Summer Reading Update

We've been doing some Summer Reading activities so I'll mention a few of them.

I did another Story Trail, this time by myself. I've been so busy I haven't gotten out for my morning walks so I made myself on this day. This one was "The Husband of the Rat's Daughter," at Lions Park. A few of us read this one back in 2021. 

Jet and I watched a video about dinosaurs of the Cretaceous Period. 

He and I also did sun art prints, where we took leaves and taped them to construction paper then left them out in the sun for a few hours. Since we started later in the afternoon, we had to move the paper as the sun moved.

When we took the tape and leaves off (and rocks so they wouldn't blow away), our prints looked like this.

Jet's is the darker paper. Mine is the lighter paper. 

 

I also did some quick trips to the libraries to drop off and pick up things.

I got my completion prize for Provo Library because I read enough minutes (and listened- go, audiobooks). 

A 25th anniversary water bottle!

 

At Orem Library I saw that the triceratops skeleton was still up. 

It has shrunk quite a bit but is still mostly intact so the stands are being pulled toward the middle now. Look at my tail. Ha Ha. 

 Ah, Summer Reading is great.

Polka Dot Day

January 22 was Polka Dot Day. I covered something with a polka dot piece of cloth. I'd been meaning to for a long time but this holiday really motivated me to finally do it.

We also celebrated my brother's birthday with the kids eating ice cream and watching "Paco videos."

And... Lucky's first loose tooth came out. He was very excited and Jr. Jr. was excited to share an older child's wisdom about rinsing the tooth and putting it under his pillow.

Lucky very carefully put it under the side of the pillow he doesn't sleep on so he wouldn't accidentally crush the tooth fairy. What a thoughtful boy.

National Popcorn Day 2020

Sunday, January 19 was National Popcorn Day. Popcorn is often eaten while watching movies. We decide not to watch movies on Sundays in our home (when someone is sick is the exception- distraction is needed). We do consider Bible videos and Book of Mormon videos appropriate since they support the scriptures. So on Sunday, Jeremy was a sweetheart and made popcorn for the kids to eat while watching Book of Mormon videos (he gave up the last of the unpopped popcorn for this). My hero.

January 19 was also Brew a Potion Day but we've had mixed results with that one in the past. We've had good experiences such as having a hot chocolate bar in 2016. We've had not so good experiences such as the food coloring incident of 2013. This year we were going to do the hot chocolate bar again but we didn't get around to it. Oh well. The kids were happy with popcorn.

Catching Up on the Last Three Months- 3

I love my family.  I love the humor.  That was one of the things that drew me to my husband when we were first getting to know each other- his sense of humor.  I still love his sense of humor after so many years of being married.  I love that my kids have picked up on his style of humor.  Love it.  Love it.  Love it.
So I was delighted while I was looking through pictures to do my catching up to find this picture.

Give this girl a white board and dry erase marker and it is wonderful what she will come up with.

Continuing on with what we did in May, Jr. continued to earn things in Scouts and the whole family participated in pack meetings.

Jr. Jr. participated in his grade's patriotic program.  Good job, kid.

Lucky continued making videos with ZZ, though I've been too busy to edit and upload any since International Respect for Chickens Day.

May 18 was Mount Saint Helens Day.  We had mashed potato volcanoes.

Jr. and Jr. Jr. did a good job with their school dance festival again this year.  I'm not putting pictures on here of them but trust me when I say they did a good job.
And the kids ended the school year.  I neglected to take pictures when they got done on the last day of school.  It was a crazy busy day.  Oh well.
Here are some pictures of the kids later that day.

And here's Jeremy working on the Orem Library's Summer Reading Program's balloon sculpture that same day.

And that is where we were at the end of May.

I'll catch up on June later.

Donating Clothes

"Jesus taught us to clothe the naked and you can help."  For LIGHTtheWORLD today, Lucky and I sorted through clothes and donated a bunch to D.I.  Lucky had so much fun looking at clothes and saying, "We should give this to people to wear."  Such a sweetheart.

This evening while Nichole and I were working on a project for her for school,

Jeremy took the boys to walk around the lights at Riverwoods.

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2016

September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
We continued the tradition of going to Thanksgiving Point wearing a balloon costume to hand out balloon swords for children who talk like pirates.  We went to the Ashton Gardens this year.
I put up a YouTube video showing our past balloon pirate costumes.  This year's costume was based on the zombie pirate LeChuck from the computer game series Monkey Island.

Jr. Jr. and Lucky had a lot of fun helping hand out swords and having sword fights with kids.  When Thanksgiving Point heard we were going to be coming again for the holiday, they changed their theme for their Tales for Tots story time to be pirate-themed.  It was terrific.  The kids went on a treasure hunt with their pirate swords and made a pirate ship on paper out of cut out shapes.  Good stuff.

Since Jr. Jr. is in kindergarten this year, we told him that this would be his last year to do this for Talk Like a Pirate Day since he'll be in school all day next year in 1st grade.  He seemed disappointed with the idea.  Apparently this is a good tradition for him.  Later he told us that this wouldn't be his last year doing this because he could do it when he's a parent.  Awwww.  
We never have time to get free donuts at Krispy Kreme anymore so I just bought some at the grocery store this morning while I was getting supplies for dinner.  Nichole requested "squid pups," carrot hooks, and cupcakes with skull and crossbones on top.  We also had cream soda.  It's amazing what kind of traditions happen because these kids expect certain things to go with certain holidays.

Jeremy did put together a pirate ship out of furniture again, but it didn't last very long before some of the kids had some trouble with it and we had to put parts of it away.  So no epic balloon sword battle this year. 

It was a busy day and Jeremy and I stayed up late last night and got up really early this morning working on the balloon costume, swords, and that video (while watching Pirates of the Caribbean this morning).
He is currently sleeping on the couch and I am trying to hurry to get this post up so I can get some rest, too.

Ooh, ooh.  And I finally got to wear my pirate ship necklace that my parents gave me several years back.  I keep forgetting about it on Talk Like a Pirate Day but I remembered this year.  Hooray!

National Rubber Ducky Day 2016

We spent the last several days putting together a video for YouTube celebrating National Rubber Ducky Day on January 13.  In the video, we go on a search for "the elusive rubber ducky," but what do we find?  All sorts of other birds.  I took videos we had taken in the past (Winterish videos since some birds are around only in the Summer) and the other day I took Lucky and Jr. Jr. out to some places to record them, especially Jr. Jr. saying, "Is that a rubber ducky?  Is that a rubber ducky?" and recorded them saying, "No, that's a western scrub-jay" or "that's a Cooper's hawk."  I even got some more videos of birds that day.  I put them together in a cute little video, "Looking for the Elusive Rubber Ducky," and posted it this morning.
Then while Jr. and Nichole were in school, Jeremy and I took the younger boys out bird watching.  We went to a new spot for us and saw some new to us birds (some we'd seen before but hadn't got pictures).  We also saw some old familiar friends such as northern flickers.

Here are some of the friends we saw today.

 Tundra Swans

 Northern Shovelers

 Common Goldeneye

 Pied-billed Grebe

 Ruddy Ducks

 American Coots

Jeremy and I laughed about how it was a good thing I got my video up this morning because we got a lot more videos today and it would have taken longer to add so much.  Even though we did get better videos of American coots today.