Zelda Muffins

February 20 was National Muffin Day. We made muffins.

February 21 was the 40th Anniversary of the Legend of Zelda. Some family members played Zelda games. We didn't do anything big to celebrate the 40th like we did with the 35th. 

What we did do was Jeremy, Jet, and I went for a walk at Farmington Bay and got to see some birds. 

February 23 was National Rationalization Day and it was National Banana Bread Day. I rationalized making banana bread and I did.

 

February 25 was National Chili Day and National Toast Day so I made chili and we toasted bread and had chili on toast. 

Legend of Zelda... with a Kazoo

Way back in 2009, I blogged about our kids (then only two of them) play acting Majora's Mask with balloons. See my blog post from August 21, 2009.

Two of the balloons they had were a Cucco (chicken) mask and an ocarina to play a certain tune for animals to follow them. That's how it is in the game.

Nowadays my kids play the actual Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask game. Jet watches and has learned the tune to make animals follow him. He has gotten into playing it on the kazoo and expects family members to follow him. He's so cute.

I love this family.

Catching Up February 2025 part 2 (more like 3 because my Valentine post fit in with the catching up)

February 17 was President's Day. Jet helped me with the flag picture that day.

It was also National Cabbage Day. I made egg rolls one of the days around that holiday.

 

February 18 was Pluto Day. I watched one of the many episodes of Psych where Gus said, "You heard about Pluto?" The subtitles had it wrong, though.

 

February 19 was Chocolate Mint Day. I had another Peppermint Patty.

February 20 was National Muffin Day. For dinner we had... muffins again. We made all eggless muffins again. Cornbread muffins, blueberry muffins, and raisin bran muffins.

 

February 21 was the Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda. The kids requested Deku Scrub Cheeseball, which I made. Because Nichole is the one who usually sculpts the cheeseballs nowadays, some of the boys were surprised to learn that I was the one who made the original Deku Scrub Cheeseball way back in 2017. Jet helped put the bay leaves on top.

Jet and I haven't had a chance to do as much baking together as we used to. When we do get the chance it's so nice. I've missed it.

He helped me grind wheat one day, which was nice. My big helper. 

Jet also enjoyed making tracks in the snow (when we had snow. We've finally made it to Spring but I'm still blogging about Winter).

Speaking of snow, a few of us made the trek to the Snow Goose Festival in Delta this year. It was so foggy at first that we couldn't even look for the geese in the fields and when we got to the reservoir, we couldn't see anything there, either.

We entertained ourselves while we waited for the fog to lift.

Finally the fog lifted and just like last year, we found out that the geese had landed on the other side of the reservoir. Except that this year they were so far out, we couldn't get a good look or good pictures.

We did get to see a few fly in from time to time but we've had more exciting years. Oh well.

 

The day after the Snow Goose Festival was National Banana Bread Day, February 23, so we had some banana bread Pop Tarts.

It was also National Rationalization Day so Jeremy made something he'd been wanting to make for a long time- bangers and mash. 

That night was a multi-stake fireside with Camille N. Johnson, the Relief Society General President in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A couple friends and I walked to the building where it was being held. I did not get a good picture. There's a better picture of us when we had banana splits back in January.

Bad picture aside, the fireside was really good. I appreciated the things Sister Johnson shared with us. One of the things she shared was that every morning she has her own personal devotional with President Nelson, prophet and president of the Church. She will put on a talk that he has given in the past and will listen to that while she's getting ready. After that, so many sisters in our stake, including me, took that same challenge and started listening to President Nelson every day. It was talked about when we gathered together for the Worldwide Relief Society Devotional and Testimony Meeting a few weeks later. I went with my ministering sisters.

 

February 24 was Tortilla Chip Day so we had tortillas and dip of course.

 

Jeremy's birthday was in February. Jet wanted to put the candles on the cake so he decided how many of each color and placed them. What a sweetie.

