Celebrating My Birthday

My birthday was in May. A few days before, I got together with some friends who have birthdays in May and June and we had lunch together. That was a nice relaxing afternoon.

Stephanie had these pictures taken with her camera. 

 

On my actual birthday, I was going to take a nap but ended up finishing The Duke's Bargain by Megan Walker. 

I did an online book club with her for Lakeshire Park and Miss Newbury's List where she shared things about her writing of those books and I got to meet her and get a hug from her when she came to Utah in April. 

In May, I was part of a different online book club for The Duke's Bargain. Megan shared a few posts on there about her writing of this book. I love that the two main characters in this book were the antagonists in the first two books. I also love that the main characters from the first books made appearances. It was fun to see the growth of the "villains."

I got to participate in an online live event to finish out the month's book club and got to learn even more from Megan. 

 

Back to talking about my birthday- Jeremy made lots of pizza for me (and the family). I LOVE pizza!

 

We had cake and ice cream. Jeremy put the candles in the shape of a heart. He's so cute.

I opened my birthday present, which was a tea kettle! I wanted one. Since there's been so much herbal tea drinking with all the Seeking Persephone movie watching and Proper Romance book reading, this was perfect. 

 

P.S. Jeremy was so pleased with how this picture turned out- there was still a tiny amount of flame on the candles. Have I mentioned my husband is cute?

 

P.P.S. Jeremy texted me the day before our Southern Utah trip saying he wanted to give me my birthday present early because it would be helpful getting ready for our trip. He had previously told me he debated about giving me my Mother's Day present early because it might be useful while we were out celebrating our anniversary. I like to take selfies when Jeremy and I are out birding together. Ultimately he gave it to me on Mother's Day and you know I've definitely used it since. So he told me he decided to give me my birthday present early and had Nichole bring it to me unwrapped when I got home.

"Dad told me to give you this." As I was opening the box for the portable vacuum cleaner (to help clean out the van), she told me this, "Dad also told me to tell you he'd never give you a vacuum as a birthday present. You'll have a different one on [your birthday]." 

Ha Ha Ha Ha. He really is cute.  

International Tea Day 2026

I loved what we did for International Tea Day, May 21, last year so much, I wanted to do something similar this year.

I asked family members what they wanted to eat with our herbal tea. Cucumber sandwiches, of course, were requested. Our favorite recipe for cucumber sandwiches is in Whisk Me Away by Michelle Wright.

We also had raspberry honey butter (also from Whisk Me Away) on English Muffins. My husband requested coffee cake so I made Carrot Cake Coffee Cake (recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe). 

 

Lucky and I made biscuits (also from Whisk Me Away) that he had with leftover sausage gravy.

  

We spent so much time making food that Nichole and I only had time to eat half a cucumber sandwich each before we headed out to a Relief Society activity. I stage my picture and ate when we got home.

 

Our activity was a walk along the Provo River Parkway with a few other ladies. 

I had self control and didn't bring my binoculars and camera yet still got distracted by birds and got way behind the others while I was trying to find a Yellow-breasted Chat I could hear. I never did see it.

Ah, birds... and going for walks... and herbal tea... and celebrating.

Tea Party

 

May 21 was International Tea Day. I got excited to try out recipes from Whisk Me Away by Michelle Wright. 

We had Cucumber Sandwiches, Spinach Artichoke Dip on homemade English muffins (the muffins recipe was not in the book but the dip was), The Perfect Tea Cookie, and strawberries and cream (also not in the book but it was Strawberries and Cream Day). We each got to choose what kind of herbal tea to drink and of course I had to use my "just one more chapter" mug.

Not only does this book have delicious recipes but there are bits of trivia about different time periods as well as games and quotes from Proper Romance novels. 

Last Week of School- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Last week of school continued.

I got to help put vinyl on T-shirts Lucky's grade wore for their dance festival. My sister, who has a LOT of experience with that sort of thing, helped me figure it out because I don't have as much experience. They danced to the song, "Thunder." Some of the shirts were black with white lettering that said, "Lightning," with a white lightning bolt and some were white with black lettering that said, "Thunder," with a black rain cloud.

Lucky's class also had a talent show that day. He played harmonica for his classmates and teacher.

Tuesday, May 21, was International Tea Day and Strawberries and Cream Day. I made scones with a recipe from The Fiction Kitchen Trio Cookbook. I did not make clotted cream to go with it. No, thanks.

The biscuits I made were based on the Funfetti Shortbread Bites we made January of 2021, but without the sprinkles.

 

Wednesday, April 22, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday. Nichole and I chatted about Sherlock Holmes then she, Jet, and I went to our own Lost World that evening. O.K. So it was Bridal Veil Falls which is not lost at all, but Utah's Adventure Family had mentioned it on Instagram and made we want to go so we got a little evening walk in after taking boys to activities that evening.

And cuteness. Jeremy brought home a watermelon that Jet was so excited about, he got a plastic knife out of the drawer and tried slicing it. You better believe he got the first piece when Jeremy finally cut it up.

