I Love Birding Challenges

Besides the annual reading challenge I'm doing, it is another year for a birding challenge through Utah County Birders. Books and birds. Aren't they great? And yes, I will sometimes listen to an audiobook while I'm looking at birds.

Jeremy and Nichole (who are also doing the birding challenge), got out one evening for some bonding birding time to the Provo River Delta and saw a barn owl among a few other birds.

Jeremy and I decided to go the next week for a morning birding adventure to see if we could find the owl.

We got there nice and early. You know I love mornings in nature. It was cold, we didn't see the barn owl, but we saw so many other birds. It was worth it.

And somehow I turned the exposure way down on the birding camera so all the bird pictures we took are dark. Sigh.

Oh well. We still enjoyed seeing them... together.

 

I love bonding time! 

 

That day, January 17, was Popeye Day and Hot Heads Chili Day so we had spinach salad and chili on cornbread (I added hot sauce on top of my chili).

The next day, January 18, was Winnie-the-Pooh Day. We had foods with honey: Honey garlic chicken, salad with honey mustard dressing.

It was also Thesaurus Day so we had fun figuring out different way of saying things. Lucky wanted to make Kool-aid. I corrected him and told him it was "Colored Flavored Sugar Water." He needed to put crystalized sweetener in it (aka sugar). The funny thing is the honey I used for dinner was crystalized (crystalized sweetener) so I had to heat it up in order to use it. Heh Heh Heh. 

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This morning, Jr. let me know that he woke up to a spider crawling on him. Ew. I asked him if it was a big one or a little one. He told me it was a big one. Yuck. I told him I can relate to spiders crawling on me. Then he told me, "April Fool's!" Ho Ho. He got me on that one.

For after school snack, I made "muffins" for the kids. Ha Ha. Joke's on me. They were more like drop biscuits than muffins. Oh well. Nichole watched as I put a couple chocolate chips on the top of each muffin before putting them in the oven. "Oh, chocolate chip muffins. Yumm." Then she kept expressing how they smelled so good and she and Jr. were anxious to have them. But I made them wait until the younger boys got home from school so they could all eat them together. Heh Heh Heh. Joke's on them. They were cheddar and dill muffins (with chocolate chips on top). Ha Ha Ha. Joke's on me again. The kids didn't have a reaction. Finally Lucky asked what kind of muffins they were and people expressed their thoughts about them but in the moment, nobody said anything. Sigh.

I also told the kids, "Joke's on you. Mom's not making dinner. Fend for yourself. You can have colored flavored sugar water, though." Nichole got the pitcher out of the fridge and tried to pour herself some then stopped and said, "Ha Ha," sarcastically. Ha Ha, indeed. I couldn't believe I got her. She said it wasn't colored flavored sugar water. I assured her it was colored flavored sugar water, just gelatinous colored flavored sugar water. The kids enjoyed eating it with a spoon. I've been doing this jello/koolaid thing for so many years, I'm amazed that I actually do surprise the kids.

Jr. Jr. came home with a word search for his parents to do. None of the words listed were actually in among the letters. Ha Ha Ha. He didn't get me, though. I suspected it. He said his teacher did it to them at school.

Later in the evening, we told jokes and listened to jokes. Family joke night. Woohoo.

National Punch Day 2017

Another holiday celebrated with food.  For National Punch Day, September 20, I tried a new recipe:  crockpot chicken cordon bleu.  Oh, and we had tropical punch colored flavored sugar water.