I Got Her

She commented that it looked like someone had already had some of the Koolaid. Then she tried to pour it out. She actually tried for a while but it wouldn't come out... because it was Jello. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I also made "garlic bread", some of it having garlic salt, some of it having cinnamon sugar. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

My kids are okay with the April Fool's jokes where we can all laugh but still get something good out of it.

St. Patrick's Day 2026

You know we like to get creative with our celebrating.

When planning St. Patrick's Day dinner, I asked my husband for suggestions. Thinking about cabbages, potatoes, he said what sounded good was stuffed cabbage. Mmmm.

At the time, I was listening to an audiobook set in Ireland, and they kept mentioning brown bread. So I figured brown bread would be good and a side of onion roasted potatoes.

As I was looking for a recipe for brown bread, I found one for German Brown Bread, and the creativity light bulb came on. 

So for St. Patrick's Day, we had Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage, German Brown Bread (recipe from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner Again), Irish roasted potatoes (onion roasted potatoes but with seasonings you would use in Ireland), and Utah lime green jello with whipped topping (because it's green. We did skip the carrot shaving this time).

For dessert we had Shamrock Shakes (adapted from Jordan Page's A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 1).

Yeah. Creativity is fun when it comes to celebrating. 

 

From Helper to Grouch

One day, Jet was being my big helper. We made jello with berries in it with whipped topping on top. It went along with our French Dip sandwiches we had from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 4, by Jordan Page (still going strong). Jet put a bunch of berries in and ate the rest. Cutie.

He was also in charge of FHE treat so we took suckers and wrapped them in paper towels and drew faces on them to make ghosts. He likes decorations so much, we made our own.

The next day, however, he was a grouch. He must have been celebrating the holiday, National Grouch Day on October 15.

We also listened to Oscar the Grouch sing "I Love Trash."

That was a rough day. I picked up Lucky and when I got home, I let him go in while I posted this on Instagram:

Not a minute later, Lucky came back to the van and said, "Jet wants you."

Later before Jeremy got home from work, I texted him what Jet said. Jet was in the same room and must have seen Jeremy's picture on my phone because he told me, "I don't want Daddy. I want Nichole." Grouch.

Our Vacation, Thy Creations, and Our Relations- Part 12

Road Trip!

Jeremy's parents and we met up with Jeremy's brother and his family at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. Jet really enjoyed it.

"Fish in the water. Look at the cool baby fish."

"Roar!"

"Look at the crab."

Touch pools are always fun. Jet learned to be gentle with the starfish.

The animal show was fun, too. It's hard to get an in-focus shot of a vulture when it's flying right at you, though. 

We didn't get to see any puffins in the wild during our coast trips but we were able to watch them at the zoo.

We got closer looks at common murres, too, which we did see out in the wild.

We always get a picture with the gorilla statue at Hogle Zoo so it's fun when we can get a picture with Ivan. If you've read (or watched) The One and Only Ivan, the statue at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium is of that gorilla.

Uncles and cousins are so fun. 

1,2,3, Whee!

Jet really took to his cousins. He did not want to be separated from them. So much so that when it was time for them to go home to get things ready for us to visit their house after the zoo, he was in tears, hand outstretched, crying for his cousins. Ahhhh.

After the zoo we did indeed visit them at their house and Jet loved meeting their ducks and helping feed them.

He also helped collect eggs.

Jr. Jr. helped, too, including cleaning. Thanks, boys.

 

Back at Jeremy's parents' house, we celebrated Eat Your Jello Day on July 12 and were tuckered out after another full fun day.

I'll share more of our wonderful vacation later.

National Utah Day 2024

So, Jr. was all the way in Oregon but Jr. Jr. was camping in Utah when National Utah Day happened on May 31. It was also National Smile Day so we smiled at each other.

As usual we decided to make foods known for being "Utah" foods.

Funeral potatoes, lime green jello with carrot shavings, and... pastrami burgers?

Apparently pastrami burgers are a Utah thing? Never heard of that until we were getting ready for this holiday. We did put fry sauce on the burgers, though. That is for sure a Utah thing.

I don't drink caffeine so we skipped the Diet Coke. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!

But Before Friday the 13th...

I told you it's been chaos.

I failed to blog about Peculiar People Day which was on January 10. When I told everyone that holiday was coming up but I only had orange soda on the menu plan so far, Jr. jumped in suggesting we have green jello with carrot shavings. Nichole suggested we have honey garlic chicken for our main dish. She pointed out that we always happen to have that dish when she has an event so she either has to eat it later or only has time to eat a small amount. Well, it just so happened she did have something going on that night but I was able to make dinner early enough she was able to get enough to eat before she and I left.

She was getting recognition and a certificate for having some art up in the school district offices. Apparently it was a piece she did in art class her sophomore year that her teacher submitted to the district art show.

We had quite the weather on the way up (luckily we made it in time) and on the way back. It was a very rainy night and reminded me of Oregon Winters. 

Nichole is taking digital photography again so she's supposed to be taking pictures. She used my phone to get some pictures as we traveled home in that weather.

Eat Your Jello Day

July 12 was Paper Bag Day so we had lunch in paper bags.

 

It was also Eat Your Jello Day so we checked out a book from the library called, "Celebrating 100 Years of Jell-O," then I made plain lime jello to go with dinner.

