What Do You Do When You Don't Have Pictures For Your Post?

April 26 was National Pretzel Day. We ate pretzels (but not homemade).

April 27 was Tell a Story Day. Jeremy celebrated it observed the next day when he told me a story. 

April 28 was Terry Pratchett's Birthday. We talked about it a lot in our family, including quotes. 

April 29 was International Dance Day. I was told that Jet has been doing a great job dancing at school (the elementary school dance festival is coming up in May). It was also National Zipper Day. Jet took the opportunity to zip the vest I was wearing all the way up to the top (to my upraised chin).

I have no pictures for any of this. 

The End. 

Valentine Dance

O.K. I didn't have access to all the Valentine pictures I wanted because after putting some on our portable hard drive, it started having issues. To make a long story short, we have access to our pictures again. So... I can now share pictures from Jet's Valentine dance (see blog post from March 13, 2026).

I really do think Jet had similar moves to Lucky at that age (see blog post from February 14, 2020).

 

And some before and after Valentine celebrations at school. 

Valentine Days

Sadly, we don't have access to some of our pictures from around Valentine's Day so this post is missing some pictures. Oh well. Here it finally is:

 

O.K. Finally getting to it. Valentine's 2026.

I already told you that Jeremy made chocolate covered strawberries for me. Chuckle. He made them early enough that they got eaten up before Valentine's Day even came. 

The week of Valentine's Day, there was a kindergarten Valentine dance at the elementary school, just like when Lucky was in kindergarten and Jet was a baby. 

Jet and I dressed up and went and danced and had refreshments and danced some more and were excited when Daddy came to join us. He had a fair convention that day but made it back for the end of the dance. 

I think Jet has similar moves to Lucky at that age.

 

The day before Valentine's Day was when the elementary schoolers had their Valentine parties and Valentine exchanges. Lucky's class invited them to decorate boxes to hold their Valentines. Since Lucky is preparing for the school play, Alice in Wonderland Jr., many things are Wonderland themed right now. Lucky brought a Mad Hatter's hat as his Valentine box. I supplied the materials (empty oatmeal box, fabric, another cardboard box, cardstock) and Jeremy helped Lucky make it into a hat. 

 

This year, like last year on actual Valentine's Day, Jeremy and Nichole were at Life, The Universe, and Everything symposium. 

Let me stop right here and share something funny that happened during prep for LTUE. Jeremy printed off a list of classes/panels so he and Nichole could see what they both wanted to take and what they had that overlapped.

 

Mom: Nichole, Dad wants you to look through Life, the Universe, and Everything to see what things you want to do. 

Jet: Nichole, Dad wants you to look through the telescope at the university holes.

 

Thank you. Back to Valentine celebrations.

While Jeremy and Nichole were at LTUE, Jr. wanted an excuse to eat ice cream so he rationalized this.

It was Single Awareness Day. Single people eat ice cream when they don't have a date. Yes! Great excuse. And my husband wasn't with me for Valentine's Day so I should eat ice cream, too.

Reminder that I fully support the Daddy-Daughter date at LTUE (my husband did make me chocolate covered strawberries. I love chocolate covered strawberries).

We also had heart-shaped pizza for dinner or broken heart pizza as it is cut.  

I did get a nice hug from Jeremy that night. He didn't completely forget me. Heh Heh Heh.

 

The next day, I made a fancy dinner to celebrate since Jeremy and Nichole were home that day.

A great way to celebrate love with food is by using recipes from Whisk Me Away by Michelle Wright. We had some fun during and after dinner based on the Regency Era. 

For dinner, we had Green Bean Almondine with Rice Pilaf (both from the cookbook). We also had ham but I didn't use the honey glaze from the book. We rounded it out with modern day rolls and ice water to drink.

After the kids set the table in our normal use what dishes are in the cupboard (or dish drainer), mismatched or not, manner, I showed them a picture from the book of how a proper dinner table should be set. Ha Ha.

While we ate, I read to them what the book said about Regency dinner party etiquette, which made some of them do the exact opposite because that's what kids do.

After dinner a few of us decided to play a Regency game from the book. "Forfeit."

We used Lucky's "hat" to hold the forfeits and we had a blast playing together. We had the youngest of us and the oldest of us playing so it was a good game for all ages.

I love family time. And I love that we can have the whole family be involved in a holiday that doesn't have to be just for significant others. 

I do enjoy time with just my husband but we do get to do special things together other times, not just Valentine's Day and anniversaries (and did I mention that my husband made chocolate covered strawberries for me?). 

I would never try to go out for Valentine's Day to a restaurant or something like that anyway. Too crowded. We did stop by the grocery store to get some milk after I picked Jeremy and Nichole up from LTUE on Valentine's Day, though.  

I hope my children know they can always celebrate with us. There are so many reasons to celebrate. 

 

Update: We have access to our pictures again. I put some on another blog post on April 11, 2026. 

Balloon Bonding

Real quick- August 22 was Be an Angel Day. It's become tradition to have angel hair pasta that day with alfredo sauce and chicken. Yumm. 

 

Now to what I really wanted to blog about.

