When Kids Remember Past Creativity

Getting back into things after vacation isn't always the easiest thing. Luckily, I put together some freezer meals before we left so we were able to have food ready to go and Jeremy picked up a few things at the store such as fresh spinach so we were able to celebrate Fresh Spinach Day on July 16. We got tamale casserole out of the freezer to go along with it. 

Since it was Ginger Rogers' Birthday, Nichole remembered a time when Jr. Jr. got creative with letter rearranging (see my July 26, 2022 post about it) so we had a choice between ginger ale and orange soda to celebrate her birthday this year.

Since it was also Personal Chef Day, Jr. was our personal chef and made us pancakes. Later we watched the movie Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn because in it she is at cooking school. "One two three, crack. New egg." At one point she is also going to make food for him- be his personal chef for an evening.

 

July 17 was National Hot Dog Day and Yellow Pigs Day so of course we made pigs in a blanket with yellow mustard. Nichole wore her racing pigs hat which she won on Yellow Pigs Day 10 years ago (see my July 17, 2014 blog post about it).

 

July 18 was Sour Candy Day. Some family members ate sour candy.

July 20 was Moon Day. I had every intention of getting out Oreos for us to make phases of the moon cookies then I forgot. I do that sometimes. We did have astronaut sandwiches with dinner.

July 21 was National Junk Food Day and National Ice Cream Day. When kids came to me asking if they could eat certain foods, I would tell them, "I don't care. Eat whatever you want," to paraphrase Muppets Most Wanted.

July 23 was Vanilla Ice Cream Day. Jr. made S'mores Milkshakes from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3. 

We are definitely getting a lot of use out of those books. It's actually pretty amazing how many recipes that work for certain holidays are near where I'm already menu planning from in the books (within a few weeks). I'm not talking about Easter and Halloween (though there are recipes for those holidays), either. It's holidays like Vanilla Ice Cream Day like I mentioned or Eat Brussels Sprouts Day (I blogged about that one on February 1, 2024).

 

Well, there you go. Creativity and meal planning.

Pacific Northwest Trip- part 1

July 16 was Ginger Rogers' Birthday. I wore my bow earrings to celebrate at church where I gave a talk and cried a lot because I was running on little sleep trying to get ready for a trip and getting up early every day to support Jeremy and get him to work early. Jet kept me up late the night before which fact I was able to use in my talk. It's life, real life. And it's okay to come to church with how things are in real life. It's right to be there.

After church, we finished packing and the kids and I drove to Idaho to visit our friends. They were so sweet to feed us and let us stay overnight, even though we got there much later than we wanted to. Part of that was we had an issue with our van on the way so it set us back a while. Traveling on the hottest day of the year. Sigh.

I love our friends. The next day, July 17, was Global Hug Your Kids Day so I tried to get pictures of me hugging my kids before we headed out and at most stops. Some of the pictures didn't turn out so well but I got enough pictures it's fine if I don't put every single one on here.

It was also Yellow Pigs Day so I specifically requested Nichole wear her Cook's Racing Pigs hat she won way back on Yellow Pigs Day in 2014.

Since it was also Ocean Day in Japan, we joked that we were headed toward the Pacific Ocean, as we were headed to Oregon.

My parents met us partway there and my dad took most of the boys while my mom rode with Nichole, Jet, and me. That last leg of the trip went so fast because my mom and I were chatting so much. I also made sure to get pictures of my parents hugging their kid- me. My mom tried to get pictures of her hugging her grandkids as well. Lucky escaped too many times, though, so we had to be sneaky and several days later, we got a picture of her hugging him.

It's been 5 years. It was high time I went back home for a visit. It was also Jet's first time in Oregon.

Ginger Rogers' Birthday

We like celebrating Ginger Rogers' Birthday every year on July 16. Sometimes we watch Ginger Rogers' movies. Sometimes we dance around. Sometimes we drink ginger ale. This year was one of those years. Not the dancing and movie watching, but the ginger ale drinking.

Jr. asked about ginger ale for Ginger Roger's birthday. I told him that would justify the ginger part but what about the roger part. He told me when I said yes, he'd say, "Roger Roger."

