So, Fourthborn and I made seal-barking noises.

And then I tried to balance a chocolate orange on my nose, which was a little too small, and the chocolate orange was a little too large and heavy, but it stayed on the bridge of my glasses just fine if I held my head still. Which was not easy, because of the peals of helpless laughter from the three of us.

It is not all philosophical meanderings around here. The seal-barking occurred because Middlest was talking about how hard it is to break the seal between the slices, which you have to do before you open up the foil and divvy out the slices. The word "seal" takes us back to when the children's father was still fun. If I said that something had my seal of approval, he would put his arms together, elbows loosely touching, and wave/slap his hands together like a trained seal, barking all the while.

I guess you had to be there. But it's pretty much a Pavlovian response for the kids and me, even if Fourthborn is sitting behind me and I can't see her because I'm typing. Up come the arms. Out come the barks. And we laugh like idiots.

If my phone weren't sulking in the charger, I would share some cute pictures of the dolls and those mini-doughnuts that I brought home and tossed into the freezer for safekeeping. (The doughnuts, not the dolls. Just to be clear.) I posted the pictures to Facebook, but they look prettier here if I post them to a draft from my phone.

It's been a really great day. I slept in until 7:00 and got the errands done and the food put away within two hours. There has been knitting. Don't faint. I've read one and a half more books that will be going to BittyBubba (who now comes up to my shoulder in his stocking feet).

My children are being exceedingly silly (they may have company in this: see seal-barking noises, above) because we had funeral potatoes at the ward Christmas party. I really should do more cooking, because I had to guesstimate how big an onion to buy in order to create three cups (I typed cops) of chopped onions, and I have about three-fourths of an onion left. Beloved would have known how big the onion should be. Apparently "the size of a pregnant grapefruit" is too big.

Also: the mini food processor does not want to shred cheddar (it would help if I had a shredding disk). It just wants to smear the cheese around the side of the bowl. So I had to shred four cups of cheese the old-fashioned way.

And I ate something that my body does not like (probably three days' worth of salt from the green bean casserole), and I had to slather my legs in vitamin E cream to get the nerves to shut up. And eat one-third of a chocolate orange. I feel much better now.

My kids are playing Pokemon, and Middlest showed me a 3D Miltank (cow monster) that was standing on its hind feet and dancing (or something) as its udder bounced from side to side in 6/4 time.

OK, I'm done.