Thursday, August 30, 2012

September Holidays Coming Up

Here we go for September.  Links to how we've celebrated special days in the past.

September 12 is National Video Games Day
September 12, 2011- National Video Games Day 2011

September 13 is National Peanut Day and it is also International Chocolate Day
November 8, 2011- Combining Holidays

September 22 is the Autumnal Equinox
September 25, 2010- Autumn

September 19 is Talk Like a Pirate Day
September 20, 2009- Talk Like a Pirate Day
September 19, 2011- Talk Like a Pirate Day 2011
September 23, 2011- Talk Like a Pirate Day Observed

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Million Minute Family Challenge starts September 1 and runs through December 31.
September 27, 2011- Million Minute Family Challenge
November 23, 2011- Slumber Party!!!!!

And since September is also back to school time, why not celebrate by teaching a lesson about centrifugal and G-forces by swinging someone around so their legs go flying out behind them?
That's what we did.

For more reasons to celebrate in September, check out our Calendar of Celebration on The Balloon Guy's Blog.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Million Minute Family Challenge 2012

Last year we participated in the Million Minute Family Challenge from September to December, playing board games and card games as a family and logging our minutes online.  Check out my blog post about it.  We did reach our family goal of so many minutes during that time and the whole challenge reached its goal of at least 1 million minutes.  In fact, from September 1-December 31, 2011, they reached a total of 1,232,187 logged minutes. 
This year our family is participating again, but this time I'm mentioning it in August before it starts in case anyone else wants to do it for all four months.
If you do, here is the link to the website for the challenge.  For me, it's a great excuse to suggest something other than TV and computer for the family to do.
And just look at those cute little faces.  Can't you tell they love playing games?

Saturday, August 25, 2012

What I Did Today

Before

During

Getting There

After

After After

Nichole and Jr. decided since I cleaned their room and they didn't help very much, they would let me take a break and make dinner for me. 

While the water was heating up, they provided some dancing entertainment for me, as well.  So cute.

They made soup and didn't want me to get a recipe out for them to use.  They would put healthy stuff in it, which meant a lot of seasonings (although they did take my suggestion of putting some vegetables and ham in there), but mostly salty seasonings. 
It was a little too seasoned for our liking.  I did set a good example, and ate my whole bowl (if only the kids would do that with my well seasoned dishes).  I didn't make the kids eat theirs. 
Jr. Jr. woke up from a nap right before we ate, but he would not touch the soup.  So he had yogurt.  Then the rest of us had yogurt, too.

The kids' room still has a lot of work to do with reorganizing certain parts of it, but at least the floor is cleaned up.  I was grouchy most of the day with the kids, but they sure cheered me up with their volunteering to make dinner.  They are really good kids, we just all have some organizational things to work on.  Sigh.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Ketchup

Jr. Jr.:  Mommy!  Mommy!  Mommy!
Mommy:  What?
Jr. Jr.:  I'm holding ketchup.


This was repeated many many times, then...

Jr. Jr. (when I showed him the picture of him holding the ketchup):  Baby holding ketchup.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Puppy Dog Eyes


Dog, 
Puppy,
Looking at me,
With those big puppy dog eyes.
I enter the room,
There you are.
Not long,
Off you go,
With those big puppy dog eyes.



It's Bad Poetry Day, August 18.  Above is my attempt at bad poetry.  I know.  I know.  It could be a lot worse.  I just didn't put that much effort into it.  Oh well.

I told the kids that it was bad poetry day and I wanted us to make some bad poems.  They were immediately concerned, thinking that bad poems use bad words in them.  No, no, no.  That's not what I meant.  I wouldn't put bad words into any poem.  So I tried to show them an example of a good poem versus a bad poem.
Good poem: (insert "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" here.  I didn't want to type it all out and you all know it)
Bad poem:
Twinkle twinkle, little star,
Don't fall.

Oh, okay.  So the kids were okay with that.  But they still thought bad poetry must mean talking about bad/mean things (like evil crystals or not liking people) or that bad poetry had to start with "Twinkle twinkle..."

Yeah, my kids are awesome.

