movie monday: blowing out a candle

we’ve started a new dinnertime tradition here in the happy household.  every night before we say grace at the dinner table, we light a candle.  we keep the candle burning throughout dinner and when everyone’s ready to leave the table, we blow it out. i find this to be a very calming, centering practice for all of us and i love the ambiance of having a “candlelight dinner” every evening.  especially in these dark winter months.

the other day, we were all actually home at lunch sitting down to eat together, so we lit the candle during the our meal.  the happy little dude tried to blow it out afterwards, but… his technique was a bit off (he was overly cautious after an earlier enthusiastic attempt splattered melted wax back up onto his chin) and after watching him try to blow out the candle for a few solid minutes, i decided it might make an entertaining movie, so i filmed the rest of his attempts.  enjoy!

on a completely unrelated note, but because this recommendation is already very late and i don’t want to delay it any longer, the happy little dude and i have very much been enjoying two free advent calendar apps this year. the first is binny’s advent calendar (2012 version). because it’s last year’s calendar, it’s free, but because we didn’t use it last year, all the surprises are new to us. my favorite is probably the faux fisher-price record player on day 1, but i also like to listen to the (vaguely creepy) little elf say “not yyyyyyet!” when you click on a future date. it’s also available on android! the second advent app that we love is fiete christmas. this is a simpler concept where each day, a different gift gets a number label and you can open it to reveal a different classic toy which kids can then play with by moving them (and flipping them) with their finger. i love the design aesthetic of this one–it’s so cozy that i really want to crawl in and enjoy a cuppa something warm by the fireplace. it’s related to the fiete apps (available for both apple and android) which i’m planning to purchase to try out on our next car trip. since i’ve been very behind in my own advent calendar plans this year (sigh.), it’s been nice to have a small alternative until i can get our tiny stockings on a string put up. maybe we’ll get that done today.

p.s. don’t forget! today is the last day to use the “hellohappysmoothie” code to get 40% off of printed copies of my smoothie book!