More Excuses for Video Games

I played Mario Kart for World Plumbing Day on Monday, March 11. The boys rationalized playing Minecraft because Lucky planted a tree underground for Johnny Appleseed Day. 

 

That day was also Oatmeal Nut Waffle Day.

I didn't have a recipe for oatmeal nut waffles so we had oatmeal, nuts, and waffles. Baked oatmeal, almonds in salad, and waffles.

 

March 12 was Plant a Flower Day but I don't remember if the boys got away with video games or not.

Speaking of video games, Jr. Jr. got clever. Sometimes we will put on music from The Legend of Zelda as relaxing background music. Jr. will sometimes put on sound effects videos for atmosphere/ambience, too. This is something Jr. Jr. came up with. "10 hours of video game ambience. Pressing keys and mouse clicking." He's a hoot.

A Few More Celebrations and Shelf Cooking

February 21 was the Anniversary of when the first Legend of Zelda video game came out. Jeremy and I celebrated it observed earlier in the month when we watched a special concert online of Zelda music.

 

February 22 was National Chili Day. I made chili and garlic bread. Yumm.

February 23 was National Banana Bread Day. When I went shopping earlier in the week, I bought bananas and hid them when I got home. Bananas don't last very long when Jet knows where they are. I was able to make them last long enough on this occasion so I was able to make Cinnamon Crumb Banana Bread for the holiday. The recipe came from "A Season of Family Meal Plans volume 1."

With the banana bread we also had Pizza Pinwheels and Seven Layer Salad also both from that book. That salad is not something I would normally make (it had peas in it and I don't like peas) but it actually tasted really good.

Speaking of that book, we're still enjoying trying out new tastes. And I'm learning better about adapting, substituting, and repurposing leftovers. Yay, shelf cooking. 

For example, I made Thai Peanut Lettuce Wraps. The recipe called for ground turkey but I used rotisserie chicken. We had Classic Fried Rice on the side.

Later, I used some corn tortillas and a bit of cheese, the leftover Thai peanut chicken, and made quesadillas. Jet and I ate a few and put the rest in the freezer for quick lunches or whatever.

 

Here are some other things we tried.

Hawaiian Pork Sandwiches with leftover Seven Layer Salad.

Sheet Pan Greek Chicken with Lemony Greek Rice. 

Easy Broccoli Pasta. The other recipe for that meal was Tomato Basil Salad. Since I didn't have enough fresh tomatoes, I used canned tomatoes and cooked it all up to make a sauce that we ate on toasted baguettes. #shelfcooking

I already talked about Leap Day but February 29 was also National Toast Day. So for dinner we had BBQ Pork Quesadillas with rice and toast and Lost Mesa Corn Avocado Salsa (that last recipe came from the Fablehaven Cookbook).

More July Holidays

Let's jump into catching up on more July holidays.

July 7 was Father Daughter Take a Walk Day. Jeremy was not available that day so I took Nichole for a walk into a store to get hair stuff and makeup. Girl time. Woohoo.

It was also Macaroni Day so we had macaroni with our dinner.

July 10 was Teddy Bear Picnic Day. We had a picnic with teddy bears and non teddy bears on the living room floor. We made sure to invite Eeyore so he wouldn't be sad. Jr. picked a lovely location for us- Ordon Village.

We ate chicken patties for Cow Appreciation Day on July 11. Reminded us of a certain chicken place's advertising.

July 13 was Embrace Your Geekness Day. I like to call it Embrace Your Geek Day. I made sure to get a picture embracing Jeremy while wearing my Jurassic Park shirt.

The kids played chess with a Legend of Zelda Chess set.

July 14 was Mac & Cheese Day so we had shells and white cheddar and added macaroni.

It was also Shark Awareness Day. I bought gummi sharks for this holiday but forgot to get them out so we had them along with gummi worms on Gummi Worm Day, July 15.

 

We celebrated Nichole's birthday in July. We quickly turned the fan off before there was any candle... situation.