Christmas is for the birds

Back in December, my mom read an article about a cute way to recycle your Christmas tree. Basically, you put the tree out in your yard and decorate it with bird feeder ornaments and fruit slices for birds and other wildlife. She thought it sounded like fun (and so did I), so the week after Christmas, Caleb and I went over to help. We all had a blast making all of the ornaments and hanging them. In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we've gone back over to do it 2 more times since then! The birds seem to have enjoyed it too.

We made 2 different ornament styles. The first is very easy and is the least messy of the two. You just string Fruit Loops or Cheerios onto a pipe cleaner and form it into a loop. **While the Fruit Loops are more colorful, the birds seem to prefer Cheerios.

The second one does require an adult to help. For this one, you use waffle cones/sugar cones. You start by cutting the tip off and knotting a pipe cleaner to run through it. Then, cover the cone in peanut butter and roll it in bird seed. Done! It's basically like the pine cone bird feeders we made as kids, but much easier and less painful than dealing with pine cones! They turned out really cute. **Caleb did NOT like getting peanut butter on his fingers, so he sprinkled the bird seed on instead. This actually made it a lot less messy and probably a bit more fun for him.

We also put/impaled some fruit slices on the tree. When we finished, Caleb said it needed a star, so I whipped up a VERY ghetto looking star out of pipe cleaners and we let him put it on top. All in all, the tree turned out great. We are looking forward to making this an annual tradition and, hopefully, Camryn will also get to join in the fun next year!