Movie Night!

June 12 was National Movie Night. I was so busy that day. There was pizza dough in the fridge so I told the kids to make pizza and to put fresh basil on it. I got basil from our garden that morning for that reason.

I also told the kids to decide on a movie to watch for Movie Night. They picked Matilda so we watched that while eating pizza and I completely forgot about us having popcorn during the movie. Nobody else mentioned it. Jr. did make some cookies, though. 

Matilda was also a good choice because June 12 was Magic Day. 

 

Another day, I used fresh basil again in a pasta dish.

 

Garden Update

Jeremy wanted to do something special for our garden this year so we put together an irrigation drip system. It was nice to work together to do it. We make a good team. I hope it helps the plants be happy.

The zucchini obviously like it. Above is the difference of 4 days. Both the zucchini and tomatoes are thriving.

 

One of our bell pepper plants is having troubles. It's been going back and forth between being droopy and being perky. I don't know what will happen with it because I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Is it getting too little water? Is it getting too much water? Is it something else? I don't know.

Overall, the garden is doing well. We even have a jalapeno growing. We'll see how the garden is in a few more weeks.

 

On a related note, we decided not to leave our watering can outside anymore when we're not using it.

 

Nature Is Cool, Birding Is Cool

June 10 was Black Cow Day. We were too busy and it got too late to make root beer floats with chocolate syrup in them.

So we celebrated the next day, observed. Nichole and Jet made them for everyone. Jet put in the chocolate syrup and Nichole put in the ice cream and the root beer. Mwah (chef's kiss). They were very well balanced. I was impressed.

 

Before we had our black cows, though, Nichole and I had the opportunity to go on a bird walk with Utah County Birders. We've missed the last couple they've done so we enjoyed getting to go this time. We started at Vivian Park and walked along the Provo River Parkway for a while. We had a huge group of people. It was nice to see so many people show up. There were a lot of new birders and some that are new to the area. It was hit and miss with some of the birds, though. You never know with a huge group of people if it's going to scare the birds or not.

At one point several people saw a beaver. Nichole and I didn't.

Bird of the night for me was the catbird. I kept getting glimpses of catbirds but they wouldn't stay in sight for long. I saw one flying across the trail or hopping over on the side but not long enough to even look with the binoculars. Until... on the walk back, one finally decided to hop out and show itself for the small group of people we were with who had not gone ahead with the rest. So Nichole and I got a good look and got to get pictures. Yay. It's been a while since I've seen a catbird.

Nature's cool, man.

Books Are Cool, Reading Is Cool

Monday, June 8, was Name Your Poison Day.

At one point, Lucky looked at the calendar and called out, "Name your poison, Nichole!"

Without missing a beat, Nichole called back, "Ricin!" 

 

I told her the Daisy Dalrymple books I've been reading have had poison used several times. Mystery books are cool. I like that we've got generational mystery readers. My mom introduced me to Agatha Christie books when I was younger and I got into them. I introduced Nichole to Agatha Christie books when she was younger and she got into them.

 

For the Orem Library Adult Reading Challenge this year, I needed a book recommendation from a friend. Nichole recommended a mystery book for me. She's my friend.

It is fun to have book discussions with my children. I love that books and reading are one thing we all have in common in our family. We may have differences in tastes. I wouldn't recommend my "kissing books" to everybody in the family. I did make everyone watch the movie, Seeking Persephone, but only a couple of us have or will read the book. It doesn't stop me from sharing with Jeremy when I'm really enjoying parts of those books, though. 

We do all enjoy similar books from time to time, though. I've taken book recommendations from Lucky before who reads more junior fiction books than I do generally. We all like Terry Pratchett books on some level. Audiobooks on car trips can be fun. We went through the whole (original) Fablehaven series on audiobooks a while back when we were traveling more. 

 

Isn't this funny? I just wanted to mention the funny interaction that happened on Name Your Poison Day then I kept going about mystery books then books in general and... blah blah blah blah blah.

Books are cool. Mystery books are cool.

Here is a picture I made three of my children pose for so I could put it on this blog post.

Oh, look. Jr. Jr. is reading a Fablehaven book. Lucky is reading a Terry Pratchett book. Nichole is reading a mystery. I did not tell them what books to grab. I just told them to grab a book. Ha Ha.

Family Home Evening Circus

One day after school, Jet was excited to show us he got circus tickets. How fun. Now we knew we weren't going to take him to the actual circus but we knew we could create a circus at home.

My idea for it was watching a circus movie and eating popcorn. Simple celebrating like we did with Drive-In Movie Day.

Jeremy, awesome husband that he is, suggested some other ideas somewhat last minute to add to the "experience" so it was still simple but this is how it turned out for Family Home Evening this week (when we finally got around to doing this activity).

Jet picked a family member to come with him to the "circus" because he had two tickets. He kept changing his mind so I don't know who finally came with him but it doesn't matter because again it was mostly for him.

So... he (and his guest) presented his tickets to whoever was taking them. We had "Entry of the Gladiators" (the epitome of circus music) playing while they watched Jr. Jr. juggle light up balls. 

Lucky made Jet a balloon animal. 

Jeremy filled the stock pot to the top with popcorn. 

We also had more gummy sharks (because Jr. Jr. requested them) and some peanuts. 

At one point I looked at the kids on the couch and said, "And there are the clowns." Tee Hee. They're so patient with me.

Actually Jeremy showed the kids a picture of him with clown makeup on and I complained about how I never liked clown makeup when it was requested for shows. Yeah, we can do circus things.

