A Little More September Catching Up

We found out September 6 was National Hummingbird Day. How did we not have that on our calendar before now? It has since been added. First Saturday in September.

To celebrate, Nichole created this picture. I do a lot of celebrating with food. She does a lot of celebrating with art. I love it.

September 7 was the anniversary of when the first fully electric TV set was achieved by Philo T. Farnsworth. Now Philo T. Farnsworth was my grandma's cousin so he's kind of a big deal in my family. I have a friend in our ward with the last name of Farnsworth so I finally asked him if he was related to Philo T. Farnsworth. Yes! Me, too. When he found out we were both related he asked if we as kids also all wrote reports about Philo T. Farnsworth for school. Yes! It was funny to find out that my family (including cousins) isn't the only family who did this. Someone I didn't know I was related to did it, too. 

Anyway so this year for the anniversary, I sat down with my friend and we figured out how we were each related to Philo T. Farnsworth and so how we were related to each other. That and Jeremy made a card for him. 

I can't find the card on the computer and I didn't take a picture before I gave it to my friend. Oh well.

 

September 7 was also Grandparents Day. I wished my mom and my sister Happy Grandparents Day.

 

September 8 was the anniversary of the original Star Trek. I wished that happy anniversary to a friend who likes Star Trek.

 

It was also Tim Bergling's birthday so I went around singing an Avicii song.

 

September 9 was Ants on a Log Day. 

 

It was also President Nelson's 101st birthday. I decided not to try to put 101 candles on a cake so we just put one in the middle and Jet got to blow it out. 

Holidays, Shelf Cooking, and Bonding Time

September 10 was Ants on a Log Day. We had fluffernutter sandwiches and ants on a log. See my blog post for September 14, 2020 for an explanation why we celebrate with fluffernutter sandwiches on that day. We didn't have any marshmallow fluff so we used real marshmallows. #shelftember

 

Other Shelftember foods we had near that time:

Start with a box pasta meal. Add cooked pasta, some extra seasonings, and cooked bacon from the freezer. It stretches a lot farther. That's shelf cooking!

 

Sometimes I forget that something as simple as beans and rice works for a quick lunch.

 

Homemade bread, spinach before it goes bad made into a salad, casserole from the freezer (tortellini casserole from A Season of Family Meal Plans), and a banana.

 

My husband has always been better at throwing things together to make a good meal. He knows how to do shelf cooking. He took my leftover black beans and some polish sausages and veggies and made some yummy yummy food. He's awesome.

September 11, we remembered.

September 12 was National Video Games Day. I had every intention of playing video games that day but by the end of the day I was too tired. Sigh.

It was also Hug and High Five Day and National Chocolate Milkshake Day. 

Jet helped me make cornbread muffins to go with our dinner of Sausage Veggie Skillet (with extra zucchini because it was cheaper than yellow squash) and rice-n-cheese (instead of orzo-n-cheese because we have rice, not orzo). Both those recipes came from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3, of course. Our chocolate milkshakes were yummy.

September 13 was the Anniversary of The Animaniacs premiere in 1993 so we listened to Animaniacs music. It was also Roald Dahl Day so I put on music from Wonka.

After after school snack of parfaits to celebrate International Chocolate Day and National Peanut Day (and quoting the movie Shrek about how ogres, onions, and parfaits all have layers), I let the kids have the kitchen for Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day and they made pizza. 

September 14 was Eat a Hoagie Day so I made hoagies/buns for people to use and it was National Parents Day Off but I really don't remember what Jeremy and I ended up doing, if anything. I did get a picture late at night of the moon and clouds.

September 15 was Double Cheeseburger Day and National Linguine Day. We had spaghetti with sauce (it had hamburger in it- well, ground turkey, tee hee) and two types of cheese (double cheese, tee hee). #shelftember

September 16 was Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day and National Play-Doh Day. I was complaining about not having time to make play doh and Jeremy pointed out that I played with dough in order to make cinnamon raisin bread which tasted so good by the way.

 

September 17 was Monte Cristo Day. Did you know there is a Count of Monte Cristo musical? I found out when I tried to get Alexa to play music from The Count of Monte Cristo while I was making food and it put on songs from a musical. Fun. I decided to do something new this year and made Monte Cristo Slider Sandwiches from sixsistersstuff.com

Yumm. I made more later to freeze so we could pull out sandwiches when we wanted them.

 

September 18 was National Cheeseburger Day. So we pulled hamburger out of the freezer (ground turkey) and made smothered beef burritos from... you guessed it... A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3.

Of course walks, snuggles, and other kinds of bonding have continued. I love my family.

My parents made a quick trip to Utah for my dad's 60th high school reunion. They stopped by to see Jet and me one day. I love my parents.

Creativity Strikes Again

June 28 was Paul Bunyan Day. "Let's have flapjacks," Jr. suggested. So I made pancakes and called them flapjacks (and quoted Groundhog Day again).

Jr. also suggested we have "ants on a log" because it was National Logistics Day. Log-istics? Huh? Huh? Great idea.

Earlier in the day I used the rest of the raisins to make raisin bread, then remembered we were supposed to have ants on a log. Sigh. Never fear, however, because I realized we may have been out of raisins but we had plenty of dried cranberries. Hooray! We just had red ants instead of black.

Jr. volunteered to assemble the ants on a log and figured out the logistics of positioning things (see what I did there?). He reminded me that he took a food class in junior high and knew about placement to make things look good. So this is what I found when he was finished.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Creativity.

Ants on a Log?

September 8 is National Ants on a Log Day.
When I offered to make "ants on a log," some of the kids asked what those were. I explained they are pieces of celery with peanut butter spread on them and raisins on top.

Jr.: I would like an ants on a log but instead of celery, could I have bread and instead of raisins, could I have marshmallow cream?
Mom: So you want me to make you a fluffernutter sandwich.
Nichole: I want you to make me actual ants on a log.

So I made both. You're welcome, kids.