St. Patrick's Day 2026

You know we like to get creative with our celebrating.

When planning St. Patrick's Day dinner, I asked my husband for suggestions. Thinking about cabbages, potatoes, he said what sounded good was stuffed cabbage. Mmmm.

At the time, I was listening to an audiobook set in Ireland, and they kept mentioning brown bread. So I figured brown bread would be good and a side of onion roasted potatoes.

As I was looking for a recipe for brown bread, I found one for German Brown Bread, and the creativity light bulb came on. 

So for St. Patrick's Day, we had Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage, German Brown Bread (recipe from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner Again), Irish roasted potatoes (onion roasted potatoes but with seasonings you would use in Ireland), and Utah lime green jello with whipped topping (because it's green. We did skip the carrot shaving this time).

For dessert we had Shamrock Shakes (adapted from Jordan Page's A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 1).

Yeah. Creativity is fun when it comes to celebrating. 

 

First Week of March

March 1 was Share a Smile Day. Jeremy and the kids played and smiled together. 

Dr. Seuss' Birthday (Read Across America Day) was on March 2. We read books of course.

And we ate green eggs and ham. This time it was in the form of fried rice. I do like to find creative ways to celebrate.

 

March 3 was Soup It Forward Day and National Cold Cuts Day so we had Ogre Stew (from The Fablehaven Cookbook) and ham sandwiches.

March 4 was Grammar Day. There was some correcting of grammar that day, maybe some editing of someone's writing? If I don't have pictures or don't write it down, I don't always remember.

 

March 5 was National Cheese Doodle Day. Jeremy suggested people draw pictures of cheese. I did.

Oreo Cookie Day (Birthday of the Oreo Cookie) was March 6. Jeremy got creative. We actually sang Happy Birthday.

 

We celebrated National Cereal Day on March 7 with cheese and pickle sandwiches again. It's tradition.

 

 

You're As Nice As Peanut Butter

Saturday, January 24, I got out for my morning walk at the park. 

It was a misty mountain morning, which was appropriate because I was listening to the soundtrack to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as I walked.

 

January 24 was National Compliment Day, the anniversary of when the California Gold Rush began, and National Peanut Butter Day. 

We had fun complimenting each other. "You're as good as gold," was an obvious one. Jeremy started getting creative with peanut butter brands. Here are some of the ones we came up with (paraphrasing): You're so helpful. I know you'll be there in a Jif. 

This tastes so good, it makes me want to Skip-py.

When I'm around you, I feel like I could fly like Peter Pan. 

I got a little silly. "You're as great as Winco Brand Peanut Butter." 

Creativity. Isn't it great?

Bonding Time is Great!

I'm thankful for bonding time with my husband. Things have been so busy with trips and with life that we haven't been able to take much time for just the two of us. So one day my husband made us omelettes, I made us hot chocolate, and we sat down and watched a whole movie together.

I'm thankful for working and chatting in the kitchen together, too. 

There were olives in the fridge and I asked if we should have them in our omelettes. Jeremy said we should. "How many?" I asked. "All of 'em," he replied. So he put "half of 'M'" in my omellete and "the rest of 'M'" in his. He's adorable. 

It was International Men's Day that day on November 19. It was also Have a Bad Day Day. Jeremy, my man, did not have a bad day that day. It's like when I don't feel like screaming on International Moment of Frustration Scream Day. Heh Heh.

 

The next day, November 20 was Universal Children's Day and Absurdity Day. I took my child, Nichole, to a Relief Society dinner with me. I did not get any pictures at the activity. Can you believe it? How absurd.

Zucchini Saxophone

Introducing the zucchini saxophone. I couldn't figure out what to call it. The saxozucchini? The zucchiniphone? I ended up calling it the zucchini saxophone. That works.

See? My kids aren't the only ones who can be creative. 

