Christmas Fun!

We made these ornaments a few years ago. I painted the boys' hands with white paint and then pressed them onto the ornaments. I think at the time, they were still pretty young to do the faces, so I did them myself. They're older now and could probably take on the entire project. I trimmed them with holiday ribbon and enclosed this poem --

These aren't just five snowmen, as anyone can see.
I made them with my hand, which is a part of me.
Now each year when you trim the tree,
You'll look back and recall, Christmas of 2005,
When my hand was this small.

Another fun thing for Christmas is the book The Three Bears' Christmas. Neil checked this one out of the library recently. When we read it the other day, we were delighted to find it was written in the style of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It's written by Kathy Duval and illustrated by Paul Meisel and published by Holiday House. It's a cute story where Mama Bear bakes gingerbread bears for her family, but they're too hot, so they decide to go for a walk. When they return, they discover someone's been in their house, eaten their cookies, sat in their chairs and has left clothes all over the place. It's a fun twist to a classic story and a great book for the holidays. Amazon has used copies starting at 99 cents, or you can ask for it at your local bookseller or library. The boys and I love retellings like these. My upcoming book, The Marshmallow Man is a retelling of a famous story too.

Also, one last thing for today -- yesterday I received a contract from Highlights for Children magazine. I had sent them two craft projects and they accepted one for purchase. It's a Halloween type craft, so I imagine it won't be featured in the magazine for awhile. It's a simple craft that any child can do and it doesn't use anything fancy to make. It's my first craft sale, and my first sale to Highlights for that matter, so I was pretty excited about it.