I got the camera out and recorded the kids in action making bad poetry.  Here is one of Jr.'s:
Twinkle twinkle, little moon.
Don't shine.
Ever.  Ever.
Never ever.  Shine.
After night.  Before night.
And don't even be in space.
And go away from space.
And go away from Earth.

And Nichole was convinced poems have to rhyme (I remember thinking that as a kid).  Here's one of hers:
Twinkle twinkle, as the moon.
Do not fall at the doom.
You are evil.  So am I.
I do not like how much you are in the sky.
So, watch out for candy as you go by.
It's the evil thing as Earth is nigh.
United Earth.  United States.
All from the world, have an evil space.
To follow the evil crystal that curse you,
And that you may seek the special below you.
So your Earth or curse as it goes by
Watch out for purple, the evil crystal.  My.  By.
I lived on if you see an evil crystal in the sky.
Shoot it when it shoots you,
So as it falls you may capture it.
But don't touch it.  It will make you evil.
So as they tell this tale,
I'll tell you the weevil.

When Jeremy got home from work, he joined in the fun.  Here are a couple of his poems:
The words flowed around and through my head
like a buzzing fly attracted to my sweaty face
never settling, tickling the raw nerves of my creativity.
No matter how I wrestle with them, the participles dangle,
the adverbs are adverse, my objects have no direction,
and I find my adjectives are indescribable.
Until finally I yell at the confused forms swirling in my subconscious
saying: Bad poems! Bad! And I send them all to bed. (Of course they
come back out two minutes later asking for a drink of water).

Frog.
Sticky tongue frog.
If I stop licking you,
maybe my tongue won't be sticky.

Happy Bad Poetry Day from the Telfords!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Relaxation?

August 15, National Relaxation Day.  :Ha. 

Poor little Jr. is sick today. 

And Mommy was up every hour or two last night comforting her little boy, cleaning up, doing laundry.
So yes, a lot of not getting things done today, but not a lot of that has been relaxing.
Except that Nichole and Jr. Jr. both slept in this morning, so I was able to lie on the couch like Jr. and watch The Three Caballeros with him for a while.  Sigh.

On a lighter note, since my last post mentioning the zucchini in our garden (apparently we had more than one growing, I just didn't realize it), two have grown big enough to take off.  Man, those things grow fast.
Mmmm, zucchini.  What was I ever thinking when I was a picky eater as a kid?

We also got some bell peppers from our California Bell plant.  It's nice to have a garden this year.

How has your National Relaxation Day been?  Relaxing?  Not relaxing?

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

August Holidays Coming Up

Usually I'm pretty good about posting early about upcoming reasons to celebrate.  We've been really busy lately, though, so now I'm posting about August holidays and how we've blogged about them in the past.

And apparently, August is usually pretty busy so we haven't done a lot with the Calendar of Celebration in the past.
 
August 10 is National S'Mores Day
August 10, 2011- National S'Mores Day 2011

August 22 is Be an Angel Day
August 22, 2011- Joy Is...

August 25 is Banana Split Day
August 25, 2011- Banana Split Day 2011

Jr.'s Birthday is also coming up in August
August 20, 2010- Barbecue
August 29, 2010- A Superhero Birthday
August 20, 2011- Lego Jedi Academy Birthday Party

For more reasons to celebrate in August, check out our Calendar of Celebration on The Balloon Guy's Blog.

Today, August 7, is National Lighthouse Day, and what do you know?  I'm too busy to celebrate the way I want to.  Some day I will, though.  What I want to do is make this mini lighthouse from FamilyFun Magazine.  Have any of you built a mini lighthouse before?

And tomorrow, August 8, is Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Night.  This is our first year actually growing zucchini and you can see our one zucchini isn't quite ready for this holiday.

It's cute, though, isn't it?

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Talent


My husband has talent.  That's right.  You may think it's a talent for balloon twisting.  You may think it's a talent for juggling.  You may even think it's a talent for sporting a curly mustache.  But, no.

His real talent lies in being able to stuff 5 pairs of aquasocks inside each other.

That's right.  That is talent.