Joy Is...

relaxing by watching home videos of the family with the family.

Catch of the Day

Awwww.  They're holding hands.

Mommy, Look

I have chimneys on my arms so Santa can climb down them.

Count Your Blessings

It's National Bluebird of Happiness Day again, September 24.  It is a good time to count our blessings.  Throughout the day, we would mention things that were blessings.  It was great.  While the older kids were at school, Jeremy had a meeting at Thanksgiving Point.  Jr. Jr. and I took the opportunity to go with him. 

The three of us had a picnic together then while Jeremy went to his meeting, Jr. Jr. and I went to the North American Museum of Ancient Life, the "dinosaur museum."
Jr. Jr. had some hands on fun in the "Tinkering" exhibit.  

When Jeremy was done with his meeting, he met us there then we spent some time in the main part of the museum.  Jr. Jr. wanted to go through the "star room" (a very very dark room with tiny lights all over depicting the Earth's beginning) over and over and over.  He also had fun with some of the hands on exhibits.  

The museum has a spot where you can see people doing actual work on bones, getting them out of rock, etc.  You're on one side of the glass and you can see into the room where they're working.  There was a man working on some vertebrae of a long-necked dinosaur.  He took time to stop and point out several bones in the room for us and pointed to where they would be located on a little toy long-necked dinosaur.  That was fun.
After Thanksgiving Point, we stopped by the Orem Library to drop off and pick up a few things.  This morning, Jr. asked if we were going to watch The Blue Bird movie like we did last year for the holiday.  The library didn't have the Shirley Temple version, but they had another version that was a silent film.  We checked that one out and the kids and I watched part of it tonight.  We'll finish it later.

And at dinner, the kids didn't complain at all.  That's a blessing right there.  Jr. even made a portrait of me out of some of his food.  What a sweetheart.

We really do have so much to be grateful for, so many blessings.  Sure, there are some things we don't have, some things that other people have that we have to do without at this point, but looking at what we do have, we have so much.  And we don't have to look elsewhere to find those blessings.  The bluebird of happiness is right here in our own family, in our own home, in our own Utah County.

Welcome, Fall

It's the first day of Fall, September 22.  What a great day for pumpkin spice hot chocolate and spiced apple cider.  Yumm.

And what a great day for us to just be ourselves.

National Punch Day 2013

Jr. was looking through my blog from last year and came across my post about National Punch Day, September 20.  Last year the kids got to play LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean on the Wii because it had characters punching each other.  He requested getting to play it again for the holiday this year.  It's cute how the kids like to celebrate similarly from year to year on some holidays.
Besides playing the Wii game, Nichole and Jr. also got Fruit Punch Capri Suns in their lunches.
Again I reminded the kids that we do NOT punch real people.  I wasn't actually worried about them punching others, but it doesn't hurt to remind them to be nice.
On his way home from work tonight, Jeremy picked up a bottle of Hawaiian Punch for me.  I haven't had that in a while.

 

Ah, nostalgia.  

We always need to do simple celebrating on this holiday since we don't go simple the day before on Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2013

September 19, Talk Like a Pirate Day, this year was busy.
We started our celebrating early by watching Swiss Family Robinson the other day.  It has pirates in it.  Jeremy built a pirate costume out of balloons.
Today after the older kids went to school, Jeremy, his costume, Jr. Jr., and I headed up to Thanksgiving Point to hand out balloons to children who would talk like a pirate.  It was a lot of fun.  Thanks, Thanksgiving Point, for the permission to run around and do that.

Then we headed to Orem to pick up our free dozen donuts at Krispy Kreme just like we did last year.

After Krispy Kreme, we stopped by the Orem Library to pick up a book Jeremy had on hold. 

Then to home again.  It was funny to see Jeremy get in and out of the costume every time we stopped.  It's not something you can wear while in the car.  It was worth it to celebrate.

When we picked the kids up from school, Jeremy got a huge crowd of kids around him, understandably. 
At home after dinner and homework, we had our traditional pirate battle with our furniture pirate ship, balloon swords, and balloon cannon.  The cannon worked well this year.  

After defeating the balloon pirate (Jeremy wore his costume during our battle), we celebrated with Krispy Kreme donuts.
This is definitely one of our favorite holidays and we'll keep on celebrating it as a family every year.

