I Love Birding Challenges

Besides the annual reading challenge I'm doing, it is another year for a birding challenge through Utah County Birders. Books and birds. Aren't they great? And yes, I will sometimes listen to an audiobook while I'm looking at birds.

Jeremy and Nichole (who are also doing the birding challenge), got out one evening for some bonding birding time to the Provo River Delta and saw a barn owl among a few other birds.

Jeremy and I decided to go the next week for a morning birding adventure to see if we could find the owl.

We got there nice and early. You know I love mornings in nature. It was cold, we didn't see the barn owl, but we saw so many other birds. It was worth it.

And somehow I turned the exposure way down on the birding camera so all the bird pictures we took are dark. Sigh.

Oh well. We still enjoyed seeing them... together.

 

I love bonding time! 

 

That day, January 17, was Popeye Day and Hot Heads Chili Day so we had spinach salad and chili on cornbread (I added hot sauce on top of my chili).

The next day, January 18, was Winnie-the-Pooh Day. We had foods with honey: Honey garlic chicken, salad with honey mustard dressing.

It was also Thesaurus Day so we had fun figuring out different way of saying things. Lucky wanted to make Kool-aid. I corrected him and told him it was "Colored Flavored Sugar Water." He needed to put crystalized sweetener in it (aka sugar). The funny thing is the honey I used for dinner was crystalized (crystalized sweetener) so I had to heat it up in order to use it. Heh Heh Heh. 

Some January Fun... That Hasn't Already Been Mentioned

Sometimes you just have to dance to the music. In this case it was music from Singin' in the Rain. In fact, I think it was the song, "Singin' in the Rain."  

January 15 was National Bagel Day. Breakfast sandwiches for dinner? Yes, please.

 

Live long and prosper.

 

January 16 was Appreciate a Dragon Day. Nichole wore her new dragon-themed shirt and her new dragon earrings and as is tradition, she sketched a dragon.

She and the boys also played "toss" with the dragon that she made in elementary school. 

January 17 was Popeye Day. We had food with spinach for dinner including Popeye brand spinach.

 

One way to get exercise in during the Winter. Roll the ball down the hall and chase it.

January 18 was Winnie-the-Pooh Day. We had honey roasted carrots with our dinner. I also made granola that day but used maple syrup instead of honey because I wasn't thinking and we had syrup we needed to use up.

 

Sometimes in life, you just have to stop and play with monster trucks. Did you know that because they're "monster" trucks, they roar?

 

And this...

Not So Lazy, Am I?

September 2 was National Lazy Mom's Day.

It's also Shelftember and I told my kids I wasn't going to buy bread at the store this month. So I took our crystallized honey and uncrystallized it (decrystallized it?) by putting the honey container in a pot of hot water until it was the consistency I wanted. I then took that honey and used it to make wheat bread (with some help from my baking buddy).

I did a few dishes (Bosch, etc.), only a few, because I burned my hand on the oven door the night before while putting the pizza in and soaking my hand in hot soapy water would not be a good idea.

I did do laundry, though. I fed myself and my two-year old, watered plants, got kids to and from school.

Oh, and I got some grossness off our counter before accidentally spilling oatmeal on it (the counter) while getting it (the oats) out of the cupboard (and I had just refilled the container the other day so it was full). So I cleaned up the oats as well. 

And I cleaned up the flour Jet dumped on the table. That's one of his favorite things to do while being my baking buddy. If there is a measuring cup or other container on the table with flour in it, it must be for dumping out. I mean that's what I do, sprinkle a little on the table to help with kneading, so why not the whole thing?

 

I wasn't so lazy but in the evening I did something for myself. I went to the Provo Library for a launch event for the newest book from Sarah M. Eden. It was so nice and she is so entertaining, both speaking and in her writing. I used some birthday money and got myself that book and got it signed.

I'm glad I took that time for myself.

Not So Impromptu Date

We needed to get the windshield on our van replaced so Jeremy and I planned to go birding while it was getting done. Last time we went to get vehicle maintenance done we had a spontaneous date. This one was planned.

It was a beautiful morning. There was some rain so we had to hide the camera from time to time but we enjoyed ourselves.