Creativity gets rewarded in this family, which is why Jr. Jr. got orange soda because if you rearrange the letters in "orange" you sort of get "roger." r-o-g-a?-e-and cut off part of the 'n' to get 'r'. Told you creativity is rewarded. So ginger soda and rogaer soda.

July 16 was also National Fresh Spinach Day and Personal Chef's Day so we had salad bar with spinach for dinner that evening so people could prepare their salad however they wanted.

Bonding Time

July 16 was Ginger Rogers' Birthday. We didn't watch a Ginger Rogers movie that day but the kids were so funny and put on a quick puppet show based on the song, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" from the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie, Shall We Dance? I put the video of them doing it on YouTube.

July 16 was also Personal Chef's Day so we had personal pizzas on tortillas just like last year.

Both Jr. Jr. and Lucky got bonding time with parents that night. Jr. Jr. and Jeremy went owling and ate "chuckles." They didn't see any owls but Jr. Jr. told me when they got home about seeing mice and deer and I could tell he had a great time.

Lucky and I played video games while wearing our bathrobes and Jet looked on. Lucky's choice. By the end I had to take my bathrobe off, though, because it's Summertime and soooo hot. Also by the end, Lucky decided that even though we were on the same team playing Mario Kart, he would try to defeat me. Bwah ha ha ha. Jr. made us all some popcorn to snack on as well. During a pause in the game, Lucky brought out a surprise. He got us each a can of pop (himself and me, not Jet). So cute. Jr. had ginger ale because of Ginger Rogers' birthday. Because Jr. was so helpful, he and Nichole got to watch a show in another room while Lucky and I had our bonding time.

Ginger Rogers' Birthday 2020

July 16 was Ginger Rogers' Birthday. The movie Shall We Dance? with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire has the song, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." You know the song. "Potato, potahto. Tomato, tomahto. Let's call the whole thing off." For dinner we had spaghetti with pasta sauce made from tomatoes... or tomahtoes.
Lucky decided to play hot potato... or potahto.

The kids started watching the movie, Shall We Dance? though they never made it to the "Potato, potahto. Tomato, tomahto" song.
Jr. stayed up to watch the movie, Goosebumps, with a ticket and got to drink "ginger" ale as well as eating popcorn. The ginger ale was my dad's suggestion.

Since it was also Personal Chef's Day, earlier in the day the kids made their own personal pizzas on tortillas.

Catching Up- July... Until Now

Whoo. I made it to the current month with catching up. Happy day! So here we go with what's been happening so far in July.

July is the month of BBQs.

We tried out Jeremy's Father's Day present a few times.

Jeremy's sister and her kids came through town moving back to Washington. We had a BBQ.

Jeremy and our friend Debbie created this balloon sculpture for a baby gender reveal. Super cute and it worked great. Colored balloons were inside the big balloon (and some baby shaped balloons). A tack was taped to the end of a wooden dowel to pop the big one.

So all you people out there who want to do a gender reveal party, hire them. It's a great way to do it. They can do any sculpture you want.

Most of us went to a 4th of July BBQ at friends'. It was fun to catch up with people we haven't seen in a while. While there we got wind, we got rain, we ended up eating indoors while it poured outside. Once the rain stopped, it cleared up enough for us all to enjoy a normal BBQ atmosphere (except it was colder- one of my children thought to bring a jacket). The boys were able to play, Nichole and I worked on a crossword puzzle, I socialized, and at the end of the night we watched fireworks and then fought the traffic to travel home.

Lucky was having too much trouble before we left, so Jeremy volunteered to be the consequence giver when Lucky lost the opportunity to go to the BBQ. He did show love however and they ended up having some good one on one time and watched a few fireworks themselves.

We celebrated Nichole's birthday. We didn't have a BBQ. We had chimichangas. We also had cake and ice cream. Nichole decided to decorate her cake with Reese's Pieces in the shape of a dragon.

On Video Games Day, July 8, there was video game playing... but not a BBQ.

Jr. Jr. went to a birthday party for a friend. Jeremy made a Pokemon balloon for Jr. Jr. to take.

Jeremy and I went to see Spider-man: Far from Home. Woo-hoo. Date! By the way, I loved it. Spider-man is my favorite superhero right now and after watching that movie, he still is.

