novelty wore off after the first few and so I was left with the rest.

That's ok - there really is something therapeutic about getting your hands into dough. I added some holes to the top for string and they're currently finishing up baking in the oven. Annnd, my house smells amazing!