We watched the movie, The Greatest Showman, because... of course. I didn't fall asleep and watched the whole thing.

FSY

Jr. Jr. missed some of our celebrations last week because he got to go to FSY. Luckily this time he wasn't "assigned" a place and time so we got to choose and chose for him to go to BYU like Nichole and Jr. went years ago. Much easier when it's so close.

Anyway, I dropped him off Monday so he missed the bird show at the Provo Library but I picked him up Saturday morning so he didn't miss the "drive-in movie" that night.

I got to BYU at a good time to pick him up but on the way back... the Utah County Marathon was happening so that affected traffic. To make a long story short, we drove down to Springville while he told me about FSY and we took the freeway back up to be on the "home" side of the race.  

Jr. Jr. had a good time. He even put together and performed a juggling routine at the variety show.

I'm glad he had another good experience. I love that kid so much.

Drive-In Movie Day

June 6 was Drive-In Movie Day.

Jet got to sit in a box "car" with paper plate wheels, with a pillow and a Switch steering wheel inside. He got to "drive" into the living room (thanks, Nichole) 

and ordered the Deluxe movie package, which consisted of watching a movie and snacks: pizza, nachos, popcorn, candy, lemonade. 

He had a blast. The food was brought out to him (I made the other kids serve themselves), and the kids and I enjoyed a movie, the animated Disney Robin Hood. I enjoyed most of the movie. I fell asleep before it was over.

It took some effort (mostly preparing the food. Nichole put toppings on the pizza, Jr. made the popcorn, and Lucky made the lemonade) but the car was very simple.

We love finding reasons to celebrate. 

Cheese and Gingerbread Donuts

June 4 was National Cheese Day. I decided to watch a cheesy movie to celebrate. I didn't finish it.

I did however make dinner with cheese in it.

 

June 5 was National Gingerbread Day and National Donut Day. I combined them and made Baked Gingerbread Donuts from averiecooks.com 

My gingerbread loving youngest child couldn't stop eating them. 

I Forgot

I mentioned something to Jeremy and the kids while we were on our Southern Utah trip that I forgot to blog about so now a while after the fact, I'm going to share it with you.

 

This is the only picture I have that sort of shows the general landscape we were in so here you go.

 

Anyway, here's the story:

Back when the youngest boys had their end of the year dance festival at the elementary school, Lucky's grade danced to the song "What Time Is It" from High School Musical 2.

While we were in St. George area, we were passing a golf course/resort and I mentioned that this area looks like where they filmed the second High School Musical movie. I knew it was filmed somewhere around there. As we were passing an entrance, I saw the name of the resort and quickly looked up where the movie was filmed. It was that exact place. Ha Ha. So I told everyone, but especially Lucky since he had danced to the song from the beginning of the movie, that we were passing where it was filmed. Ha Ha.

 

What made me think about it was that I recently watched the movie because of the opening number which was not filmed in Southern Utah and remembered I was going to put it in my blog post about our trip but I forgot. 

 

Another Palindrome Day

6-2-26 was another palindrome day. I wrote the date on bags I was filling with rotisserie chicken Nichole divided up. Thanks, Nichole. 6-2-26 was National Rotisserie Chicken Day.

It was also the anniversary of when Babe Ruth retired. We talked about Ruth in the Bible for scripture study.

 

6-3-26 was not a palindrome day. It was Repeat Day. I asked Jeremy, "Pete and Repeat were in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was left?" He did not have a satisfying answer. 

I wore the same shirt as the day before. I did have to go back and do some things over that day. Sigh.

The day before I took Nichole and Jet to the Provo Library for some library activities. On Repeat Day, I took Jeremy to the library to do a story trail with me. "Crocodile's Treason." The kids and I read that one on a story trail back in 2022.

Lots of Summer Reading activities going on.

This is Motherhood

This is motherhood.

I do a dinosaur maze...

...And my child claims my prize.

Welcome to Summer Reading! 

Summer Reading!

The theme for the Summer Reading Programs for both Orem and Provo libraries this year is "Unearth A Story." 

Jeremy designed a Triceratops skeleton for Orem Library and built most of it with some help from us. The day he built it, after building the head,

Lucky, Nichole, Jet, and I came to the library. Nichole blew up balloons, Jet handed balloons to those needing them, Lucky worked on the back vertebrae, Jeremy worked on the frill (and also the back vertebrae), and I worked on the tail.

After a while, I took the kids home, then came back to help Jeremy finish the balloon sculpture. One day build. Woohoo.

Jeremy reminded me to get juggling pictures and videos. That is a cool background, wouldn't you say?  

By the way, Jet and I matched that day. Aren't we adorable?

 During the kickoff event, we made sure to get a family picture. 

The kickoff event for Provo Library was about modern dinosaurs- birds. We got to watch a bird show and I learned some new things I didn't know about certain birds. It was pretty fun.

The presenter showed us a Lanner Falcon, 

Sulfur-crested Cockatoo,

Harris's Hawk,

Eurasian Eagle Owl,

and Siberian Eagle Owl. 

 

There are a lot of paleontology/archeology themed activities and events for the libraries this Summer. I'm not complaining. You know I love dinosaurs... and birds.

 

I love that the day of the bird show was June 1, Dinosaur Day.

It was also Flip a Coin Day so when Jr. Jr. had a decision to make earlier in the day, I flipped a coin for him. It was inside a vehicle so I had to flip it several times before finally catching it right. Have you tried flipping a coin inside a vehicle before? Not as easy as when you have more open space.