Friday, January 8, 2010

Giving Hallmark a run for their money


As shown on Daniel's birthday, my kids kind of have a thing for making cards for people.  They made several dozen cards over the holidays, and I just scanned in some of my favorites.

Here are some that Tristan made for the girls. 

(front cover)



(inside card)













I loved how he pointed out that she goes in timeouts sometimes - it was like because he was pretending the card was from Santa, he wanted to make sure to include both the "naughty" and "nice" things he'd noticed.  I'm glad that most of all he thinks she's "soooooo" great. 

Rachel got a similar little note from "Santa":

(front cover)
























(inside card)





































For the record, I'm not sure what the "feeeeeeeww problems with lieing" he was referring to are.  Maybe Santa knows something I don't?  I did think the song he included on the bottom for her to "sing to her friends" showed a slightly more reckless/juvenile side of Santa than I've seen before. 

Oliver didn't bother with pretending to be Santa, so I guess he didn't feel the need to point out any misdeeds.  His cards were full of holiday cheer:

(to me)






































(to Rachel)




I love when he says stuff like "you rock!". 

Oliver also experimented with making 3D cards, which I thought was pretty cool.

On this card for Rachel he drew a little wreath on the front cover, and then made a little pipe-cleaner wreath to go on the inside:





And on this card for Elizabeth (with a very sweet message), he made a 3D snowman out of cotton balls on the inside:


(he signed Tristan's name on the card, because Tristan had decorated the front of it)

Since Tristan's birthday was a few days before Christmas, Oliver made him a birthday/Christmas card.  Before starting the card, he asked Tristan what one of his favorite animals was, and Tristan said dinosaurs.  I thought Ollie came up with a really cute idea for a card:

(front cover)
























You can't tell this from the picture, but the dinosaur on the right is actually on a little tab, and there is a slit in the back of the card, so you can slide the dinosaur back and forth like it's walking along.



















I think this next one is the funniest ever.  I was cleaning up all the drawing stuff from our kitchen table one afternoon, and spotted this card that Oliver had been working on.

Here's the front cover (click to zoom):











(Notice - the sleigh is all packed and Rudolph is ready to take-off, but Santa is still sound asleep in bed.  And the clock says 8:26.)

Then I opened up the card and saw this:












I about died laughing!  Whoosh!  Off they go!  I love how there are little presents flying out the back of Santa's bag.  And how his beard is blowing in the wind and the sleigh is just a blur because Santa's trying to take off so fast.  Notice the clock says 9:53.  I seriously don't know where Oliver gets his ideas.  He has the best sense of humor - I love how he just gets that the idea of Santa sleeping in would be dang funny for a card. 

7 comments:

Diane said...

I remember standing in the Hallmark store with my sister, reading cards and laughing our heads off.

These are better than any of those cards I ever read with my sister. Especially that last one. I'm still laughing.

Eliza said...

ok Joanne, you have got to turn the last one in. It could make millions. I can't stop laughing. The other ones are great too. My kids keep saying "how do they draw so good?" I used it as a little teaching moment to encourage practicing something if you want to be good at it, because that's hard for us around here sometimes.

Laura said...

ollie for sure needs to win a prize for that one. it is by far the best card i've ever seen. it gets better and better. i'm calling loren downstairs to come see it right now.

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KarenB said...

I love your kids! They are amazing.

Audra said...

Well after reading all the Christmas posts I feel such bittersweet emotions...can you just move back to Utah so we can laugh at all Daniel's jokes, play games every Sunday, have play dates with the girls (and the boys; London has asked a few times where Tristan and Ollie are) and many more great/wonderful things that just come whenever you are around. We love you guys and LOVED seeing you.

Beccarigg said...

Taber had to come in here just now to see what I was laughing about. SO SO Funny!! I thought the one about Rachel's lying problem was so dang funny! That is SO something my older brother would've written to me, he was always keeping tabs on my negative behaviors. : ) And then the hilarious jingle bells song, brings me back to the elementary school days! And of course, that last one is so awesome. Your kids are the greatest!