 It was National Simplicity Day. I didn't want to put effort into making any of the recipes in that book. 

"Lookin at a Thing in a Bag"

How many of you are familiar with Homestar Runner? It was thing when I was in college (and beyond). A website for our generation, referencing things from the '80s (and the 30's?- not my generation- and the future?), but done nowadays (can 20 years ago count as nowadays?). Ever heard of Strongbad, Trogdor, Teen Girl Squad? All from homestarrunner.com You can find videos on YouTube of some of the cartoons and Strongbad emails.

We introduced our children to it a few years ago and every once in a while random quotes will pop out of my mouth (or Jeremy's) and our children sometimes know what we're talking about. They do know the Trogdor song by heart. And if we say, "Throw the baby in the lake," they don't worry.

Anyway, for Family Home Evening activity on Paper Bag Day, July 12, Jeremy came up with a few activities and we wrote them on slips of paper and put them in paper lunch sacks. We rolled a dice then whatever number that was we looked in the bag and did that activity. We only got through a couple activities but we had fun.

We showed the kids the "Lookin at a Thing in a Bag" cartoon from Homestar Runner. I made Kool-aid and got a picture of a cool guy looking at a thing in a bag with a drink.

 

Dinner was simple since July 12 was also Simplicity Day. We had tortillas with peanut butter, raspberry jello without any added fruit for Eat Your Jello Day and I think we may have had cut up apples as well.

Jr. Jr. didn't stay simple with his jello, though. He had fun creating cool patterns in it but did eat it.

A May Weekend

Still working on catching up. Let me tell you about one of the last weekends in May.

 

Friday, May 21, the elementary school had their dance festival outside. It rained just a little. Jet and I went to watch. He's not used to going places where he has to be still so some of my videos of the boys are a bit shaky with me trying to keep Jet with me. Overall he did a pretty good job, though. Yay for snacks! The boys also did a good job with their dances.

That day was also Pizza Party Day. We had individual pizzas like we had last year for that holiday.

We were also going to have a balloon quad party to help Jeremy with a balloon arch, but Jr. ended up putting together all the quads himself which was a big help. Thanks, Jr.

Even though Jeremy had so much going on, he brought me home some flowers. Aww. He's a sweetie.

Saturday, May 22, Nichole and Jr. went with Jeremy to finish putting together and setting up the balloon arch.

Jeremy also helped out at the Create fair at Thanksgiving Point that day. It's like the maker fair he did before.

The kids and I waited for a delivery and while we were outside, we got out my unicycle and Jr. had some fun trying it out. It's been so many years but I did a little, too. 

That evening, I went to help Jeremy take the arch down, leaving the kids to make "mystery meat" pizza muffins since it was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday and he wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories. There were several different kinds of meat and I told the kids to put different meats in different muffins so nobody would know what they were eating until they bit into them.

May 22 was also Maritime Day so we had orange jello with "navel" oranges in it. Get it? Get it? Jr.'s idea. It was also Vanilla Pudding Day so we had vanilla pudding. 

And it was Solitaire Day. It would have been fun to go out birding looking for solitaires (yes, they are birds) but we didn't. But Jr. Jr. and Lucky did play some solitaire that day (just not together- tee hee).

 

Lucky wanted to learn how to make chicken cordon bleu casserole so Sunday, May 23, he learned. He did a good job following the recipe and putting ingredients in. He had a little help with mixing from Mom because when you have a big bowlful of stuff, it can sometimes be hard. I am glad my kids are interested in learning cooking skills that will be a big help for them in the future.

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This morning, Jr. let me know that he woke up to a spider crawling on him. Ew. I asked him if it was a big one or a little one. He told me it was a big one. Yuck. I told him I can relate to spiders crawling on me. Then he told me, "April Fool's!" Ho Ho. He got me on that one.

For after school snack, I made "muffins" for the kids. Ha Ha. Joke's on me. They were more like drop biscuits than muffins. Oh well. Nichole watched as I put a couple chocolate chips on the top of each muffin before putting them in the oven. "Oh, chocolate chip muffins. Yumm." Then she kept expressing how they smelled so good and she and Jr. were anxious to have them. But I made them wait until the younger boys got home from school so they could all eat them together. Heh Heh Heh. Joke's on them. They were cheddar and dill muffins (with chocolate chips on top). Ha Ha Ha. Joke's on me again. The kids didn't have a reaction. Finally Lucky asked what kind of muffins they were and people expressed their thoughts about them but in the moment, nobody said anything. Sigh.

I also told the kids, "Joke's on you. Mom's not making dinner. Fend for yourself. You can have colored flavored sugar water, though." Nichole got the pitcher out of the fridge and tried to pour herself some then stopped and said, "Ha Ha," sarcastically. Ha Ha, indeed. I couldn't believe I got her. She said it wasn't colored flavored sugar water. I assured her it was colored flavored sugar water, just gelatinous colored flavored sugar water. The kids enjoyed eating it with a spoon. I've been doing this jello/koolaid thing for so many years, I'm amazed that I actually do surprise the kids.

Jr. Jr. came home with a word search for his parents to do. None of the words listed were actually in among the letters. Ha Ha Ha. He didn't get me, though. I suspected it. He said his teacher did it to them at school.

Later in the evening, we told jokes and listened to jokes. Family joke night. Woohoo.