Enjablog

The long awaited behind-the-scenes look at the making of Snowman Mao!

Ian and I stopped by my parents’ yesterday for our weekly Saturday lunch. After lunch, we all went outside to have a snowball fight with my niece, but the snow was so perfect for packing we decided to make a snowman instead:

When the first snowball got to be Eliana’s height, we tried to convince Ian that the snowman was going to be too big. We all had to concede in the end though that he was right all along.

Eliana spent much of the building process as Supervisor and telling us, “Bigger!”

Ian finally agreed that the snowball had reached a sufficient size, but had to roll it back across the yard (and snow) so we could build on flatter ground.

Then Ian helped me maneuver the second snowball over to the first. And, fortunately, he and Yenny were strong enough to lift it onto the base.

Eliana tried to help me push the head over, but did what she saw me doing… which was push toward her.

After a little convincing, she agreed to come over to my side of the snowball. And we were able to push the head over together.

Eliana needed a boost, but she was plenty helpful getting the torso shaped and ready for the head. We all helped fill in the joints and round out some spots.

After a while, it started to get a little windy, so Eliana used the snowman to protect her from the cold.

As we were getting the head onto the snowman, Ian suggested we make it taller — a 4-ball snowman! So we decided he needed a tophat!

My mom let us use a real carrot for the nose, found us some branches for arms, my dad found us some nice pieces of mulch for the face, and even grandma came out to give us a scarf to use. And after some more shaping and sculpting, we had our very own Snowman Mao!

This took us probably a little over half an hour to build. For scale, Ian is uphill from the snowman, so with the hat, they’re just about the same height — 6’6″. The snow really was the perfect condition to roll around and make huge snowballs; the best I can remember in at least 10 years. Then we went in for traditional post-snow hot chocolate!

Special thanks to my dad for the photo-documentation!

UPDATE: