Rose Flavored Candy

November 29 is C.S. Lewis' Birthday.  While talking about the upcoming holiday, the kids requested Turkish Delight since in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Edmund asks for Turkish Delight from the White Witch.
I asked around where to find Turkish Delight and a friend picked some up from a store that sells it for us.  It's basically rose flavored candy.  Interesting.

It's got the consistency/texture of chocolate covered orange sticks (love those), but rose flavored instead of orange flavored.  Interesting.

We watched the movie, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Nichole checked out a couple Chronicles of Narnia books while she was at school.

Always fun to find an excuse to try something new.

Magnificent

Earlier this week I was up early with some stresses.  Luckily it was a warm morning.  I went to take some garbage out and later to recycle some paper at the elementary school's recycle bins.  I was wearing a short sleeve shirt and sandals.  There was a light breeze but I wasn't even shivering.  Lovely.  As I was dealing with my stresses, God gave me a gift.  This:

It was so nice to take pictures of the beautiful sky.  I also took some videos of the clouds moving.  It looked like the whole sky was just crawling along.  Magnificent.
Even though I had stress, my husband mentioned that this was a reminder that God is always there.  I appreciate it.
Later, I saw on Facebook that several other people had taken pictures of the stunning sunrise.  So great.

Vernal Holly Days

The day after Thanksgiving we celebrated in Vernal.  Jeremy was working at Vernal Holly Days so our whole family made the trip.  It is often very cold while Jeremy is there, but this time the weather was warm- the warmest Jeremy's ever experienced for Vernal Holly Days he told me.
We still dressed warmly in case it got cold.  That meant that when we went indoors to the bounce houses, I got to hold a lot of gear besides shoes- hats, scarves, gloves, etc.

There were a lot of activities at the event. 

 
Plenty during the day and plenty after the sun went down.

They had their parade of lights.  One float was from Dinosaur National Monument which we went to in August.

We also got to watch fire dancers.

And ride on a camel.

And close the balloon line for Jeremy.  Jr. Jr. loved getting to wear the "line closed" vest.

There was definite silliness going on

including dancing

and shadow puppets lip syncing to the holiday music that was playing.

 
On the way home, Jeremy and I switched off driving a couple times.  By the time we got to Heber, Jeremy had been driving but I was still not capable of driving at all so Jeremy stopped at Walmart to wake himself up by walking around and getting something to help him stay awake the last leg of the journey.
The kids and I slept in the van.  When Jeremy got back to the van, he showed me what else he bought- a couple movies that were still on Black Friday sale.  $4 each.  And he didn't have to deal with crowds.  Ha Ha.  That's how we do things.

We made it home really late and really tired.

Luckily the next day was Saturday so we were able to sleep in.  Phew.
It was a long day.

Busy Busy Busy

We're still so busy so I've been too busy to blog.  So... catching up again.
On November 22 we celebrated Start Your Own Country Day.  Jr. was making up countries throughout the day.  We had ancestor pancakes to eat.

On November 23 we celebrated Thanksgiving.  What blessings we have.

That's all I'm going to catch up with right now.

Jr.'s Explanation of Our Menu Plan

So, yesterday for dinner, we had hoagies and donuts.  The kids picked those because of Studio C.  The two sketches they modeled them after are Objection Your Honor, and the Sam Sloane Tongue Twister. (I linked to the sketches for you) Watch Stacey and Whitney very closely.

 It was False Confessions Day.







 (P.S. Jr. is awesome!)

Again?

What is it about balloon sculptures attacking our children?

What?

Friendly Farewells

While Jeremy went on a birding field trip today, the kids and I went out on our own to run some errands.  One place we went was the Orem Library.  It was nice not having a time limit like we sometimes do.  We spent several hours there, reading books, enjoying the boys performing at the puppet theatre, lots of good stuff.
We stopped at home after the library and found Jeremy had returned so we took him with us and went for a nice drive around the lake.  At one point we did let the kids out to stretch their legs at a playground.  After only a couple minutes, Nichole climbed back in the van because it was too cold.  Lucky was upset about getting buckled back in but within a few minutes he was asleep.

