Volcanoes and Chocolate

May 17 was National Idaho Day. We had a baked potato bar.

May 18 was Mount St. Helens Day. I took the leftover baked potatoes and made them into mashed potatoes for mashed potato volcanoes. 

Jet had a lot of fun helping put together our volcanoes with dino nuggets and green foliage (broccoli trees and green pepper bushes) and "those poor people" raisins. I put mine on the mountain. He put his in the crater. We had fun with the gravy lava, too. 

I also told Jet to say, "This means something," referencing Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

 

May 19 was the Anniversary of the Rubik's Cube. Lucky got points to spend in his classroom store. He saved them up to get a bunch of things at the end of the school year, including rubber duckies and a Rubik's Cube. 

May 20 was Eliza Doolittle Day. I ate too much chocolate. The kids didn't eat a much. The song says, "Lots of chocolate for me to eat." Me, not us. 

Nichole drew chocolate for the holiday.

Jeremy was very impressed with how she was able to do the foil.

 

Everybody did have some chocolate later on in the day. Jr. was asleep but Jet didn't want him to be left out so he kept putting round pieces of wrapped chocolate on his ear but they rolled off so finally a wrapped chocolate coin was put on his head and stayed there for a while. I don't know if Jet did it or someone else, but the next day, Jet made sure Jr. got that piece of candy to eat. 

Other October Holidays

October 24 was National Food Day. We ate leftovers. It was also World Kangaroo Day. Jet and I hopped like kangaroos.

October 25 was Greasy Food Day. It was also World Pasta Day. We ate kind of greasy pasta.

October 26 was Mother-in-Law Day. I wished several people Happy Mother-in-Law Day including my mother-in-law. I love her. It was also National Pumpkin Day. I know several people who carved pumpkins that day.

October 27 was National Black Cat Day. I often see black cats running around our neighborhood. Murphy's Law says on Black Cat Day, I wouldn't see one. At the end of the day, Jeremy reminded me that the neighbors had a glow in the dark black cat skeleton decoration. That worked for celebrating.

October 28 was the Anniversary of when the Statue of Liberty was dedicated and it was also Matt Smith's birthday so I really wanted to watch The Angels Take Manhattan (which has both the Statue of Liberty and Matt Smith) while working on a Halloween costume but that's an episode of Doctor Who we don't have. So I watched Daleks in Manhattan which also has the Statue of Liberty in it. For dinner we had fish sticks and vanilla pudding in honor of Matt Smith's Doctor. We didn't have enough fish sticks so I pulled some curry chicken from the freezer and cooked up some rice. #shelfcooking

It was also National Chocolate Day so Lucky made woo-woo for us. 

 

Even More September Catching Up

September 12 was Hug and High Five Day. Some of the teachers at the elementary school were giving high fives as students were leaving. Lucky made sure to give his dad a hug and "high five" when his dad came home from work. 

 

September 12 was also National Video Games Day. I remembered to wear my Mario shirt this time. Woohoo. I went shopping and the gal helping me to check out remarked on my shirt so I told her it was National Video Games Day. She was very happy to find that out because it gave her an excuse to play later. 

I never got to play video games that day but the kids did.

 

September 12 was also Chocolate Milkshake Day. We made woo-woo.

That evening was Lucky's elementary school Fall Festival. He volunteered to help out since he is on the student council. He got to run a booth during the second half of the festival and got to play and eat earlier. And being the sweet boy that he is, he shared his cotton candy with me.

 

September 13 was International Chocolate Day and National Peanut Day. You know what that means. Parfaits! 

 

It was also Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day. I asked the kids to take care of dinner. 

 

It was National Day of Service. I helped tie quilts and took some time to do other service that day. 
Jet had Primary Program practice then got pizza afterward. 

The next day was the Primary Program and he did a pretty good job this year. He sang some of the songs and stayed in his seat when he was supposed to and stood when he was supposed to for the most part. When it was his turn to say his part, he said it so quickly that it was unintelligible but that's okay. Still cute.

After church, Lucky came to choir with me then we decided to walk home together. I walked. Lucky somewhat walked, somewhat ran. Cute kid.

 

September 15 was Agatha Christie's birthday. Nichole and I discussed it because you know she's into mystery writing. 

 

September 16 was Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day. We had cinnamon toast with raisins on top for those that preferred it.

 

September 17 was Monte Cristo Day so of course we had Monte Cristo Sandwiches. We love celebrating that holiday that way. 

 

September 18 was National Cheeseburger Day. I didn't make cheeseburgers but I took some ground turkey and made stroganoff to go along with sauteed zucchini from our garden. And toast because toast is popular around here, especially with homemade bread.

Other August thins

Jr. Jr. really wants to make juggling balls so he and I have been working on that project- making juggling balls for everyone in the family. It's slow going but we'll get there.

Jet heard us talking about making juggling balls and told us he wanted to make "chocolate balls" so one day we made Oreo mint truffles like we did for St. Patrick's Day, except we didn't bother to make them green this time.

Jet is doing well at school so he's been able to pick something from the treasure box a few times. The first thing he brought home was a little water color paint set so I printed out a picture for him to color. He did a good job. 

I still try out new recipes from time to time, some from A Season of Family Meal Plans by Jordan Page, some from something I see on Instagram by my favorite food bloggers. I made Slow Cooker Loaded Chicken and Potato Casserole from Six Sisters' Stuff and it tasted so good to me. I didn't have whipping cream so I combined some sour cream and milk to get the creaminess (#shelfcooking).  

 

We had an amazing storm one night. I was concerned that my bedroom floor was getting wet. I went outside several times to check the window well. There were pools at the top of the stairs outside and in front of our front door. I checked my bedroom window and realized it was open. Rain was getting in and getting on my floor. Sigh. 

Luckily it dried up quickly after closing the window. I put towels down and kept checking them.

When I went outside in the pouring rain, the lightning and thunder were flashing and booming every few seconds. There was so much of it. 

 

It's amazing how calm the next morning can be after a storm.

 

 

When Nichole was the last one at home before she started school, she and I got to have some bonding time, going to the library and for a drive up the canyon to Bridal Veil Falls this time. 

Dancing and Graduating

On May 20, Eliza Doolittle Day, besides eating chocolate, Lucky had his end of the year dance festival.

Great job, Lucky. Can you guess what song his grade danced to?

 

That evening, we went to Jr.'s seminary graduation. 

Great job, Jr. 

During the graduation, they showed pictures of the seniors as babies and as they are now. These are the pictures of Jr. We got the little boy picture of him from this blog from 16 years ago (August 27, 2009). He's still a cutie.

Later that night, since it was also Pick Strawberries Day, some of us ate strawberries. Some people in our family love strawberries, some hate strawberries. I am one who loves strawberries.

I Can't Think of a Good Title for This Post

October 27 was Emily Post's Birthday. I wore my bow earrings.

October 28 was National Chocolate Day. I had some chocolate myself.

It was also Matt Smith's Birthday and the anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty so Jeremy and I started to watch the Doctor Who episode, "Angels in Manhattan," with both Matt Smith and the Statue of Liberty but Jet came to sit down with me and lately he's been starting to show fear in movies. 

This was him while watching Monsters Inc. one day.

So we watched enough to see the Statue of Liberty and Matt Smith and called it good.

The End.

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.