Family Home Midday

For Family Home Evening we had a lesson from the June 2020 Ensign (Family Study Fun) about King Lamoni's flocks being scattered and Ammon and the other servants gathering them. We scattered and gathered cotton balls as we talked about service and how Ammon knew that when he served King Lamoni, he was serving God. It's the same as when we serve others. We talked about ways we can serve others over the next week or so and that when we do those acts of service, we can feel the Spirit more in our home.

For our activity, we played video/computer games, one person at a time but everyone joined in with watching and giving advice. When it was my turn, I decided to play "Blogger" (get it?) and ask the family for advice.
One of the kids didn't like my idea. Nichole made a sculpture out of cotton balls then it was destroyed before she could show anyone.
Jr. Jr.: Oh, no. He goes flying the... something something(?)
Nichole: We love you, Mom.
Mom: They're not making a lot of suggestions.
What if I started a story? Once upon a time, there was a... mushroom. This mushroom was four feet tall and had a stalk as thick as... pea soup. (Now they're laughing). One day, a handsome... frog came along and ate a bagel. Then he tried to... eat a bagel again. (Now even the one who was upset is laughing and joining in- he does love bagels). Suddenly, there appeared a... second mushroom spider and then he ate it and then the frog ate it. He's the one that ate it.  Unfortunately, it didn't sit well and soon he was... laughing. (Phew. I'm so glad they suggested that verb instead of another one- though one child did suggest laughing out his guts, which is still not that bad).
You never know what is going to happen when you let the kids be involved with blogging. See some of the former blog posts which I will now find links to.
Here's Nichole's post from November 10, 2009
Lucky: What about Lucky's turn? There's no Lucky's turn.
Jr. Jr. (singing): Lucky's turn. Lucky's turn. Lucky's turn. Lucky's turn.
Lucky (laughing): What about Lucky's turn?
While looking for one for Jr., Jr. suggested several. What about that one? Or that one? Or that one? What did we finally pick? This one from November 1, 2015
Jr.: That was five years ago. I was like 7 then.
Jr. Jr. says he's never done a post. Hmmmm. I'm sure he must have somewhere but while searching, we haven't found one that says, "Jr. Jr.'s Turn." Hmmm.
Lucky has a couple we found, like this one from February 17, 2016
Hmmm. I'm sure Jr. Jr.'s had a turn. I'll keep looking.
Lucky: Penguin! What was that penguin? Why was there a penguin?
Mommy: Well, I'll tell you, Lucky. Look at my blog post from January 25, 2012 about Penguin Awareness Day.
Oops. Time's up.
Thanks, Nichole.
Lucky (whine): Mom, I thought you were going to play.
I'll look for a blog post from Jr. Jr. later.

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2016

September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
We continued the tradition of going to Thanksgiving Point wearing a balloon costume to hand out balloon swords for children who talk like pirates.  We went to the Ashton Gardens this year.
I put up a YouTube video showing our past balloon pirate costumes.  This year's costume was based on the zombie pirate LeChuck from the computer game series Monkey Island.

Jr. Jr. and Lucky had a lot of fun helping hand out swords and having sword fights with kids.  When Thanksgiving Point heard we were going to be coming again for the holiday, they changed their theme for their Tales for Tots story time to be pirate-themed.  It was terrific.  The kids went on a treasure hunt with their pirate swords and made a pirate ship on paper out of cut out shapes.  Good stuff.

Since Jr. Jr. is in kindergarten this year, we told him that this would be his last year to do this for Talk Like a Pirate Day since he'll be in school all day next year in 1st grade.  He seemed disappointed with the idea.  Apparently this is a good tradition for him.  Later he told us that this wouldn't be his last year doing this because he could do it when he's a parent.  Awwww.  
We never have time to get free donuts at Krispy Kreme anymore so I just bought some at the grocery store this morning while I was getting supplies for dinner.  Nichole requested "squid pups," carrot hooks, and cupcakes with skull and crossbones on top.  We also had cream soda.  It's amazing what kind of traditions happen because these kids expect certain things to go with certain holidays.

Jeremy did put together a pirate ship out of furniture again, but it didn't last very long before some of the kids had some trouble with it and we had to put parts of it away.  So no epic balloon sword battle this year. 

It was a busy day and Jeremy and I stayed up late last night and got up really early this morning working on the balloon costume, swords, and that video (while watching Pirates of the Caribbean this morning).
He is currently sleeping on the couch and I am trying to hurry to get this post up so I can get some rest, too.

Ooh, ooh.  And I finally got to wear my pirate ship necklace that my parents gave me several years back.  I keep forgetting about it on Talk Like a Pirate Day but I remembered this year.  Hooray!