Towel Day 2026

May 24 was Escargot Day. Nichole celebrated observed when she did art the next day and drew a snail, as well as a bunch of other cool things.

The grackle drawing was based on this photo Nichole took when we were at Tonaquint Nature Center in St. George.

 

May 25 was Towel Day. It was also Memorial Day so I made sure to bring a towel to our Memorial Day breakfast by the church.

I made sure I had a towel around for everything that day... except when I forgot to grab my towel when going to pick Nichole up from her afternoon of art. I told myself, "Don't panic." The drive home was okay because Nichole did have a towel in her bag. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I encouraged the kids to use a towel for everything, too. :Oh, they were so enthusiastic. 

It was also Brown Bag It Day so I made sure to put some recycling in a brown bag. 

 

If You Give Nichole a Medium...

Nichole is taking a sewing/quilting class at school. One of the assignments was to make a bag.

I absolutely love the inside and I'm not talking about the Terry Pratchett book in there, though that makes me happy, too. She's really gotten into Terry Pratchett books lately. So fun. But didn't she pick such pretty fabric for the lining?

You can tell these pictures were taken a while ago. We haven't had this much snow this Spring.

Bird Trivia

This morning, Nichole and I made lunch together to take to school (for her) and birding (for me).  Since it's National Trivia Day, January 4, Nichole put a trivia question on my lunch bag.

On one side the bag said- "Identify this bird (answer on back)"- with a drawn picture of a pelican.
On the other side of the bag it said- "If you guessed "Nigel", you are correct!" 
It was the pelican from Finding Nemo.  How fun.
Nichole also made a sandwich and labeled the ziplock bag it was in- "Dad's sandwich in Mom's bag (don't tell him)"
I love my family.

White Christmas

Last night it started snowing and it snowed... and it snowed... and it snowed... and it kept snowing.  Then this morning it snowed... and it snowed... and it snowed... etc. etc. etc.  I haven't seen this much snow in years.  At one point today I went out with a measuring tape and measured 10 inches.  Yep.  10 inches.  Wow.

Last Winter was very mild with not much snow so this is quite something this year.  We definitely had our white Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas... today was Christmas.  The kids were very happy with all their presents.  Jeremy and I were, too.

Unfortunately, some people didn't get enough sleep last night either from being so excited they kept waking up or they had to stay up anyway because other people stayed up too late. 

"I'll put you to sleep, kids." 

And... too much stocking candy was eaten instead of real food (although we did have salad and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner).  In general, we didn't do as well today with being nice to each other.  Sigh.  We need to do better.  We need to eat better and get better sleep.  And choose to handle things better.  Sigh.

In other news, I did handmade gifts for the kids again this year.
I made Lucky a penguin stuffed animal.

Jr. Jr. used to have some favorite pajamas.  Every time he had the choice he would wear those pajamas.  He wore them so much even though he got too big for them and wore through the feet.  He loved those pajamas.  They were monster pajamas.  I took those monster pajamas and made a monster out of them.  I sewed fleece to the feet to cover them.  I made a monster head to match one of the monsters on the pajamas and stuffed the monster.  Jr. Jr. was so happy when he unwrapped that.

I made Jr. a new scripture bag since the one I made for him before doesn't fit his new scriptures he got after his baptism and the other things he puts in his bag.

For Nichole I made a doll head with yarn hair to hold hair clips and hair ties.  I had one like that when I was young and wanted to make one for her.

The kids and I decorated a bowl for Jeremy.  We traced around the kids' hands and it says, "Love our Daddy!"

I'm glad I was able to make gifts for my family again.  I like doing it.

Handmade Christmas Gifts 2014

It's National Bird Day, January 5.  The date is fun today.  1-5-15.  Yeah, it's fun.
In other, more bird-related news, I thought it would be an appropriate time to show you the handmade gifts I did for the kids for Christmas.  I finally finished a counted cross-stitch picture for Jr. that I've been meaning to do since he was a baby... or before he was a baby... but I hadn't decided what I was going to put on the picture yet.  It turned out owls were the appropriate thing for him... and for National Bird Day today.  Forgive my piece of paper on the picture.  I stitched his name and birth date on the picture and don't care to share that on this public blog.  And I don't Photoshop so this is the best I could do to cover those up.

Anyway, on to other gifts.
I made Jr. Jr. his own scripture bag and Nichole her own scripture tote... to fit all the things she puts in her scripture bag.

I made Lucky an eye-spy... thing.  I don't know what it's called.  You have a bunch of doo-dads in with a bunch of beads and you can move it around to see what you can find.  Yeah.  You get the idea.

So that's what I did as handmade gifts for the kids Christmas 2014.  Hooray!

I'm Official

I'm official. Today they handed me a bag to use for my Primary class. It's got pockets. I love pockets! And in the pockets? Stuff to use for my primary class!- like colored pencils, crayons, chalk and eraser (in a cute little bag of their own), magnets. Now I don't have to figure out a bag myself. Yippee!

It really is a cute bag. One side of it says: I love 2nd Ward Primary. The other side says: Primary Makes Me Happy.

Woohoo. It's a way to be organized.

And... I taught my first lesson today in the Sunbeam class. And it was a whole new class of kids- there were 8 or 9 of them (just today, there are more on the class list). Thank goodness I have a teaching companion. It's going to be an adventure. They're new. I'm new. There is going to be a Primary activity on Saturday to get to know the teachers, so hopefully that will help some of them be a little less shy towards us. Woohoo. This is so exciting.