Hallmark Bingo, Bigfoot, Snowflakes

Little Gussykins turned 3! He is the squishiest, funniest, most delightful boy anyone could ever imagine. He reminds me of little Malachi, who was also the sunniest sunshine at this age. Maybe it's their December birthdays, I don't know!

Gus requested what he called a "bee-nana cake" for his birthday. Sam followed my instructions perfectly (I told him, breezily, to "arrange banana slices into a Caw shape") for the top of the cake. 

Goldie drew this cute picture of Caws for Gus

He got cars and a boat for his presents, both of which he immediately started playing with (with sound effects) on the table.

He loved the candles and the singing…

…and so did Clementine!

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We haven't been to our friends' ornament party for three years! First Gus was being born, the next year it was cancelled for COVID, and last year we were in Hawaii with Abe! So we were really happy to be back at it this year. I didn't crochet anything this year. I saw a really simple nativity like this somewhere and really loved it. What I wanted to do was make it in stained glass! There is a couple that comes to the party that always make stained glass ornaments, and they're so pretty (those are some of the ones I always hope to come home with. Here are some from another year. And I got one this year too!). But, anyway, I knew I couldn't pull that off, so I decided to try shrinky-dinks!

It was super fun to play around with them. The kids loved it too. But in spite of the simplicity of the process, it took me a surprisingly long time to get something I was happy with! Figuring out the shapes was hard. And getting the sizes just right was hard. And then getting them to stay perfectly flat was hard. I probably went through about thirty iterations before I was satisfied with it! I don't even know if it was worth all that, but I liked it, anyway. 

Sam made this cute little carved owl with bead eyes. It got opened, then immediately stolen, then stolen again, and third owner got to keep it. I wish I got to keep it! I'm still sad about the two-sided Scrooge ornament I didn't get to keep. And which I apparently never even showed on this blog!😥

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Clementine acquired some bunny slippers which are her pride and joy. She loves having them on her feet! She holds them out proudly and admires them, and then runs around the house making paddy paw noises. It's so cute!

They're so big and fluffy that they make her feet look huge! She doesn't mind.

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Malachi had to go to a choir concert in Salt Lake for a school assignment. We went to hear Benjamin Britten's "A Ceremony of Carols" at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. It was sung by the kids that go to the choir school there, which I'm fascinated by. What is it like? How do they teach them such hard music?

Anyway, it was cool to hear very traditional choirboy-ish music (there were girls too, in this group, but they had that choirboy sound) in a real cathedral. The music was interesting and modern. I can see some of the pieces really growing on me if I heard them more.

Malachi whiled away the time by underlining all the "misspelled words" on the program.

The words are in some kind of Middle English, as you can see. Malachi kept shaking his head in utter disapproval, like a censorious schoolmarm. I couldn't stop laughing. He didn't even get all of them!

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Teddy lay down to feel how soft this furry rug was, and fell asleep on it!

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Sam and I have always liked to watch bad (and do you know what I mean by bad? Not BAD. In fact, to us, quite enjoyable! But I mean, very badly-written) movies. We've been watching and making fun of this sort of thing for years now. But I think it was our finest hour when we realized this year that we could make bingo cards and formalize the process. We looked online and saw that we were hardly the first to think of it, but we added some essential ideas of our own as well. We made a list of all the amazing elements that make up a Hallmark-style Christmas movie, entered them into a free bingo card-making website, and voila!

It has been, hands-down, my favorite thing to do this December. The girls love watching with us, but even Malachi (and a couple times, Seb!) have found that a little friendly competition makes all the difference. We are all SO happy when we get to mark off a square. We'll be yelling at the TV, "Go on! Do it! Tell your friend how long you've been friends!" Some movies have been extra fruitful. The best we ever got was when Malachi got FOUR bingos in one movie! ("Falling for Christmas." Just amazing.)

Anyway, if you would like to have our list to modify and enter into Bingo cards of your own, just let me know. We will gladly share it. (In fact, just last night, Sam got the idea to work up a similar list for Star Trek…we'll see if that works as well!)

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Clementine at my mom's house

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Gus feeling sad after some little unpleasantness with Ziggy

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Seb with Clemmie

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Seb's been excited about taking photos with the good camera lately. I like seeing what he decides to capture! Here are a few of the pictures he's taken this month.

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Our snowflakes this year seemed particularly good. Do I say that every year? I remember earlier years with a bit of superiority, like they can't possibly compare to the elevated heights we've reached NOW. Presentism at its finest! But when I look at these past links, I'm actually pretty impressed with us in previous years, too. See here, here, and here for a start.

I was going to apologize for all these pictures (who really wants to see every snowflake we made? I would never inflict this upon you in person), but having just looked at previous years, I take back my apologies. I love looking at all these different snowflakes! No two alike! Also, every Spring when my children squawk in protest about me pulling these all off the windows and throwing them out, I soothe them by saying "We have pictures!"

A nice windowfull

Daisy made all of these. I love them. Star, hearts, Y's! She also created a themed snowflake for Goldie, featuring marigolds and elephants and cake. (I think that one's down below somewhere.)

I love it when the sun comes through the window shades in the mornings and casts snowflake-shadows.

See if you can find:

• Bottle-ring snowflake
• Bunny snowflake (I always make one of these)
• Teddy's Bunny-BYU snowflake
• Seb's two authentic crystal-y snowflakes
• Spiky sun snowflake

And that is all for today!