Cheese and Pickle Sandwiches

I am thankful for cheese and pickle sandwiches and how easy they are to make. I'm also thankful for homemade bread with which to make the sandwiches.

November 14 was National Pickle Day. It was also American Teddy Bear Day. I wanted to look for a teddy bear to put in a picture with a cheese and pickle sandwich to celebrate both holidays. One of my children mentioned Winnie-the-Pooh but I noted that Winnie-the-Pooh is a British teddy bear. I grabbed a care bear, which is an American teddy bear. 

Phew. Holidays celebrated. 

 

November 15 was Steve Irwin Day. I kept my eye out for wildlife as I was out running errands. First thing I noticed when I left the house was hearing birds in the morning. Not surprising. You know I love birds.

I am thankful for Steve Irwin's family and what they have continued to teach us about wildlife conservation even though Steve is no longer around. The Crocodile Hunter was a very important part of my childhood growing up as it was with a lot of people my age.

It was also Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day so we had leftovers. 

 

P.S. My friend sent me the Lucille Ball wearing the pickle costume video again like she did last year. 

Bison Day 2025

Road Trip! 

I am thankful for the family tradition we have of going to Antelope Island every year for Bison Day. This year National Bison Day was on November 1.

We brought our bison plushie, Otter the Bison, which is also tradition.

Jeremy wore a bison shirt. That is also tradition. We have a lot of Bison Day traditions it seems.

It was a beautiful afternoon and evening while we were there. 

The leaves were falling. At Garr Ranch, a couple of my sons were trying to catch them as they fell. It was Play Outside Day, after all. 

It brought back memories of when I was a child and I used to do that with the leaves from the maple trees in our yard. We only had a few trees around that would drop their leaves. We were mostly surrounded by evergreens. I love living in a place where I can go for drives and see so many different colors of leaves in the Fall. I did love growing up around so many evergreens, though.

I love hearing the rustle of leaves and watching them fall.

We took pictures of some lizards.

Some of us tried our hand at roping.

Some of us checked out the museum and other buildings. Jet got another souvenir penny. 

November 1 was also National Cinnamon Day. We ate brown sugar cinnamon poaster tastries (or toaster pastries as normal people call them) as we were riding in the van.

It was also Vinegar Day. We made the old joke about being bitter when people put up Christmas decorations right after Halloween and completely skip Thanksgiving (not to mention all the other wonderful November holidays like Vinegar Day and Bison Day, right?). We talked about having salt and vinegar chips but we ended up with sour cream and onion.  

 

It was a nice trip. I love family days like this.

There were plenty of "Bye, son" jokes while we were on Antelope Island.

We said, "Bye, bison," when it was time to go.

At the end of the day, we said, "Bye, sun." 

July Holidays 2025

July was busy and crazy. Life is crazy. We skipped a lot of holidays the last couple of months but we did celebrate some. I won't remember them all (you know, pics or it didn't happen), but here are some.

Independence Day was on... the 4th of July. We actually didn't do anything to celebrate. It was that kind of month. I didn't get any pictures with the American flag and we heard fireworks through the window but didn't go out to look at them. 

International Kissing Day was July 6 and Jeremy was at his fair during that time so we didn't celebrate.

This was not meant to be a what holidays we didn't celebrate post. Sigh.

We did celebrate Teddy Bear Picnic Day on July 10. 

Gummi Worm Day was July 15. I bought gummi worms in advance of this holiday. I forgot about it. Jet has had some gummi worms from time to time since then but no celebrating on the holiday or even "observed."

Yellow Pigs Day was July 17. Mustard and li'l smokies.

Stick Out Your Tongue Day was July 19. I confused the kids a few times while sticking my tongue out at them that day.

Moon Day was July 20. Astronaut sandwiches.

National Junk Food Day was July 21. We got dino nuggets and french fries out of the freezer to celebrate.

I wished my mom and my sister Happy Gorgeous Grandma Day on July 23. 

Pioneer Day was July 24. We had green jello and sourdough bread (both things you expect from Utah, though the green jello doesn't really fit in with pioneer times). We also had chicken and potatoes and baby carrots so I didn't have to put carrot shavings in the jello.

I also go a picture with the flag that day. 

I like to celebrate National Sleepyhead Day, the Finnish holiday, on July 27, but we missed it this year even though I was thinking about it in the days leading up to it. Did I mention things have been crazy so we didn't celebrate as much as we often do? 

National Chili Dog Day was July 31. I made homemade turkey chili to put on our hot dogs and homemade buns. 

Yeah, not a lot of holiday celebrating this July. That's okay, though. That's life. We're not completely missing out not celebrating here and there. We still celebrate more holidays than the average family. 

 

 

On a completely different note- 

Jet: Can I help you with your blog post? 

