More Potato Days

Just like last year we had a couple of potato days in May. 

May 17 was National Idaho Day so we had onion roasted potatoes with our dinner.

 

May 18 was Mount St. Helens Day. We had our traditional mashed potato volcanoes with gravy lava, broccoli trees, and "those poor people" raisins. While I made the mashed potatoes and Nichole made the gravy, we talked about how the gravy could be lahar instead. Mount St. Helens definitely had those mudflows. 

While we were eating dinner, one of the kids was having trouble with his mashed potatoes. I told him to pile them up then make ridges down the sides and say, "This means something." He didn't know the reference. I went over and helped him make his mashed potatoes into a volcano with a crater then he put the gravy in it and took pictures.

We sent the kids to bed that night then Jeremy and I watched Dante's Peak. I haven't seen that in a while. It was fun to watch it again.

Days of Mashed Potatoes

May 17 was Idaho Day so we had mashed potatoes on hot dogs.

May 18 was Mount St Helens Day. We had mashed potato volcanoes with gravy lava, broccoli trees, and "those poor people" raisins.

The Poor Innocent People

May 18 was the 40th anniversary of the big eruption of Mount St. Helens. We made mashed potato volcanoes and decorated them then poured gravy "lava" in them so they overflowed. Broccoli represented trees (of course) and raisins represented innocent people (according to Lucky).

"Oh no. The poor innocent people."

As we built and destroyed (yumm), Jeremy and I talked to the kids a bit about the eruption in 1980 and about trips to the mountain in later years.
We were tempted to watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind because of the mashed potato mountains but we didn't. I did say while making my mountain, "This means something."

Since May 18 was also National Cheese Soufflé Day, Nichole and I watched the movie, Sabrina, where Audrey Hepburn's character goes to France and learns to make soufflé. "One two three crack. New egg."

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.

Mount St. Helens' Day 2016

To celebrate the anniversary of when Mount St. Helens blew its top in 1980, Jeremy and I both tried very hard not to blow our tops.  Sometimes it seems that the 2-year old picks the days when we're trying extra hard to keep our tempers to get into the most mischief.  Why is that?
Besides not erupting, for dinner I made myself a spaghetti volcano.  Tee Hee.

Volcano!

My first time making a baking soda and vinegar volcano.  Really.  We've done volcano cakes with our friend, Nessa, before, but this was the first time doing a volcano with vinegar and baking soda.
And a great day to do it since May 18 this year is the 35th Anniversary of Mount St. Helens blowing her top in 1980.

I made play-doh to go around a water bottle to make the volcano, poured some warm water and a little dishwashing liquid in it, added some baking soda, then poured colored vinegar in to make it erupt.
I got the idea from about.com.

I also served mashed potatoes with dinner so people could make their own mountains.
This is what Nichole came up with.

Ah, so much fun.  And it's funny but I didn't even think to put on the "erupting volcano cake of doom" video for us to watch this time.  I guess it was just too exciting watching our own erupting volcano.
Now Jeremy and I are going to watch "Joes versus the Volcano."

Mount St Helens Day 2012

We kept our celebration simple this year for the 32nd anniversary of the big eruption of Mount St Helens.
 
The kids and I watched the video we made with our friend, Nessa, a few years ago.  "Erupting Volcano Cake of Doom."
And we worked together to do a volcano themed word search.

And Nichole drew a volcano picture and wrote about it.  She learned about it from the Magic School Bus so she added that to her picture.

Those last two activities, I printed off from the Homeschooling guide on about.com.

Oh, and I also gave the kids a short lesson about what happened when Mount St Helens erupted on May 18, 1980.

Scratch paper.  Isn't it great?

Again.  Simple ways to celebrate, but fun nonetheless.

Volcano Party

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of when Mount St. Helens blew her top. The BIG eruption back in 1980. We have some friends that we like to celebrate this anniversary with so we got together again another year for a volcano party.

For dinner, we had mashed potato volcanoes. And for dessert: Volcano Cake. You can learn more about making a volcano cake with this youtube video.

Nessa did most of the work although Jr. helped her spread the frosting on. That boy loves chocolate.

We all enjoyed the eruption.

And of course we all enjoyed eating the cake afterward.

This is a fun tradition.