Catching Up June 2025 part something or other

Who needs pictures of people when you can have pictures of food? 

June 17 Eat Your Vegetables Day

We're still using A Season of Family Meal Plans by Jordan Page. Love those cookbooks. We had Sausage Potato Hobo Packs and made cornbread (a recipe I have in a recipe box) for a side dish. Yumm. 

June 18 National Splurge Day

We decided to have a barbecue and spent money on some things for it. We had Polish Sausages and Jeremy brought home some marinated veggies (mushrooms, zucchini, onions) from Marcus' barbecue which we put on skewers and grilled. For dessert we bought waffle cones to make waffle cone s'mores. One of the activities for library Summer Reading was "make something tasty together for a BBQ." A friend stopped by and joined us for a while. It's nice to share.  

June 19 World Tapas Day

We tried some new Spanish appetizers. We had a different version of Pan Con Tomate. We had Orange and Avocado Salad. We had Spanish Garlic Cauliflower. 

June 20 Vanilla Milkshake Day

We had vanilla milkshakes but with chocolate powder and peanut butter in them, so our usual woo-woo drink. I also told people they could make fluffernutter sandwiches with whatever bread they could find since it was the Summer Solstice. We had baguettes left over from our tapas.

June 21 National Selfie Day 

I didn't take any selfies that day. I was planning to celebrate, it just didn't happen. 

June 22 Meryl Streep's Birthday

I wore my bow earrings. I did not wear my pirate ship necklace because I couldn't think of any pirate movies she was in.

June 22 was also National Kissing Day. Jeremy and I celebrated. 

June 23 Detroit Style Pizza Day

Detroit Style Pizza is kind of like upside down pizza. The sauce goes on top after the cheese and toppings. 

June 24 International Fairy Day

We kept it simple with Easy Fairy Folk Tortilla Pizzas from The Fablehaven Cookbook. 

Summer Solstice, Midsummer's Eve, and Midsummer's Day (aka more excuses for Fablehaven food)

You know we like celebrating solstices and equinoxes with nods to Fablehaven and sometimes with Fablehaven type food. We did even before the official Fablehaven Cookbook came out. Now we really like celebrating with nods to Fablehaven... through food. Anyway... we were unfortunately really busy around the Summer Solstice and around Midsummer (which are apparently not the same thing?) getting ready for a trip so even though I had good ideas for celebrating and had a menu planned out, I had to simplify last minute. So I didn't get to make Midsummer Strawberry Salsa with Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla Chips but I did make Jack-o'-Lantern Pumpkin Pie Bars which are in the "Midsummer's Eve" section of the cookbook.

There is a recipe for Lena's Loaded Crepes in the cookbook but Jr. has a recipe he always uses for crepes so he made us crepes for the solstice on June 20.

There are quite a few fairy related recipes in the cookbook but again, we were too busy to make any on International Fairy Day on June 24. Oh well. There's always next year. You know we'll be using this book for a long time.

Ooh, speaking of the Solstice, that evening (thanks for taking care of dinner, Jr.), Nichole and I went to a Relief Society activity where our good friend, Stephanie, gave us a little art lesson while also sharing her testimony. 

Even in the hard or dark times, the Lord is always there and if we look, we can see the good, the beautiful. Stephanie is a beautiful person (who has gone through some pretty hard times in her own life) and she brings so much light to so many people. I've always appreciated her example and her testimony and am so happy to call her friend.

Stephanie and Nichole have gotten together several times to do art in the past. I love that.

 

Even when we have the Lord, there are still rough days. On National Selfie Day, June 21, I planned to take selfies while doing things- weeding, dishes, etc. It turned out I had a hard day so the only selfies I took were of me sad.  

Oh well. I still celebrated.

 

On a better day, June 25 was Eric Carle's birthday. We read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

 

On a different but related note, June 23 (that was Midsummer's Eve and the 24th was Midsummer's Day) was National Hydration Day. It's important to stay hydrated.

Let's Talk About More November Celebrations

Speaking of nachos- like for New Year's...

 

November 6 was National Nacho Day. This was what happened with my 13-year old.

Mom: Today is Nacho Day.

Jr. Jr.: I know. I've had a really hard day.

Mom (looks sympathetic)

Jr. Jr.: Today is not yo' day.

Mom: Groan. 

We also ate nachos.

 

November 11 was Veteran's Day. I got my selfie with the flag. It was sunny.

It was also Corduroy Day, you know, because 11/11 looks like corduroy. We were having breadsticks so had some fun with them.

It was also National Sundae Day. I made hot fudge sauce to go with ice cream and whatever else. Yumm.

 

November 12 was Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day. We had individual pizzas so everyone could choose their toppings. Some of the kids even had dessert pizzas after their main pizzas. They got the idea for s'mores pizza from the Fablehaven Cookbook.