When we got home he had a bit of snuggle time with Mom before I went to farewell party for friends who are moving out of state.  These are such sweet, kind friends who will be missed but I do wish them much luck for their future.

Love you, friends.  And the party was so much fun- with snacks, the warm fires, and the fun game of Pictionary, and of course wonderful company.  Good times.

And... We're Caught Up

Ta-da.  Today, November 17, is Homemade Bread Day.  The boys helped grind wheat and I made... homemade bread.  Mmmmmmm.

And now I'm caught up... finally.  Yay!

Teddy Bears, Pickles, and Hole Punchers... Oh My

Well, we had on our calendar that November 14 was National American Teddy Bear Day.  We had checked out the Teddy Bear Encyclopedia from the library but didn't do much looking at it that day.  Oh well. 
I asked Nichole and Jr. to help with some menu planning.  I showed them what holidays were on the calendar and they got pretty creative with figuring out foods to go with the holidays.
Jr. let me know that bears eat meat so we should have hamburgers for dinner on Teddy Bear Day. 
I didn't have it written on the calendar, but I found an old facebook post that November 14 was also Pickle Day (I now have it on the calendar).  We made sure to have pickles with our hamburgers.

Earlier in the day, Google informed me that that day was also the anniversary of the hole puncher so while Lucky had a friend over to play, I let them go at some construction paper with hold punches.  After a while I emptied the holes onto the table for them to get creative with, then stopped their play when they started blowing the holes off the table.  Sigh.  They did a good job cleaning up afterward, though.

So several things to celebrate that day, only one of which was planned before the day started.

Kindness Popcorn

November 13 was World Kindness Day.  We also had Family Home Evening that day.  Nichole gave a very nice lesson about kindness including examples of how people have been kind to her at school.  Way to go school kids.  You make a positive difference.  Keep it up.

For treat, since the activity was watching Dad play a new space video game, Jr. was creative.

asteroid field popcorn with pretzel spaceships and M&M torpedoes

Pizza- How Do You Want It?

November 12 was National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day.  This year I asked the kids how they wanted their pizza.  There were some overlapping ideas so this is how it finally turned out:

Half overlapping pepperoni (I didn't want to do that much pepperoni on a whole pizza), half pepperoni and olive

Pepperoni pizza with BBQ sauce instead of tomato sauce/seasonings

BBQ chicken pizza.  Yummm.

Yeah.  We like pizza.

"Open Sesame"

November 9 was Neon Sign Day.  Lucky and I made a trip to the Orem Library that day so I could get a picture in front of their "OPEN" sign.  He likes to run up to the automatic doors and call out, "Open Sesame!" until they open.  It's adorable.

Another thing he likes to do is play in the children's area.  He likes to sit in a rocking chair while I read board books to him or he plays with the puppet theatre.  Aren't traditions fun?
If we go down to the Fiction/Teen Fiction section, he likes to color on a big coloring page they have there.  It's nice and relaxing to sit there while he colors.  I like it myself.

Great time with my little guy.

Violins and Bats

November 8 was Bram Stoker's birthday.
Nichole had an orchestra concert that evening.  Jr. and I dropped off the boys at a friends' house and had some Mommy-Jr. time watching the concert.
Nichole did so well.  She's really taken to the violin (she's always been musical).  She even got to play a fiddling duel with another student in the concert.  I'm so proud of her.

After the concert we all sat down to eat toast and read about vampire bats (because of the holiday).  Unfortunately, it was dark/night and Jeremy was out of town at a convention and... vampire bats. *shiver*

Don't get me wrong.  I love bats, but that night (and reading about drinking blood)- eek.  I was afraid we'd get nightmares.  So Nichole read to us about hippos.  Not nearly as eek.
I didn't get nightmares even though after the kids went to bed I watched the Doctor Who episode, "The Vampires of Venice."
None of the kids mentioned getting nightmares either.  Phew.