Mommy, Look

Jr.: Lunch. I think they're a little late.

Mom: Daylight savings. 

How Did October Start?

How did October start? It started on October 1, which was World Vegetarian Day. We had a salad bar for dinner without meat.

Since it was Homemade Cookies Day, we also had chocolate chip cookies from a recipe by The Food Nanny.

 

Lucky had his "Grand Lunch" at the elementary school. Jet and I joined him. He chose to have me bring him lunch that day instead of eating school lunch. He was very happy that I brought him Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps.

That evening, Jeremy and I went to Parent Teacher Conferences with Lucky and got to see some of the things he's been working on.

October 3 was Virus Appreciation Day. Lucky was sick. We were able to appreciate the timing of it at least.

He got better.

Grand Lunch and Weather

The elementary school hadn't done their "Grand Lunch" for a couple years for obvious reasons but they started it up again this year.

Jeremy and Jet dropped me off at the school before picking up the older kids from school. I ate half my lunch with Lucky then the other half with Jr. Jr. That meant half my sandwich, half my chips, half my pudding cup, etc. 

After saying goodbye to Jr. Jr. I decided to walk home. It was a pleasant sunny day.

That did not last. By the time I picked up the boys from the bus, it had been thundering and some of the clouds were pretty dark. 

Jeremy, Jr. Jr., Lucky, and I went back to the elementary school for parent teacher conferences and afterward we got to see a beautiful rainbow as we went to get gas in the van.

Fun times. Crazy weather.

A New Twist on an Old Joke

It's tradition for me to play a Kool-aid joke on my kids for April Fool's Day. I've been doing it for years. Originally, I put gelatin in cups with straws and let it set. When the kids tried to drink the colored flavored sugar water, they were in for a surprise. They did get colored flavored sugar water. It was just gelatinous colored flavored sugar water. I did that for a couple years and got them each year. Other ways I've fooled them is by putting actual Kool-aid in the cups so when they were expecting Jello, they got Kool-aid. I've put Jello in a pitcher. I've put Kool-aid in a pitcher. 

This year, Jeremy suggested something different and it worked. I put food coloring in regular water so when they poured Kool-aid from the pitcher then drank it, it just tasted like water.

I told people I was not making dinner again that night (besides the drink) so they helped out. Jr. Jr. made peanut butter sandwiches with a surprise inside- graham crackers and pancake syrup. They tasted good.

Jet played a joke on me that day. Normally when it's time to take kids to school, he's willing to get up and get in the van (especially if he brings a dinosaur with him). That morning he did not want to get up at all and he made it very well known that he did not want to get up at all. It was definitely something trying to get him ready and out the door. Sigh. Oh well.

 

That morning I also made lunch for both Jeremy and Nichole and wrote notes on their bags saying, "Didn't think I'd make you lunch today, did you? April Fool's!"

Here is a picture of a couple of April Fools.

 

Another Grand Lunch

Back in October, Jeremy, Lucky, and I went to lunch at the elementary school with Jr. Jr. Recently, Jeremy and Lucky went to lunch again with Jr. Jr. for the "Grand Lunch." They again had fun and enjoyed their bonding time together.

I absolutely love my family.

October Beginneth

And here we are. Practically caught up. You want to know what we did the first couple weeks of October? Here you go.
The beginning of October, we went to a wedding reception. Congratulations. We've been friends with this family for years. They are such great people. The oldest son in the family got married and their wedding reception had a carnival theme. Cotton candy and popcorn and a balloon artist- you know who that is. Jeremy did balloons at the oldest daughter's wedding several years ago, too. My, how time flies. 

It was such a nice evening. I was thinking I'd take the kids and only stay for a little while since they had school the next day. We ended up staying pretty late. Oops. We had a great time, though. I really enjoyed seeing people I hadn't seen in while.

Jeremy finally made a certain balloon sculpture for the youngest daughter of this family. He meant to make it for her years and years ago and finally was able to.

Jeremy and Lucky did a special project and carved an apple for a shrunken apple head. Lucky designed it. Jeremy used the knife. Lucky painted it with lemon juice and stuck in the clove eyes. Now it's been sitting for a while and it did spend some time in the oven to get some of the moisture out.

Nichole and Jr. had student led conferences at the junior high. Some of the teachers had activities set out for the students to show their parents. In Jr.'s science class, he was able to demonstrate Newton's laws of physics and drop a screw into a narrow necked bottle by placing it on the top of a hoop and whipping the hoop out of the way. Pretty cool and Jr. was good at it.

October 4 was National Taco Day. We kept with tradition and had tacos that day. Not a very hard tradition.

For General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we had friends visit us again and of course we had Conference Nachos.

Nichole got creative... again. She decorated her cup with a dragon... again. She likes to do things with her hands to pay attention to talks and things so she crocheted a little person while listening to Conference.

I don't think I took a picture of the brownies but Nichole and I kept up with tradition and made brownies to eat while we watched the Women's session of Conference.
Our younger boys also listened to some of the talks and definitely heard Elder Bednar's talk about the cheetahs using distraction, deception, and diversion in the grass as they hunted topis, a type of antelope.
Our children weren't the only ones who paid attention to that talk. For Family Home Evening we decided to go hiking at Big Springs to look at the Fall colors.

When we got to a big field, the boys wanted to be cheetahs and take turns showing themselves and crouching and creeping along in the grass. There were other families at that field and we could hear some of the comments coming from other kids, apparently deciding to be cheetahs themselves. "Look at all the cantaloupe." "It's a whole field full of cantaloupe." We got a kick out of that.

That was October 7, which was also the 170th anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's death. We didn't see any ravens at Big Springs but the older kids were quick to point out that we were surrounded by death and decay since we were up there when leaves were falling.

Jeremy and Lucky took some time to go to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point. Lucky got to ride a horse and they both went on a tractor ride.

Nichole, Jr., and I went to BYU to watch a faculty recital- Deseret String Quartet. Since Nichole plays violin and Jr. plays cello, it was nice to take them to a performance where they could both hear and see those instruments played by just one or two people each.

The elementary school was doing a "Grand Lunch" where anyone grand in a student's life was invited to come have lunch with them so Jeremy, Lucky, and I had lunch with Jr. Jr. I remembered to get pictures of Jr. Jr. during lunch this time. And being the overemotional person I am lately, I almost cried during the lunch and taking Lucky to his class since we were already at the school. I did cry all the way home. "I just love my family so much."

Nichole and Jr. had their first orchestra concert of the year. Spooky Halloween themed music. They both did well.

And Lucky wanted to be in the picture.

Lucky and Jr. had their parent-teacher conferences. I don't have pictures but they are both doing well at school like their siblings.

And now we are caught up. Wow. We did a lot in October and it hasn't even been two weeks yet.