Lydia began preschool this week and, with that, ended her time with "Miss Nancy's Kids". I have been BLESSED with my daycare situation over the past 3 years. Nancy is a friend of the family and has kept children at the home of another friend for 6 or 7 years.
Lydia on her first trip to the Pumplin Patch with Miss Nancy!
For 3 years Lydia has had the advantage of being in a home she knows, with kids who are like her cousins, being cared for by someone who don't just "care" about her, Miss Nancy LOVES (present tense) Lydia. Lydia loves Miss Nancy, but she also loves the small group of kids who have grown up with her. Lydia isn't just going to a different school. All of Miss Nancy's kids are moving on and Nancy will be working in a different location. We knew the private home situation was coming to an end as the children grew older and thankfully I had a year's notice to find a good placement for Lydia. There are plans to get together with Nancy and some of the other kids periodically, but I wanted to do something special to show my appreciation for someone who has meant so much to our family.
My begining sketch for the tree.
I stumbled on the idea of a fingerprint tree, like some couples do as their wedding guest book. I drew a simple line drawing of a tree and then decided it would be more appropriate to add some kids playing on the tree. I even added a heart that is meant to look carved into the tree and wrote Nancy's initials inside it! Above is my begining sketch.
I planned to use green ink for the fingerprint "leaves" and that made me want the whole thing to be in color, so I traced my original drawing onto some blue scrapbook paper. I then added a light watercolor wash. I, of course, made the pig tailed girl a redhead. Without my saying anything, Lydia informed Nancy that she was the girl on the swing. She also decided that the boy was her Daddy.... when he was a little boy!
The finished "fingerprint tree" with all the kids accounted for!
One of the older girls at Miss Nancy's took charge of getting all the fingerprints without Nancy catching on (thank you SO much Ally!). I slipped it into a frame and added a card about making an imprint on Lydia as she was growing.... or at least that is what I meant to write. The tears were flowing while I wrote the note, so who knows how it actually turned out!
If you wanted to do something similar, and NOT have to draw or paint, there are lots of tree pictures you can pull from Google Images. Just print and then fingerprint! Enjoy!
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