 

Other September thins

Other things we did in September:

 

More Walks-

alone (or with the birds)

with Jet (he still really likes to ride in the stroller)

 

Can I just say what a gorgeous place we live in? It is a treat just to walk outside and look at our mountains.

 

FHE fun-

Jeremy's been trying to come up with ideas that are not the usual ideas for Family Home Evening activities. We did the glow stick story back in August. In September, we played "Keepy Uppy." We even put on the accompanying music and had fun. If you don't know, "Keepy Uppy" is a game the family played in an episode of Bluey. We even turned on a fan and added more and more balloons to our game. It was fun.

 

Creativity continues to happen.

I thought I was being nice one morning and made scrambled eggs and got out cheese and tortillas for making breakfast burritos. I even made a sign that said, "Go for it. Enjoy! (Love) Mom," with an arrow pointing toward the burrito fixings. 

Someone thought it would be funny to move the sign so it was pointing at the chocolate chip banana muffins that were in a different spot on the table. "Go for it? Enjoy? Oh, thanks, Mom." 

I agree it was funny. Points for creativity. Of course I was fine with them eating some muffins with their breakfast burritos. I love this family! 

 

One evening I was having a rough time and I needed to take my young men to a fireside at the stake center. I decided to stay for the fireside instead of just dropping them off and I'm glad I did. I needed the extra little spiritual uplift that night and sharing it with my boys was nice. I love my children so much.

Lots of reading. Jet likes it when Daddy reads to him.

 

Dress Up! 

Looking like Mommy? Or a ghost? Boo!

Other April thins

Because of the laugh I got with "Other Narch thins," I now present "Other April thins," in no particular order:

My soon to be sister-in-law (more on that later) had a birthday in April so Jet had a pretend birthday cake. He blew out the candles and "ate" it. So cute. She got a kick out of it when I told her. He's been on a birthday cake kick lately.

 

Cuteness.

Haircuts before and after. Wow, that haircut took a lot of years off. 

It kind of reminds me how when my brother-in-law was a young teacher, he had to keep facial hair so he wouldn't be mistaken for a high school student.

 

Jet likes to help me spin lettuce. Well... he likes to use the lettuce spinner. He's learned something new he can do with it. He takes a toy helicopter, puts it on the top and pushes the top down and locks it. Then he releases the top and makes the helicopter fly. Tee Hee. I love it.

 

We've been eating yummy food. Some obviously came from A Season of Family Meal Plans by Jordan Page, some from other sources. I really enjoyed those red beans and rice with hush puppies last year and looked forward to it this year. I was not disappointed. 

The baby doll head is making an appearance again.

 

You know who is getting into placing it now? Jet. That's who. He climbed up so he could put it in the cupboard. Sigh.

Catching Up March 2025 part 4

March 23 was Chip and Dip Day. We finally got to do something we'd been wanting to do since they put up "Dip Ahead" signs in our neighborhood. Thanks to our friends, Stephanie and Kels (and thanks for letting us use some of your pictures), we set up a table with chips and dip for passing neighbors and us to enjoy.

We had hummus, salsa, and tzatziki with potato chips, corn chips, and tortilla chips.

 

It was a great fellowdipping activity.

 

March 24 was National Cheesesteak Day. We made our chilly pheesesteaks. 

March 26 was Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. A while back, Jet decided that he wanted certain silly holidays instead of the actual holiday (I don't remember which it was). He told me, "Happy Row Row Row Your Boat Day," and, "Happy Scratch Skeleton Day." I love that kid. He is so much fun, such a ham. I said we could celebrate those on Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. So we did. We sang "Row Row Row Your Boat" and Jr. Jr. had pictures of skeletons on the computer we could "scratch."

 

March 29 was Vangelis' Birthday. We watched Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean performance of "Chariots of Fire" from the London 2012 Olympics.

 

March 30 was Take a Walk in a Park Day. I took a quick walk in a park. 

March 31 was National Tater Day. We had Aloo Gobi (Indian cauliflower and potato dish) and Pad Thai Chicken.