National Play-doh Day 2013

Family Home Evening.  Jr. was in charge of the activity.  When he heard we were doing FHE on National Play-doh Day, September 18, he knew he wanted us to do edible playdough again.  That was fine with Jeremy since he was in charge of the treat.  Taken care of.

All three of the kids did a great job measuring the ingredients.  Once again it was easy to make and easy to play with.

Nichole's sleeping giant.

It was a good Family Home Evening activity and treat.

Collect Rocks Day 2013

September 16th, Collect Rocks Day.  Both boys did some rock collecting today. 
As soon as he got to school this morning, Jr. immediately found a rock in the schoolyard and picked it up to show his classmates and inform them about the holiday.  During recess he apparently experimented.  He threw rocks in the dirt to see if they would make craters like meteors do on the moon.  He's been learning about the moon in school.  I like to see my kids excited about learning.
Jr. Jr. and I went to a park and he collected rocks to throw off a bridge into some water.

The best part is I let the kids know that any rocks they collected had to be put down before they came inside, so no collection of rocks around my home.  Hooray.

Mommy, Look

It's like I'm a butterfly.

Catch of the Day

Our neighbor gave us a head of lettuce from her garden.  We found a new friend on one of the leaves.

At Least I'm Not in the Hospital

Today, September 13, is Positive Thinking Day.  I have a cold.  That's not so great, but on the bright side, it's not that bad, which is a good thing since it's Friday the 13th (you never know).  Also thinking positively, chocolate is supposed to be good for a cough or something that that comes with a cold.  And since September 13 is also International Chocolate Day, I drank some hot chocolate.  And since September 13 is also National Peanut Day, I put some peanut butter in my hot chocolate.

Hey, there's something to this Positive Thinking Day.  After school the kids were helpful in getting snacks for themselves since I didn't feel up to it.  Nichole wanted something that would fit with today's holidays so she got herself a bag of chocolate chips and peanuts. 

She helped get her brothers some chocolate chips, too.  She's awesome.  All my children are awesome.  That's a very positive thing.
One other way we celebrated was I read Jr. Jr. a book about counting to 100 using Reese's Pieces.  That also fits in with chocolate and peanuts.  Jr. read the book earlier.

So I may have a cold but I can still celebrate and do some positive thinking.

Chocolate Video Game Milkshake Day

September 12 is National Video Games Day.  We've celebrated this one before.  Last year and the year before that.
Today is also Chocolate Milkshake Day.  We haven't celebrated this one before.
So besides playing quite a bit of video games today, Jeremy made us chocolate hazelnut milkshakes.  Yummm.  And after homework was done (we didn't just play video games), we sat down with our milkshakes and egg ham sandwiches and watched a movie that had a video game in it (only at the very beginning of the movie- but it did have a video game in it).   

The Princess Bride.  We hadn't watched it in a while but it's a great movie.
So it turned out to be another successful Video Games Day as well as a successful Chocolate Milkshake Day.

Go to the Mountains

For weeks Jr. Jr. has been telling us for Family Home Evening that he wanted to "go to the mountains."  Finally his turn came to pick the activity.  He had not forgotten that that is what he wanted to do.  So for FHE we went to the mountains.  

We went for a drive with the family.  We went up in the hills in a few different places.  We just drove and drove around.  While in Alpine, we did see some deer.  That was fun.  

Everyone just had a great time talking and laughing and singing.  The kids even decided to have contests of who could sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" the fastest.
It was a great family activity.

Shhh, Daddy's Sleeping

Read a Book Day 2013

I'll just say, this is a really easy one to celebrate in our home.  Read a Book Day, September 6.

Skyscraper Day 2013

Last year on Skyscraper Day, September 3, we were able to go see some actual skyscrapers when we went with Jeremy to work.  This year, we didn't go with Jeremy to work since the older kids were in school (and he wasn't working near any skyscrapers today).  The kids and I did celebrate after school, though.
We built our own skyscraper out of graham crackers and frosting. 

Well, it wasn't a very high skyscraper, but we can call it a skyscraper.  The kids had a blast and I even got some pictures of the finished product before the walls came tumbling down. 

Then it was a nice snack.

It was definitely messy and I'm going to need to put some stain stick on some clothes and do some laundry tonight, but it was so worth it.  The kids are already requesting to do this activity again next Skyscraper Day.