 

Thursday, May 23, I got out for another walk in the morning. I've been wanting to get out for walks more.

That evening, Nichole and I went to a Relief Society activity together. I love getting to do things with my girl.

Hard to Celebrate When You're Sick

While sick, there's not a lot I want to do. Give me steam, herbal tea, and rest. 

Unfortunately, the rest is more restless than anything. I cannot get a good night's sleep when lying down makes me cough. Sigh. I'm gradually getting better now (knock on wood). But for a while, I wasn't up to blogging, baking, or shopping. And not so much celebrating.

I did save some rolls after Thanksgiving (they don't usually last long) for Turkey Leftover Day on November 28. Turkey sandwiches. Go, me.

December 1 was Eat a Red Apple Day but we only had one red apple left to split between the seven of us so we had tiny slices for everyone.

 

Of course while I was the worst sick was while Jeremy was out of town for another conference.

For Walt Disney's Birthday on December 5, we ate peaches with a spoonful of sugar on them.

My Friend's Scripture Study is Different Than Mine

My friend posted the other day how she was enjoying her early morning scripture study with a group discussion and peppermint tea. I let her know she inspired me.

I made myself some peppermint herbal tea, sat down on the couch with my scriptures to where I left off in Nahum in the Old Testament, and started reading.

"Woe to the bloody city!"

It continued like that through several verses.

"...and a great number of carcasses; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:"

 

In fact the whole chapter was like that, prophesying the destruction of Ninevah.

Not quite what I was expecting when I sat down to relax with my scriptures but I guess it can't all be the good tidings of great joy like in our family Countdown to Christmas scripture study this month.

Lots of Things for Us to Celebrate

Friday, May 20, was a busy day. It was Pick Strawberries Day so Lucky picked strawberries to go in his lunch that day.

Jet and I went to watch the elementary school dance festival. I was so worried it was going to rain. I needn't have worried. It snowed. Heh Heh. Just a tiny bit but everybody there could tell there were definitely little flakes coming down.

If you look really closely in this picture, you can see little snowflakes in our hair.

 

Jr. Jr. and Lucky both did a really good job. And Jet did a good job staying with me. He was only a little wiggly.

It wore him out, though.

 

Since it was Eliza Doolittle Day, we ate more of the devil's food cake after school because it was "lots of chocolate for me to eat."

Look. It's the dancing boys home from school.

 

That night Jeremy took the three oldest boys camping for the ward Father-Son campout. 

 

While they were gone Nichole and I made French bread chicken alfredo pizza for National Pizza Party Day and we watched Pride & Prejudice (The Keira Knightley version) because her orchestra played music from it in her last concert. Jet and I got tired so we went to bed and missed the end of the movie. I had already started dozing and was missing parts of it anyway. Oh well.

 

When the boys got home the next morning, I heard plenty of exclamations of how much they enjoyed their camping trip. I'm so glad.

That Saturday evening, May 21, we had strawberries with whipped topping to go with dinner to celebrate Strawberries and Cream Day. We also had herbal tea to celebrate International Tea Day.

A Relaxing Day

December 26 was Wren Day.  Nichole and Jeremy went out looking for a wren but didn't find one.  They did find a hummingbird, though.

December 26 was also National Candy Cane Day.  They boys decided to celebrate by decorating themselves with candy canes.

Today was nice.  Jeremy and I decided to celebrate Wren Day Observed.  We went for a walk along the Provo River Parkway.  It was snowing and it was cold but it was completely worth it.
We saw chickadees, flickers, robins, spotted towhees, mallards, coots, some goldeneyes, downy woodpeckers.  We also saw some white-breasted nuthatches and brown creepers.  I hadn't seen any creepers yet this year (in Utah) so it was so nice to see a bunch of them chasing each other around on the trees.

And yes, we got our wren.  It was a Winter Wren, which is not a bird normally found in Utah. 
Kind of like the yellow-bellied sapsucker we saw back in January.  Jeremy saw it while on a birding field trip.  I went out to find it and it took me three tries and many hours standing around until somebody happened to mention it was on the opposite side of the cemetery from where I was looking (and where Jeremy saw it).  There were a bunch of us birders looking for it so several of us did get to see it.  Now that again is the difference between a birdwatcher and a birder.  Someone who goes out to see birds versus someone who stands around in the cold January weather for hours waiting for a bird to show up.  When it doesn't, that someone comes back again and again until they find it.

Back to today and Wren Day Observed.  We got our Winter Wren.  It was so nice to come and pose for us.  So worth the cold.

We stopped by the place for the hummingbird, just in case, but it was snowing quite a bit so we weren't surprised when we didn't see it.  It was probably hunkered down hiding.
It was a nice relaxing outing with my husband.

This is me so happy with the birds we saw.

We ran some errands and when we got home, I made hot chocolate for the kids and I sat down with my new rice warmer and mug of mint herbal tea.  Mmmmmm.  So relaxing.

I've enjoyed my bonding time with my husband today and how relaxing things have been.  Ahhhhh.