Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Wonderful Wednesday...Kids Obsessions Turned Christmas Ornaments

Hi...I have missed you all! I got to spend some time with my Dad over the last few days and decided to play "Blog Hooky." I am back, and just in time for Wonderful Wednesday.

Do your kids have an obsession? You know what I mean...when they are so fascinated by something they hardly care about anything else. When my daughter was 2 she was obsessed with Jo Jo's Circus. She LOVED Jo Jo's Circus (a cartoon that was on the Disney Channel). We've been through several obsessions around here: Charlie & Lola, Cars, Angry Birds. At the moment, I feel my kids are more well rounded...ok, just not singularly obsessed with one thing.

They do both have a great love for ocean animals. I can't say I blame them, I get it. We practically live at Sea World. There probably isn't another place that we would rather spend the afternoon than Sea World. There is always something new and fascinating, which is hard to believe since we are there so often. Sea World never stops being able to surprise us with something new. One of our all time favorite surprises was the day a walrus was loose and wandering around on his own! On his own!! This is what we encountered on one of our last visits:


Obviously not an ocean animal...but can you deny how cool that is to a little boy?

My daughter used her own money that day to win a HUGE dolphin stuffed animal. I am not a fan of carnival games. The prizes are always cheap and I would rather spend my money on a "real" souvenir. However, her heart was set...and it was her own money. Isn't that the point of having your own money? You can do what YOU want. I will admit, it turned out to be the COOLEST prize.


I have no idea how long we stayed at the dolphins that day. The dolphins apparently have their own obsession...the stuffed dolphin. They couldn't get enough of it! It was amazing. It was definitely well worth the money. It was a dolphin encounter like we have never experienced before. It was beautiful.

Our ocean animal love does not only exist at Sea World. This summer we had the awesome experience of viewing Dahls Porpoise' in the wild while in Alaska. It was breathtaking! A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to visit the Long Beach Aquarium, and this is how my daughter spent her morning:


Yes...her hands are in a tank of sharks. IN A TANK OF SHARKS! She loved it! She also had her hands in a tank of Moon Jellies...jellyfish...gently touching only the tops. Jellyfish! I must admit, I was right there with her. It was so cool...and pretty funny, since my little man would not be caught dead with his hands in either of the tanks!

You can see, there is a bit of an ocean animal fascination around here. So, on our last Sea World visit I purchased these:


I thought they were just what we needed for Christmas decorations. Yep, you read that correctly...Christmas decorations.


Does this help you visualize it a little better? The kids share a shark bedroom, so I figured a shark Christmas tree was just what we needed for some holiday fun. However, ocean ornaments were starting at $10 each. I was not going to pay those prices. And to be honest, I was not in love with the ornaments anyways. So when I spotted these little suitcases at the gift shop I knew I had found my ornaments! $9.99 to fill a suitcase with whatever ocean animals you could fit inside. I was able to fit 30 ocean animals in that little suitcase. So each animal was about 33 cents! Pretty good deal for Christmas ornaments.


Since the plastic on these is slightly soft, I was able to pierce them with a paper piercing tool. If your toy of choice is hard, simply drill your hole with a tiny drill bit. Then I screwed in a screw eye (sold at Michaels) into each animal. We will attach each ornament onto the tree with a simple ornament hook.


Just look at all of them ready to swim around our tree!


So what is your child obsessed with? Just imagine the tree you could make for their room with their latest obsession! It was so fun to watch my kids eyes light up when they saw the ornaments for their very own tree. Spread some joy with your little ones this season. Get creative and cater to their obsession just a bit. It will be a magical Christmas that they won't forget!

I am linking up here:

2 comments:

  1. I just found this page by googling for shark ornaments. I LOVE the idea! I need lots of sea creatures on my tree. Thanks for helping me do it on a budget. Thank you for taking the time to post and share. - Lara

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  2. Lara-

    You probably won't see this, but I thought I would try. I couldn't email you back directly because you came as "anonymous." I have all the shark ornaments from last year and we won't be using them again. I would love to send them your way if you are interested.

    Heidi

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I absolutely love to get comments! Drop me a note and let me hear what you think. Thanks. -Heidi