 

Every year, Jeremy volunteers to build a balloon sculpture in the children's section of the Orem Library for the Summer Reading Program. He's been doing it for over 15 years. This year, because of construction, they didn't have him do that. He and Lucky did teach simple balloon animals at the Kid's Art Gala and in August, they built a balloon sculpture to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the children's wing of the library.

I'm very impressed with how Lucky is picking up the balloon sculpting. He built the number 30 and the hat. Way to go both Jeremy and Lucky. I love that Lucky's getting into this and they are getting to have this bonding time together.

Since they were building on Gene Kelly's Birthday on August 23, when I went to deliver some missed items to them (I'm also a helper), I found Lucky dancing around to celebrate.

Later to also celebrate Gene Kelly's Birthday, I wore my bow earrings and pirate ship necklace and we watched "The Pirate" which Gene Kelly was in with Judy Garland.

 

That evening, we went to an end of the Summer neighborhood barbecue. I had a great time socializing. I love our neighborhood.

Here's Some More Catching Up

May 13 was Leprechaun Day, Crouton Day, Fruit Cocktail Day, and Apple Pie Day. Guess what. We celebrated.

Ah, homemade croutons and homemade apple pie. Mmmmmm.

Besides given ourselves "gold" coins for Leprechaun Day, we also turned on Irish music and had some fun moving to the music. 

Lucky decided to use his fruit to make a kebab. Why not? 

 

May 14 was Dance Like a Chicken Day and Buttermilk Biscuit Day. We made Biscuits and "Gragy" from Shelf Cooking 101 by Jordan Page.

Of course we danced like chickens.

 

May 15 was Dinosaur Day, National Chocolate Chip Day, and International Day of Families. We had Dino nuggets and chocolate chip pancakes with our family.

 I also got out for a walk that morning with a friend I haven't been able to do anything with for a while.

Holidays

May 13 was Crouton Day, Apple Pie Day, and Fruit Cocktail Day.

I made croutons and apple pie and I opened up a can of fruit cocktail and put it in a bowl.

May 14 was Buttermilk Biscuit Day. I made Biscuits and "Gragy" from Shelf Cooking 101. Leftovers rounded it out.

It was also Dance Like a Chicken Day so one of my kids walked into my room dancing like a chicken. Have I mentioned I love my kids?

Screen Free Week 2024

I did a good job again this year and scheduled posts to be published during Screen Free Week.

Now it's time to tell you what we did during Screen Free Week, May 6-12.

 

May 6 was International No Diet Day and National Beverage Day so we had chicken nuggets, fries, and root beer floats. Lucky and Jet had fun blowing bubbles in their drinks. We gave Jet water in a cup like we used. 

It was also No Homework Day but shhh, the kids didn't need to know that.

The kids did use computers for school work. It's kind of necessary nowadays. And Jeremy and I had some work stuff to do as well. But it was nice not having the TV on and no video games. Jet didn't even ask for TV all week.   

 

Jr. Jr. had his last orchestra concert. Good job, Jr. Jr.

May 8 was Have a Coke Day. We learned that any soft drink in the South is called Coke. So we all got to pick our soda pop (I picked Caffeine Free Coca Cola) and had them in our Coca Cola cups.

 

Lucky helped out with a service project with other children in the stake. They also decorated Mother's Day cards. Awwwww.

We celebrated our anniversary. On our actual anniversary we had our traditional anniversary dinner with the kids. Another day that week, Jeremy and I celebrated our anniversary with the two of us. We didn't even have to wait three months like last year. I'll tell you about the way we celebrated in a separate post.

We love each other.

 

And the random:

Who needs screens when Bluey and Bingo can go for a ride on a dinosaur?

Making faces with Daddy.

Just a duck walking down the sidewalk at the high school. I took Jr. early one day for an AP test and there it was just waddling along.

Dinos with Daddy.

It's tradition. Jeremy has his little things he does with his kids. Jet and Daddy share a big cup each using their own straw. That's their thing. 

Spontaneous dance party.

Big helper Jet. He saw me cleaning off the table so he poured water out from his water bottle then wiped it up to help.

He also helped make buns to go with Classic Meatball Subs (with homemade meatballs) and Addictive Veggie Dip. We're still getting use out of A Season of Family Meal Plans by Jordan Page.

I also took a moment one day to drive down to the river and just relax. As soon as I turned off the van, I could hear yellow warblers. There were several and it was so nice to hear them. 

Several people saw the Northern Lights Friday of that week. We didn't realize because... Screen Free Week. We tried going out Saturday night but didn't see anything. It was cloudy but had some clear spots so we did get to see some constellations since we drove out to Bridal Veil Falls then Deer Creek Reservoir. Ah, nature.

It's the Big Dipper (try clicking on the picture to make it bigger).

We explained this trip out in the middle of the night was like birding. Sometimes you go looking for a specific bird (or atmospheric condition or celestial event) and you don't see it but you enjoy the adventure.

And family history- we were able to tell the kids about the time Jeremy and I saw the Northern Lights when we were visiting my sister in Idaho (like 20 years ago).

O.K. That's all I'm going to say about Screen Free Week in this post. I'll talk about celebrating our anniversary and Mother's Day later.