West Mountain was looking pretty in the morning light. 

I thought it would be fun to get a picture of the two of us with it in the background. My phone didn't want to cooperate so I turned it around but then couldn't line it up because I couldn't see us. Who remembers taking selfies with cameras back when they weren't even called selfies and you just took what you could get because there was no screen showing what the camera was seeing? I also remember doing that with film cameras so we didn't even see how they turned out until the pictures were developed.

Speaking of cameras, I realized I could turn the screen around on our camera camera but I got the angle wrong so I didn't even get West Mountain in the picture, just the Saratoga Springs area across the lake. Ha.

Neverthless we did enjoy ourselves, even if there were a lot of mosquitoes out. That made for happy warblers, though, for us to watch.

At one point, I started getting all excited and checked my picture of my calendar on my phone. I was able to let Jeremy know we were celebrating because that day, August 20, was World Mosquito Day. I wondered what was so good about mosquitoes and Jeremy let me know they are pollinators. Oh. Well, there are pollinators I prefer, like honey bees. It was World Honey Bee Day as well. Interestingly, I don't think we got any mosquito bites even though we left the bug spray in the car. Heh.

Since we were by the lake, there were plenty of pelicans flying around. I love pelicans. At one point we watched a snowy egret land and managed to get a picture of the egret, a great blue heron, and some pelicans all in the same picture. That was fun.

Once the van was done, I dropped Jeremy off to pick it up then headed home to pick Nichole up to go to a Relief Society/Young Women combined activity. We had brunch and got to make some little flower arrangements to take home.

I didn't get a picture but later that day to celebrate World Honey Bee Day, we had honey glazed carrots with our dinner. 

It was a busy day.

Winnie-the-Pooh Day 2021

This year for Winnie-the-Pooh Day on January 18, I tried out some new foods with honey in them.

Ginger Ale Ham from my slow cooker cookbook and German Brown Bread from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner and salad with honey mustard dressing (which isn't something new but the other two were).

We only mentioned Winnie-the-Pooh this year along with the food. We didn't play any games or with any toys or watch any Winnie-the-Pooh themed movies or shows. Oh well.

More Food Celebrations

January 17 was Popeye's Birthday.  We had themed food with our dinner.

Spinach Lasagna

Salad with spinach leaves and "Olive" Garden dressing

Hamburgers

After the kids went to bed, Jeremy and I started watching the old "Popeye" movie with Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall.  That movie is weird.

January 18 was Winnie-the-Pooh Day.  Jeremy introduced us to a dish from his childhood.  Milk Toast.  I was not familiar with that food.  Now I am.  We put honey on it because of the holiday.

Earlier in the day, Jr. Jr. and Lucky watched Winnie-the-Pooh.

January 19 is Brew a Potion Day.  We didn't do themed food for this, but Lucky got to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and the rest of the kids got to watch part of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Winnie-the-Pooh Day 2015

Yesterday, Jeremy and the kids spent a lot of time cleaning up the living room while I was shopping and Lucky was sleeping.  Thanks, guys.
And after celebrating Winnie-the-Pooh Day, this is what the living room looked like today, January 18.

That's right, we got out Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed animals and Winnie-the-Pooh books and the kids had a fun time with it.
Nichole even made up a song to sing about reading Winnie-the-Pooh books and she danced around singing it.

Originally when I went to the kids room to get out some stuffed animals, Lucky came with me.  I got them out of the closet one by one and he grabbed them and played with them.  I figured it would be easiest to carry them back to the living room if I wrapped them all up in a big piece of cloth.  As I was setting them on the cloth, Lucky sat down right in the middle of them.  He had a blast as I bundled him up with the stuffed animals and carried him to the living room with them.

You can't tell in the picture, but he really was enjoying himself.

And with dinner we had honey along with our cornbread.
And the books and stuffed animals did get picked up at the end of the day.
Some other ideas for celebrating Winnie-the-Pooh Day are:
Play with My Friends, Tigger and Pooh toys
Color Winnie-the-Pooh pages or coloring books

Winnie-the-Pooh Day 2013

January 18 is Winnie-the-Pooh Day.  The kids started off our celebration this morning by play acting the characters as they got ready for school. 
Before Nichole got home, Jr., Jr. Jr., and I went on an expedition to find Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed animals.