Nichole went to Youth Conference with our ward and had a good time. It was a two day event but the kids got to come home overnight. While she was headed home, I had the opportunity to meet up with other birders for a late night owling trip. Unfortunately the weather was such that the owls were hunkered down and sometimes responded to our calls, sometimes didn't, but they never came out for us to see them. Except for some Western screech owls at our last stop.

July 13 was Embrace Your Geekiness Day. Besides the hugs going around (embrace your geek, remember?), Jeremy, Nichole, Jr., and I watched some Doctor Who, Jeremy played some Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and we decided to make food from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook so we had toad in the hole (we pronounce it toad 'n the 'ole) and derby savory pudding (we pronounce it darby). The cookbook didn't have a recipe for butterbeer so Jeremy found one online.

Our ward had an ice cream social one Sunday, but we were separated into different neighborhoods so there wasn't as big a crowd at the church. So we got together with a few other families in our area at someone's house and enjoyed ice cream and socializing.

Monday, July 15, was Gummi Worm Day. Lucky was in charge of FHE treat that day so he liked the idea of eating dirt. Mmmmm. It was good.

We've been trying to do mommy-child and daddy-child dates with our kids so we did two the next day. Jr. Jr. and I went to Watergardens Cinema to watch Toy Story 4. They have a good deal that on Tuesdays you can get a ticket, small popcorn, and small drink for $5. Jr. Jr. loved that his root beer kept going through the hole at the top so he had to keep sipping it off the lid. He found it quite funny. The movie was cute but the best thing was having that bonding time with my son.

Lucky's date with Daddy was to go camping in the backyard. They also planned to do camping food and decided to invite the whole family and our neighbor to come out and grill with them (yet another BBQ).

After dinner, the other kids and I went inside to watch a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie because July 16 is Ginger Rogers' birthday. Jr. also worked on a project for UVU Prep while we watched.

Jeremy and Lucky ate snacks and watched a movie in the tent and when they woke in the morning had some fun giggling and talking together.

That next day, we went back to the library to participate in the Orem Express Escape Room. The train broke down in the past and we had to work together to fix it and make it back to 2019. It was the first time most of us had done an escape room and we had a good time. It was good for all ages and the younger kids did a good job with their parts. The other team that was supposed to be with us didn't show up so it ended up being just our family. And we made it. We escaped to 2019.
Well done, Orem Library. That was a good family activity.

Another thing we did for the Summer reading program was the boys wrote notes to people in our ward and delivered them using their scooters.

They've been interested in finding ways to do service lately. Jr. Jr. and Lucky have been making charts and when they fill them up they get a reward. It's been cute to see them giving hugs, refilling water bottles, cleaning their room without being asked for a certain amount of time, doing laundry, and all sorts of things. Thanks, boys. It's good to see you guys finding ways to want to help out.

Jr. finished UVU Prep for this Summer. We went to his closing celebration and got to see some projects he'd been working on. Well done, son.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. CBS showed what was broadcast those days 50 years ago, commercials and everything. The launch of Apollo 11 and then four days later the landing and moon walk on July 20. We of course celebrated by watching on those days.

One of our kids said to us, "You were probably too young to remember when this actually happened." Um... yeah. We weren't born yet. This was before any of our parents were even married. I talked to my mom about it and it did happen while she was dating my dad. She told me that my dad was at her house watching it with her dad while my mom was at work.

Nichole and Jeremy went out on a birding field trip together. Good bonding time. They saw a black phoebe which they hadn't seen in this area of Utah before. We've seen them at Zion National Park and in Oregon but not here.

Yesterday, the kids went out to help the neighbors weed for a little bit then bought snow cones from their snow cone stand and stuck around to help them out with the stand (and run around and play).

Last night for FHE we decided to do theme night (we haven't done that in a while). We had circus foods while watching the live action Dumbo movie.

I had the kids each decorate a bag which we later put popcorn in. They got on a Winnie the Pooh theme, though Lucky started with Link from Legend of Zelda. Nichole did a fairy scene. Jr. Jr. did colored circles.

And here we are to the present.