Family Home Evening

Since Thanksgiving is coming up, we had a Family Home Evening lesson about being thankful, just like the Jaradites in the book of Ether in The Book of Mormon were thankful when the Lord help them cross the ocean.

We read a story from the November 2009 issue of The Friend magazine. The story was called "The Thankful Jar" and we made our own thankful jar to add slips of paper to. Lucky really got into it and went through so many slips of paper. I'm glad he's so thankful.

For our activity, we played Jenga. We hadn't played that in a while and we did a pretty good job if I do say so myself. I think it was the tallest tower we've ever made as a family. 

For our treat, Lucky made us melted snowmen with ice cream, chocolate chip eyes and mouth, and pretzel stick arms and a broom. Yay, creativity.

Other Things That Happened in January

Jeremy, Nichole, and Jr. went on a birding field trip the first day of the year. All three of them are participating in the birding challenge this year so they want to get out there among the birds. It also helps Nichole with a biology assignment.

Yep. Real birders go out in weather like this.

The three of them also went to the annual UCB dinner at the Golden Corral. Since I wasn't able to go, Jeremy made a sign of me holding Jet. It said, "Hi. My name is" then had my name with an arrow pointing to my face and Jet's name with an arrow pointing to his face. The sign was based on my Catch of the Day picture from December 11.
Also at that dinner, Jeremy and I were introduced as new officers in the group's leadership. We get to collect bird of the month articles for the monthly newsletter. It was so nice of them to think of us and ask us to help out in that way.

There's actually been quite a bit of birding already this month for these three.

In 2019 we studied the New Testament for our scripture study. In 2020 we are studying The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
We've challenged everyone to read and finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the year for their personal scripture study, besides us studying it together as a family. Lucky is using a chart from The Friend Magazine for January 2020. He is excited to be reading so many verses (not every single verse of every single chapter for a 6 year old, there's a list). I am amazed at his reading. He was not reading much when he started kindergarten. Now he's reading words like "commandments" and "accomplish." Those are not kindergarten words.

The Friend Magazine has lots of great ideas for studying the Book of Mormon. It also has other fun things. For Family Home Evening treat one night we had cookie dough dip which we dipped graham crackers in. That came from the January 2020 Friend.

A friend gave us a cheese, sausage, crackers set. Jeremy found several kinds of cheese on sale at the store and we had some crackers in the pantry and ham and pepperoni in the freezer. So we had a cheese, meat, and crackers night. The kids had fun trying out the different kinds. The hit of the show, though- the sweet hot mustard that came with the set. Lucky especially loved spreading it on his crackers. It's fun to try something new when the kids are up for it.

Ballet Day 2015

A few years ago, I was mentioning to a friend about how we celebrate holidays and that Ballet Day was coming up on February 7.  She told me about a dessert named after a famous ballerina, Pavlova.  Now that's cool.
It just so happens that in the September 2013 The Friend magazine, there is an article about a girl from Australia and one of her favorite treats is Pavlova.  And there is a recipe for it.  Woo-hoo.  So... I made Pavlova for Ballet Day this year. 

(Notice Nichole's ballet pose as she holds her piece)

I bought strawberries for it earlier in the week, but a friend of mine told me that her Australian and New Zealand friends insist that you have kiwi fruit with it so I picked up some kiwi fruit later on in the week.  Yumm.

And I forgot the whipped topping until it was in the oven, so Jeremy picked some up on his way home.  Thank you, Jeremy.

I let everyone decide how they wanted theirs topped: just whipped cream, whipped cream and one piece of strawberry.  I was the only one that wanted whipped cream, multiple strawberries, and multiple pieces of kiwi fruit.
Jr. offered to put the fruit on top of my piece.  How sweet.  I had to do something in the other room and I came back in to find this:

(I hope you don't mind the two different angles.  One is a better angle for a picture but the other shows better how much fruit there was.)

It's a good thing I like strawberry and kiwi fruit.

Since we don't have the DVD for Nichole's dance show this year yet, we watched some of last year's show.  She was doing ballet last year, too.  It was very appropriate to watch for the holiday.

Banana Lovers Day 2013

For Banana Lovers Day, August 27th, I made banana boats for the kids.  Bananas baked with marshmallows and chocolate chips inside.  I hadn't had these in years.  The August 2013 issue of The Friend Magazine had instructions for making them so I thought it would be perfect for the holiday.  I did them in the oven.  They were yummy.

National Pretzel Day 2012

 

My parents brought this holiday to my attention a few months ago (they know we like finding reasons to celebrate) and I've been looking forward to it ever since.  National Pretzel Day is April 26 every year.

We made homemade pretzels based on a recipe for CTR Pretzels from the January 2012 issue of The Friend Magazine.  As we made them, I got to share with the kids something from Grandma and Grandpa's experience.

While my parents were visiting Europe, they were able to see people making pretzels.  They rolled them out into long ropes then quickly flicked them into the pretzel shapes.  The pretzels were often eaten by dipping them in mustard and they were eaten along with sausages and "beverages."

 
We didn't have any sausages tonight.  We'd just eaten dinner so homemade pretzels were our snack afterwards.  Jeremy and I dipped ours in mustard and the four oldest of us had cream soda with our snack.

Jeremy read online the suggestion of boiling the pretzels for 30 seconds in a solution of baking soda and water before putting them in the oven, so he used 3 cups of water with 1 1/2 Tablespoons baking soda and boiled a couple of the pretzels so we could see if there was a difference.  There was a difference.  The boiled pretzels had more of the soft pretzel taste on the outside compared to the others which had more of the breadstick taste.  We also sprinkled course salt on the pretzels after they came out of the oven, though Jeremy read online to do that after they're boiled, before they go in the oven.  Next time we might try that.


And we couldn't just keep to the pretzel shape.  We also had to make a C-T-R in there.

So, Mom and Dad, anything you want to add in here?  Or correct?  I'm not that great at explaining things second hand.  But I am glad you made us aware of this holiday.