December 2019

December started off with a snowday the Tuesday after Thanksgiving break! Marcus walked up to Franklin Park with a friend, and Samantha spent ages entertaining a two-year-old across the street in his first snow that he could actually walk in. Then I made donuts and Samantha cleared out our fire hydrant to earn herself a J.P. Lick's giftcard, courtesy of our local city council member.

We went to Illuminous, a cool outdoor light and electronic art show downtown, that Friday night.

Whenever the streets are clear enough and not icy, we ride bikes still. Go, winter cycling!

Samantha had another piano recital, this time playing a piece she composed herself.

There has been lots of drawing and crafting. Apparently Samantha hopes to "try to never forget" "[her] childhood," among other things.

Helen and Samantha saw a live Elephant and Piggy musical with Grandma and Pop-pop.

We went to a giant Chinatown dinner and then the church Christmas party with Meg and Emil, Roman and Glo, Sarah and Sean, Evie, and Sarah's father.

Helen went to Yenna's ballet-dancing birthday party in Medford. Apparently someone said "Oh, Helen obviously takes ballet lessons." Um, no--in her dreams!

We had Samantha's 8th birthday party, an art party, at home. There were 10 kids, in addition to our own, and 5 additional adults. Activity 1 was general drawing/creating with colored paper, lots of rolls of washi tape, brand-new markers, and edging scissors.

Activity 2, shown before it had fully dried and then been coated and finished (it got much smoother, basically) was a collaborative papercut on canvas activity inspired by Matisse (the scale is hard to tell here, but it's 3' tall). And of course there was dinner (baked ziti, spanekopita) and cake (triple chocolate ice cream cake).

Activity 3 was drawing with fabric markers on individual canvas bags that could be used as pencil cases or tolietry pouches or anything, really.

We tried to do themed treats, too. I made "palette" cookies ahead of time, and also plain rice krispy treats stuck on wide colored popsicle sticks.

The afternoon of the party, Samantha and one of her friends, Mika, dipped the rice krispy treats into white chocolate with some food colors to make them look like wide paintbrushes; they also dipped wafer cookies (cut to a point at one end) and decorated them to make pencils, and they dipped/decorated long pretzel rods to make thin paintbrushes. Everything was a hit!

 

A few miscellaneous pictures from the month. . . .

 

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Created: 12/19/19. Last Modified: 12/19/19.