Sunday, December 22, 2024

2024, December 16-22

Buddy the Elf claims that singing loud for all to hear is the best way of spreading Christmas cheer. While we love carols, as people more inclined to the visual arts, we see things a little differently. 

Kai is a sexy beast. Rowr! Hallie was proud of herself for catching Kai with his tongue out.


Here he is doing his best "come hither"


"Never mind. Imma take a nap."

Later the fur babies did some more sleeping. It's hard being a pet in the Owens household. 

At BUH, Eliza sewed herself her own fur cap. 

Hallie met this fur-capped individual at the high school. 

Mom helped Sonny-Poo finish up some work to end the semester. He keeps trying to pull a rabbit out of the proverbial hat by doing a term's worth of work in his last week of the term. However, we suspect he may not have made it work out this time. He may have summer school credit recovery in his future. 

For the preschoolers' last days of the semester, they got to go see the high schoolers perform music and dance. The orchestra/band room was decorated festively.



Eliza participated in a musical theater review for Yates Place on the Peteetneet School stage. She and a couple of other girls sang "Fearless" from the Mean Girls musical soundtrack. 

Eliza even pulled out some old gymnastics moves. 

The students had a lot of fun, and we hope Eliza continues developing her talents in this direction. 

Hallie caught a beautiful sunset from the doors of the high school.

Mike continued refining some work with digital paper snowflakes. He took inspiration from the work of Ken Libbrecht out of Cal Tech, checking out one of his books from the library and trying his hand at interpreting some as they might look if "cut" from "paper."



He also traced some of his own work from winters long past. 

On Wednesday, the other preschool group saw high schoolers perform again. 


Wednesday morning at BUH Eliza did a fun mug craft where everyone wrote fun things on the mug. Then Nan taught the girls how to make snowflakes out of paper bags. Eliza was very excited to learn this new technique.




Eliza learned how to make broccoli cheese soup at BUH on Wednesday evening.

Mike did some digital work on newer paper flakes. 

(This was based on his award winner from last summer's fair.)

Even though Hallie works at Starbucks, she usually shows up there on her days off. Hallie is very blessed to have amazing coworkers who take care of her. The picture below is the top of Hallie's drink this week.

Hallie scored some Springville Red Devils hats. Eliza loves her hat. While the girls were out this week, they found Kai a Santa hat and bells. We think he is still on the fence about dressing up for the holidays.

On Thursday, Mike taught a class of second graders. One activity was to have the kids write a story about how Santa was tired of wearing his outfit and was looking for something new to wear. He wanted the kids to get creative, so he came up with this story. As far as the costume itself, the teacher restricted us to using construction paper only. The students came up with some amazing stories and costumes of their own!  

Hallie forgot to empty the whipped cream container before trying to take off the lid. She wore it well. Apparently this happens with her coworkers too on occasion.

Eliza has had some issues with her sleep/wake schedule. Ferg likes having a warm body to lie down on for his naps. 

On Friday while subbing at a local middle school reading class, Mike met a Ukrainian refugee student. She was very eager to talk and work on her English, so while other students did their own independent work and free time on their last day of the semester, he learned about zefir and taught snowflake art. 


For Christmas this year the high school administration gave the faculty a very big comfy blanket. Hallie opened it right away.

Kai and Eliza (and later, Fergus) also like it quite a bit

Eliza had a horseback riding lesson at BUH on Friday. We are grateful for her new instructor Leslie. Leslie knows that Hallie loves pictures of the lesson, so here is a picture.

Springville City has launched a flag design contest. Mike was (a little too?) eager to make some entries. Here are a few drafts. 





Some of his online friends have created (superior) designs of their own. Here's hoping our little town gets something worthy of its Art City moniker!


Hallie's coworker Joey gave her this fun green cup. Hallie doesn't need another cup but loves the new-to-her cup.

Our friend Lisa gave Hallie some gifts for the home, including this decoration we hung up on the back door. 

A husband and wife came in and ordered 8 frappucinos on Saturday. Way to go Ty for knocking these out of the park.

While Mike watched the kiddos and in between bike rides and shopping with Eliza and walking Kai, he and the girl made art at home. Paper-based digital snowflakes have a different vibe and complexity level than ones based off the lab-grown real-life variety. 


Well, they started doing a couple of projects, then Eliza went upstairs to "draw" and didn't come back down for a couple of hours (she says she didn't take a nap, but Dad has his doubts). Anyway, Mike finished what they started. Then the houses all got gobbled up by greedy teens. 


We bookend this post with another photo of Kai snoozing after a raucous game of fetch with Dad. Let's just let our sleeping dog lie, eh? 

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