Speaking of the Fablehaven Cookbook, for Spicy Guacamole Day on November 14, we made "Bubda's Sloppy Guac" and "Lost Mesa Corn Avocado Salsa, both from that book. They were perfect to go with taco salad for dinner and family members had fun making faces in the food (the instructions for the sloppy guac even say to make a hermit troll face). We love that cookbook! 

 

November 16 was National Fast Food Day so we pulled out chicken nuggets and fries from the freezer and soda pop from the pantry and called it good.

 

November 17 was Homemade Bread Day and National Butter Day and GWR Day. GWR stands for Guinness World Records. We had homemade bread with butter but we also had hot dogs on homemade buns as a nod to the world record Jeremy broke back in July of 2015. He built a giant balloon dog. So we had hot dogs.

For William Tell Day on November 18, I made apple crisp. Yumm.

 

November 21 was Gingerbread Cookie Day. I made gingerbread cookie people while telling Jet the story of the Gingerbread Man. There have been a few times since then that Jet will run into a room I'm in and call out, "You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." I love him so much.

That day was also National Stuffing Day so we had a bruschetta bake with chicken, stuffing, tomatoes, and seasonings. Yumm.

November 23 was Thanksgiving. That morning I took a moment for myself. I got up early to help Jeremy get ready for work- made him breakfast, made him a lunch (a snack really because he got out of work early for which I was grateful). I had Bing Crosby in my head. "I've got plenty to be thankful for." After Jeremy left for work, I decided to take a bit of time for myself before getting to work on laundry, doing dishes, hard boiling eggs for deviled eggs... so I wrapped myself up in a blanket, drank some hot chocolate, watched some TV, and felt thankful.

When Jeremy got home we celebrated with food, lots and lots of food.

He brought home a pumpkin pie from work which we put whipped topping on. I also made a vanilla pudding pie and we put pumpkin pie ice cream on top of it. Mmmmm.

 

November 24 was National Leftovers Day or Turkey Leftover Day. Yes, we ate leftovers of course.

 

November 26 was Charles Schulz' Birthday. We decided to have a Charlie Brown/Peanuts Thanksgiving to celebrate with foods the characters made in "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." Toast, popcorn, jelly beans, pretzel sticks. We also threw in some "peanuts" and "Peppermint Patties." And to drink we had lemonade because Lucy sometimes sets up a lemonade stand.

I also wore my bow earrings to celebrate his birthday. When some women in choir saw me and I explained why I was wearing those earrings, they suggested we go around the table giving psychiatric advice for 5 cents. So cute. I love my choir friends.

November 30 was Mason Jar Day. You know I love excuses to use my Fablehaven Cookbook. This time it was "Fairy in a Jar Layered Gelatin Treats." 

I couldn't find any gummy butterflies or gummy fairies but I could find gummy worms. Jeremy joked that it as more like "imps in a jar."

Museum Comes to Life Day 2022

While Jeremy and Nichole were at a Father-Daughter campout, 

the boys and I celebrated Museum Comes to Life Day on June 24 by watching the third Night at the Museum movie with popcorn.

Since it was International Fairy Day, Jeremy did read from Nichole's book she is writing. It has fairies in it.

Nichole also did some fairy sketches before they left for the campout.

Cuteness and Accomplishments

I do "Baby Cuteness" posts often on this blog. It's time to share some cuteness and accomplishments from the other children.

In no particular order:

Jr. Jr. got silver medal in the Read-a-thon for his class at school (It was Olympics themed). He came home and was so happy to show me his medal and to say how happy he was for the student who got the gold medal because that boy put a lot of work into reading so much during the event and he deserved it (Jr. Jr. put a lot of minutes in himself).

Jr. was a student of the month for November at the junior high. His English teacher praised him for helping out so much in class (helping other students, straightening desks and chairs up without being asked) besides doing so much more than the required work.

The youth in our ward put on a talent show. They wanted to show both performing arts and visual arts. Nichole brought some of her drawings. She made a coloring page for people to have. 

She also juggled and she and Jr. put on a puppet show with her crocheted puppets. Those two together put on some entertaining puppet shows.

 

The Young Women collected recipes then asked the girls to make one of their dishes to share when they got copies of all the recipes that were collected. Nichole sculpted a cheeseball. Well, she started with one cheeseball that turned into three fairies. She expressed that cream cheese is a lot easier to sculpt than clay.

When we were in quarantine, Lucky missed out on some projects at school so he colored a hinged skeleton at home and hung it on a door. It looked really good.

 

Jr. wanted to support a friend in the school play so he went to watch it and had such a great time. His friend played the Grinch in "Seussical Jr."

I mentioned that Nichole is taking a digital photography class this semester. One of the things she needed to do was get pictures of water splashing/flying through the air, that sort of thing. I was her helper. At one point I tried to throw the water straight up but I ended up throwing it more back than straight up. Oops. I guess that is more "cuteness" on my part but hey, Nichole was taking the pictures.