Rainy Day Angel

This never-ending rain has us a little stir crazy here at the Shove household. We’ve run our necessary errands, watched way too much television, read about a bajillion books, had about half a dozen toddler dance parties…and then I came to my wit’s end. It was time to do something, anything, different for a change.

Last week Emma Vance’s teachers sent home a request for each child to bring an angel ornament to school next week. They’re going to put them on a tree, which should be super cute. (We’ll see if our “Don’t touch!” training is working. So far, she’s been pretty good at not attacking our Christmas tree at home.) I’ve been hunting for a cute angel ornament to no avail, and as I was about to acquiesce and settle for some hideous stained glass one, I felt a bit defiant. Why am I about to spend $5 on an atrocious ornament I’m embarrassed of? So while standing in the checkout line, I discarded the ugly angel and headed home. Then, yesterday while E.V. napped, I prepped a quick craft so that she could “make” her own angel ornament.

We’re clearly not to the scissors-and-glue age yet, and it was too rainy for paint (which will always be an outdoor activity with my wiggly lady). Recently, though, we’ve been doing a LOT of coloring, so I figured that crayons were the perfect rainy day entertainment. (Sidenote: Yesterday I also found a piece of scrap paper E.V. had apparently scribbled all over with a pencil she found. I had NO IDEA that she had taken it upon herself to make up her own art activity while I was cleaning; I thought she was just tinkering around like usual. I was obviously surprised and very proud that she managed to remember my teaching her “Only on the paper! ONLY ON THE PAPER!” when it comes to coloring. How cute is that?) A quick sketch of an angel’s silhouette and a little hand-lettering practice (totally self-serving on my part) later, and when E.V. awoke, we were in business. I dressed her up in one of her Christmas dresses (to get in the spirit, of course) and let her color to her heart’s content. She. Was. Ecstatic. After she passed out for the night, I simply cut out that angel and added a pipe cleaner halo and hook, and voila! Now that’s an angel I’m proud to send her to school with! ;)