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One of the Best Holidays Ever

November 12, Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day, is one of the best holidays ever in my opinion.

I don't like it when I miss this holiday as pizza is my favorite food.

Luckily this year we did not miss it. We had classic pepperoni pizza, chicken alfredo pizza, and a couple of BBQ pepperoni pizzas that the boys made. Thanks, boys.

I took some alfredo pizza down to Nichole and she was very grateful.

I LOVE PIZZA!

When Kids Remember Past Creativity

Getting back into things after vacation isn't always the easiest thing. Luckily, I put together some freezer meals before we left so we were able to have food ready to go and Jeremy picked up a few things at the store such as fresh spinach so we were able to celebrate Fresh Spinach Day on July 16. We got tamale casserole out of the freezer to go along with it. 

Since it was Ginger Rogers' Birthday, Nichole remembered a time when Jr. Jr. got creative with letter rearranging (see my July 26, 2022 post about it) so we had a choice between ginger ale and orange soda to celebrate her birthday this year.

Since it was also Personal Chef Day, Jr. was our personal chef and made us pancakes. Later we watched the movie Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn because in it she is at cooking school. "One two three, crack. New egg." At one point she is also going to make food for him- be his personal chef for an evening.

 

July 17 was National Hot Dog Day and Yellow Pigs Day so of course we made pigs in a blanket with yellow mustard. Nichole wore her racing pigs hat which she won on Yellow Pigs Day 10 years ago (see my July 17, 2014 blog post about it).

 

July 18 was Sour Candy Day. Some family members ate sour candy.

July 20 was Moon Day. I had every intention of getting out Oreos for us to make phases of the moon cookies then I forgot. I do that sometimes. We did have astronaut sandwiches with dinner.

July 21 was National Junk Food Day and National Ice Cream Day. When kids came to me asking if they could eat certain foods, I would tell them, "I don't care. Eat whatever you want," to paraphrase Muppets Most Wanted.

July 23 was Vanilla Ice Cream Day. Jr. made S'mores Milkshakes from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3. 

We are definitely getting a lot of use out of those books. It's actually pretty amazing how many recipes that work for certain holidays are near where I'm already menu planning from in the books (within a few weeks). I'm not talking about Easter and Halloween (though there are recipes for those holidays), either. It's holidays like Vanilla Ice Cream Day like I mentioned or Eat Brussels Sprouts Day (I blogged about that one on February 1, 2024).

 

Well, there you go. Creativity and meal planning.

Granola Bar Day

January 21 is Squirrel Appreciation Day. We didn't do anything to celebrate that. January 21 is also National Hug Day. There were hugs going around in our home. That might be why I've picked up another cold. Sigh.

According to the new "national days" calendar our friends gave us, January 21 is also Granola Bar Day. The kids were happy when I told them they could have granola bars and hot chocolate for after school snack.

It's fun to try out a new holiday.

A Few Holidays

Here are a few holidays we celebrated recently:

November 12- Pizza With the Works Except Anchovies Day.
Last time I got a picture of the BBQ chicken pizza. This time I got the pepperoni.

That night was also a full moon so Jr. Jr., Lucky, and I went out to celebrate and soak in some moonlight.

November 13- World Kindness Day. There were some people who were really kind to us that day.

November 17- Homemade Bread Day. Friends of ours stopped off on their way somewhere and brought us a loaf of homemade bread. I didn't get a picture. It got eaten too fast. Yumm.

Since Thanksgiving is coming up very soon, there has been some celebrating at home and at school.
You already saw that Jr. Jr. disguised his turkey as a bald eagle. He also created an art project of the Mayflower at school. Lucky showed us corn kernels that represented what he learned about pilgrims.

Jeremy made sure to wear a roast turkey hat while taking and picking up kids from buses.

Nichole and Jr. made brownies for a potluck and of course Nichole had to decorate them with a turkey.

Those are some ways we've been celebrating.

International Respect for Chickens Day 2018

It's May the 4th.  Besides being Star Wars Day, it is International Respect for Chickens Day.

Once again we made a video of ZZ and Lucky celebrating a holiday.

A story about this video:
ZZ has experience with chickens.  Lucky does not.  He was a little intimidated at first but warmed up a bit as he helped take care of these chickens.  The kids were very careful while petting the chicken that was out.  They fed the chickens.  They collected eggs and put fluff (pine shavings) in the nesting box.
When we get eggs from these chickens, Jeremy and I are the ones who wash the eggs off before using them.  Lucky is not.  He was not used to the stuff that comes with the eggs when the hens lay them.  It scared him.  It's not like the eggs that come from the store.

ZZ and Lucky will be making more videos together so check back on my YouTube channel as well as here at my blog to see how a couple of 4-year olds...