Beatrix Potter's Birthday

What a great reason to celebrate.  This fine author and illustrator, Beatrix Potter, was born on July 28, 1866.  And as I would need to explain to my children, that was even before I was born.  Wow.

It's a great day to pull out a collection of tales to read.  Tales of Peter Rabbit, his cousin Benjamin Bunny, or a number of other silly animals.

Or you could write and draw your own bunny tales,

or watch the movie, "Miss Potter," rated G, so the whole family can enjoy it.

There are plenty of ways to celebrate Beatrix Potter's birthday.  How will you?

Amelia Earhart's Birthday

So, Amelia Earhart's Birthday was July 24.  Did anyone take my challenge to have a paper airplane contest?  Or should I be embarrassed like I said?

Jeremy printed instructions online at www.funpaperairplanes.com with lines showing where to fold.  The instructions were very easy to follow.  This is saying something from someone who normally makes paper airplanes like this:

I folded three different designs for the kids.  Nichole had a Condor, Jr. had a Spade, and Jr. Jr. had a Canard.  It was really fun to see how each design flew differently from the others.

How did your paper airplane contests go?  Did you blog about them?  

Catch of the Day- Trampoline

Moon Day 2012

July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.  Here are some suggestions of ways to celebrate the anniversary:

Read a book about the moon or about the astronauts who traveled to the moon.

Watch Wallace & Gromit- A Grand Day Out where Wallace and Gromit travel to the moon for cheese, then have your own cheese tasting and guess what the moon would taste like if it was made of cheese.

Watch the episodes from Doctor Who from the sixth series, where the Doctor and his companions travel to 1969 to try to stop the "impossible astronaut."

Write your own story or draw a picture of a trip to the moon.

Play the game, "I'm going on a trip to the moon..." where everyone takes turns saying what they would take, each object starting with the next letter of the alphabet.

Check out my blog post from last year about Moon Day.

Amelia Earhart's Birthday Challenge

For Amelia Earhart's Birthday coming up on Tuesday, July 24, I want to give you a challenge.

Have a paper airplane contest.  Simple, right?  Or is it?
Make it as simple or as complex as you want.  Try out different designs of airplane or just one.  Have one race to see which plane goes the farthest or have a tournament.  Try different kinds of games.  See whose plane flies the fastest.  See whose plane flies the highest.  Give special recognition for paper airplanes created by one person or by a team.  What's the simplest but most efficient paper airplane you can make?  Can you put decorations on your paper airplane and still have it fly?  Get creative (or not), but mainly, just have fun.

I want to hear about your paper airplane contests.  Let me know how they turn out?  I plan to do a follow up blog post about this (unless nobody does anything, then I'll just feel embarrassed that I brought this up in the first place, and you don't want to do that to me, do you?).  If you blog about your paper airplane contest, let me know if I can link to your post from my blog.

Have fun.

Happy Birthday, Ginger Rogers

July 16 is Ginger Rogers' birthday.  What a great day to watch a movie with her in it (preferably with Fred Astaire as well) and dance along.

I will admit when we took this picture, I was actually in the mood for a particular Ginger Rogers movie.  It didn't have Fred Astaire in it.  It had Cary Grant.  Though I love musicals with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Eat Your Jello Day

O.K.  I live in Utah.  Growing up somewhere else, there was always a joke about Utahns putting weird things in their Jello.  Lime green Jello with grated carrots, anyone?
I'll be honest, I haven't seen that much weirdness with Jello since I've lived in Utah.  I'll admit to putting some mandarin oranges in my orange Jello as I let it sit and whipped topping on the top when it's done, but that doesn't seem so weird.  Does it?

Well, I do have something I want to try with Jello.  It's from the June/July 2012 issue of FamilyFun Magazine.  I couldn't find it on the website so I took a picture of the page in the magazine.

"Star-spangled Parfait."  You just layer red gelatin with whipped topping several times then make the last layer blue gelatin.  Simple, but it looks like fun.  What a great way to eat it.

What are some other creative ways you've seen Jello used?
Or weird ways?
And remember, July 12 is Eat Your Jello Day, so I want to hear edible ideas.

Macaroni Day 2012

Macaroni Day, July 7.  We had fun last year with this one.  Check out the macaroni pictures we made.

And speaking of macaroni pictures.  Look what Jeremy made for his mom years ago (it's more than just macaroni, but it does use some macaroni, so it counts):

I thought it would make a great Family Home Evening activity sometime to recreate this picture as a family.

Another activity I want to do with the kids sometime is "Pretty Pasta" from FamilyFun Magazine.  I thought about trying it with macaroni for Macaroni Day, but we weren't able to this year.

Graham Cracker Day

Graham Cracker Day, July 5.
I hope the weather where you are is nice to try out those solar s'mores again.

If not, try making s'mores in the microwave.  And especially enjoy watching the marshmallow puff up.

 

What other graham cracker treats do you recommend?

Eat Beans Day 2012

Chocolate is made from cocoa beans or cacao beans.  Yeah, July 3, Eat Beans Day, is a great excuse to eat chocolate.

And if you're gluten/soy/meat intolerant, my brother figured out a good way to eat black beans or pinto beans.  Check out his YouTube video about BuckBean Cookin'.  Yum.