After Nichole got home, we had toast with butter (well, Blue Bonnet) and honey.

We cleaned the living room and piled up the stuffed animals for a picture.

I was able to surprise the kids with the new Winnie-the-Pooh movie that Jeremy picked up from the library yesterday.  Well, I guess it's not that new anymore.  But we still enjoyed watching it.

Nichole also let Jr. Jr. eat on her Winnie-the-Pooh plate.  She's sweet.

A little bit simpler celebrating than last year.  We just used regular old clover honey on our toast (though Winco does have raspberry honey right now).  No complaints from the family, though.  It was still nice celebrating.

Family Night- Chimpanzee

Last year I wrote about our family watching Oceans by DisneyNature and the theme food we had with it.
Tonight we watched another DisneyNature film.  Chimpanzee.
We were going to do it for Family Home Evening last night, but we ran out of time.  Though we did have lettuce with our dinner and my picky kids actually ate it.  For Family Home Evening treat we had flavored honey sticks, which we thought would go well with the movie (there was a scene where the chimpanzees were getting honey out of a tree).

Tonight we let the kids make a "nest" with blankets and pillows and the green thing (chimpanzees make nests in trees to sleep in).  Then we gave them "buckets" (empty clean margarine or sour cream containers) to put fruits and vegetables in (like they might put chimpanzee food in at the zoo- we wanted the food to be contained instead of all over the living room).  Then we turned on the movie and watched together as a family.
The kids again did a good job eating their fruits and vegetables.  We had a variety to choose from and they didn't complain but ate what they chose.  Yay!

I liked the movie and I liked the time spent with my family.

It was a good family activity.

Winnie-the-Pooh Day 2012

We have been waiting for this one for a while. One day months ago we were at our local Winco and saw that near the bulk section they had blackberry honey. I'd never had blackberry honey before. Neither had Jeremy. Oh, we wanted to try some. So we rationalized that if we could find a holiday or a "reason to celebrate" that might use honey, we could buy some. Looking at the Calendar of Celebration, we saw that January 18 is Winnie-the-Pooh Day. What better excuse for trying a new kind of honey? So we waited... and waited... and waited... and waited... and waited... until January.
As it got closer, we told the kids about our upcoming celebration. They were all ready to come up with ideas for activities we could do with a Winnie-the-Pooh theme. This is what we ended up doing for this holiday:

For breakfast, Jeremy used his pancake pen to create pancakes in the shape of Winnie-the-Pooh heads. We got to try out three different types of honey. Regular old clover honey. Blackberry honey. And creamed honey. It was fun to have the three different kinds on our pancakes. And yes, there is a subtle difference in the flavors (or textures in the case of the creamed honey).
Jr.'s piggy bank made an appearance as "Piglet," and we each decided to be a character from the stories or movies or TV shows.

Nichole made sure she wore her Winnie-the-Pooh shirt that said, "Sweet As Honey!" and even posed the same as Pooh Bear on her shirt for a picture.

We made sure to pack Nichole's lunch with items that fit the theme. A honey sandwich. Carrots from Rabbit's garden. Water because even Pooh drinks water. And honey graham crackers.
While she was at school, we listened to munchkinradio.com (the music starts as soon as you click on the link, so make sure you're ready with your speaker volume the way you want it). They play a lot of Disney music and sure enough, we heard a Winnie-the-Pooh song while listening. Jr. also got to play a Winnie-the-Pooh game cube game and we read a Winnie-the-Pooh book.

For dinner, we had cheeseburgers with vegetables you would find in Rabbit's garden, along with honey mustard and honey barbecue sauce.

This evening, Jeremy started reading "The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh" to us, then the kids started a Winnie-the-Pooh movie.

All this to justify getting some blackberry honey from the store.

We have lots of other Winnie-the-Pooh themed activities we've done before or can think of, but that's what we did today and all I'm going to blog about for now.

It was a great family day.