We've Been Busy

End of the school year is always busy. It's Maycember. I'll tell you about some of this year's things later.

We can't always do our planned celebrating because there's this event or that event going on. We celebrate in other ways besides the holidays, see?

So in the midst of all of it, Lucky danced for me on Dance Like a Chicken Day, May 14. I appreciated it because I didn't even look at the Calendar of Celebration that day but he did.

Thank you, son. You are amazing.  

I Learn So Much from the Library

I like to get "Daily Fun with Your Little One!" calendars from the Orem Library. Sometimes we do activities. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes I learn about holidays that I don't have on our Calendar of Celebration.

I learned from that calendar that October 8 is World Octopus Day. Jet and I watched some Wild Kratts videos about underwater creatures.

Later we read a story about how Oliver Octopus doesn't like olives on his pizza then looked at the accompanying picture showing Oliver Octopus holding a slice of pizza with olives on it. Sigh.

 

It was also Fluffernutter Day. We had fluffernutter sandwiches and Olloch the Glutton's Caramel Biscuit Bars. Gotta have something from the Fablehaven Cookbook on Fluffernutter Day. Oh, and our fluffernutter sandwiches had actual marshmallow fluff this time because Jeremy had to stop by the grocery story anyway.

We tried once again to look for the Northern Lights at Deer Creek Reservoir. No lights but the stars looked cool.

Pacific Northwest Trip- Part 3

Jet got his first haircut while we were in Oregon. Mostly to get the hair out of his eyes (and there's only so much you can do with a wiggly three year old). His curls stayed. Phew.

 

The day we left was Gorgeous Grandma Day, July 23. 

We got pictures with my children's gorgeous grandma in Oregon then we drove to Washington to see my children's other gorgeous grandma who gave us ice cream for Vanilla Ice Cream Day. I love that we have relatives who like to help us celebrate.

 

July 24 was National Cousins Day but we celebrated that later in the week when Jeremy's sister and brother who live in Washington came for a visit and brought their kids. We visited Jeremy's other brother and his family in Idaho back in March.

July 25 was National Hot Fudge Sundae Day. Guess what Grandma gave us. More ice cream!

 

Jeremy flew to Washington. He brought me flowers. Awww. Although I'd take my husband over flowers any day, I still enjoyed them. It helped me celebrate Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day on July 27.

After taking pictures for that holiday, we put the flowers back and Jeremy and I went on a nice walk around the neighborhood, just the two of us. Sigh. That's a contented sigh. I was so happy to have my husband with me again.

July 27 was also National Sleepyhead Day in Finland. Thanks for the use of the squirt bottle, Mom.

I didn't actually squirt him. It just makes for a good picture. 

It was also National Chili Dog Day. And Refreshment Day.

 

July 28 was Beatrix Potter's Birthday. We watched the movie, Miss Potter, after a long day of seeing animals like you might in Beatrix Potter books. There was a rabbit and a squirrel in the yard and lots and lots of wildlife at Nisqually Wildlife Refuge where we took all the kids this trip.

I must admit I am amazed at the different colors of the tree frogs we saw. We spent I don't know how much time looking at them.

My brain must have been working just right that day because we played an impromptu game as we were walking where someone would call out a date on the calendar and I would say off the top of my head what holiday or "reason to celebrate" was on that day. Some would take a bit longer to remember than others but I was getting them all. I couldn't believe it. My family couldn't either. I've just been calendaring celebrations for so many years that a lot of them stick with me. Maybe the exercise of running around Nisqually helped get the oxygen to my brain and helped me think better. It was fun.

While we were there, Lucky did activities in a workbook so he could become a Junior Refuge Manager. He was "sworn in" and got a badge.

It was like the Junior Ranger patches the three oldest earned at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge way back in 2016 (we had to buy their patches then). There are Junior Ranger programs you can do all over the place.

July 28 was also Milk Chocolate Day. Again we had chocolate milk.

 

July 29 was National Lasagna Day. Mmmmm, do I love lasagna.

 

Our Pacific Northwest trip was awesome and well needed for all of us.

More Dinner Club

Here are some more of my #dinnerclub posts that don't fit in with the holidays. I've told you I use our calendar of celebration for menu planning a lot. That's why there aren't as many of these posts. But I still like posting about dinner club. And I do better with having a variety of foods at the dinner table because of it.

Ice Cream for Breakfast

February 1 was Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. It's not on our calendar because it's every first Saturday in February, not the same date every year.
I enjoyed some ice cream in a mug of hot chocolate for breakfast. Yumm.

I don't feel bad at all about having ice cream for breakfast. I also don't feel bad about letting Jr. Jr. and Lucky both veg in front of the TV. They both had coughs so TV is a distraction when people are sick.
Sweet little Lucky, when I went to set up the humidifier for him in the early hours of the morning, he told me not to get too close because he didn't want to get me or Jet sick. Awww. I love my children and I will be grateful when cold/flu season is over.

The weather was good that day and Jeremy and the two oldest went to a gull identification clinic like Nichole and I went to last year. Yay for birding.

While they were looking at gulls, they ran into some friends who were out looking for bald eagles. Birding is fun for the whole family.

It's a good thing Nichole didn't have the boys' cough because that evening she went to a girls' night at a friend's house. She had dinner and watched a movie and took brownies to share. She had a great time. The boys were happy that she had leftover brownies to bring home. Yumm. We like brownies.

National Pizza Day

Today was National Pizza Day. Jeremy is writing this. He is also getting his back rubbed. Here is a picture of pizza. That is all.

Now back to getting my back rubbed...

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.