More Catching Up

August 25 was Kiss and Make Up Day. Jet and I were arguing. We stopped and gave each other a kiss on the cheek and then got along.

 

August 26 was National Dog Day. Jet helped make squid pups.

It was also Toilet Paper Day. We used toilet paper. 

 

August 29 was Chop Suey Day. I just made some teriyaki. It tasted good.

August 30 was Toasted Marshmallow Day. And International Bacon Day. Nichole had this great idea to combine them. Bacon on S'mores. Why not? 

 

August 31 was Eat Outside Day. We did.

Fun With Peeps

After our birding meeting on March 21, one of our birding peeps gave a package of marshmallow peeps to Lucky to take home. She didn't want them. He was okay with that.

Jeremy and I were talking one day and we realized we'd never shown our kids peeps in the microwave. So... the boys and I tried it out. We found a package of really old peeps and tried one of those first. It didn't expand very much. 

Then we took one from the package Lucky got (new peeps) and it expanded much nicer than the old one.

Now we know.

 

S'more Reflections

August 30 was Toasted Marshmallow Day. S'mores for after school snack. No complaints.

Then I had to document this because I made a new recipe again for dinner and I want to remember. It was so good, I couldn't stop eating it. We ate Southwest Chicken Skillet from budgetbytes.com along with onion roasted potatoes and veggies with leftover dill dip. Still yumm.

Jr. said the main dish reminded him of the Southwest Chicken Nachos he gets at school and would love it adapted for nachos. Yeah, we can figure that out. I have made Southwest Chicken Stacks before which are basically nachos. Mmm, now I'm craving nachos.

I remember when I first started really cooking back in my college days, I only knew how to follow recipes. No adapting. No throwing together. I was a very picky eater when I was younger. I didn't like onions. I would only eat them on hamburgers and in onion rings. It seemed like all the recipes I had called for onions, though, so I started cooking with onions. And ever since then I've loved onions. 

Ask my kids how many times they've heard, "I used to be picky... and ever since then I've liked..." stories.

When I met Jeremy, he would just throw things together to make something good. Wow. He could follow a recipe, but he could do this other thing, too. Wow. I have obviously learned since then to throw things together and adapt recipes (including leaving onions out, but why would I now? I love onions).

 

So... yeah... anyway... we can figure out Southwest Chicken Nachos for Jr.

Orchestra Concert

April 14 was National Dolphin Day. Jet and I made dolphin noises. It was also International Moment of Laughter Day. We laughed. Jet actually laughed a lot that day not just for a moment. His siblings are very entertaining.

That evening Nichole had an orchestra concert. It was terrific. It took place at another school so there were two orchestras from each school performing. At the end they had all four orchestras perform a piece together. It was a huge group. It was awesome. Jeremy and I were both able to be there to support Nichole. It was so nice to be at an actual concert again. We've had so much sickness in our home that I keep missing them.

Then we went home and celebrated with hot chocolate with marshmallows. It's been that kind of weather again.

Late Night S'mores

August 30 was National Toasted Marshmallow Day. There were late night s'mores... for some. Some went to bed (that would be me).

August 31 was National Trail Mix Day. We had trail mix for after school snack.

September 1 was Chicken Boy Day. We had chicken drumsticks. It was also No Rhyme (Nor Reason) Day which is as good an excuse as any to put together a puzzle while listening to a radio mystery show. It was a 100th Anniversary Pleasant Grove City Strawberry Days puzzle from an Eric Dowdle painting (that's a mouthful).

Pictures and Not Pictures

Sometimes you feel like taking pictures of your celebrating, of the food you eat. Sometimes you don't. So often I have pictures of food because a lot of celebrating revolves around the menu plan. I didn't feel like taking a lot of pictures of food this last week so I didn't. So here you go- pictures and not pictures.

 

Thursday, January 28, was National Blueberry Pancake Day. We celebrated it "observed" and had blueberry pancakes the day before. Yumm. One response from Jr. Jr. was, "You should definitely make these again, Mom." Thanks, Jr. Jr., there are plenty of blueberries in the freezer. I think I shall. I made both blueberry and plain pancakes as some of the family members weren't as enthusiastic about the blueberries (I love berries myself).

I shouldn't be surprised that Jr. Jr. loved the pancakes. In years past, he's loved picking and eating blueberries at my parents' house.

 

Friday, January 29, was National Corn Chip Day. Since we have a bigger family now than way back when we first started making taco soup for this holiday, we don't celebrate "Fill the Stock Pot to the Top" holiday anymore. We have to make a smaller batch since we don't have enough freezer space for the extra. When talking about preparing for the holiday, Jeremy was mentioning other things we could fill the stock pot with instead of taco soup. I had to let him know the holiday was actually National Corn Chip Day not Fill the Stock Pot to the Top Day. Ohhhhhh. So this year I tried a new taco soup recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. It was good.

Since January 29 is also National Puzzle Day, Jr. put on music from video games that have puzzles, especially "Puzzle Plank Galaxy" music from Super Mario Galaxy 2.

 

Saturday, we picked up prizes for doing Provo Library's Winter Reading Program. The completion prize for the teens and adults was a cocoa mug that says, "book. cocoa. sweater. repeat." Love it. 

Now I have two Provo City Library mugs. Jeremy and I each got one almost 20 years ago (whoa that's a long time) as a thank you when we did a show there. One of our many shows we've done over the years. It was probably a juggling show. We only have one of those left so it's fun to have new mugs from the library.

Anyway... we also earned packets of hot cocoa as another prize so we were able to celebrate National Hot Chocolate Day on Sunday, January 31,trying out our new mugs and cocoa.

The younger boys had fun with their prizes as well. Jr. Jr. and Lucky both got marshmallows that they were able to put in their hot chocolate- correction, they got marshmallows their marshmallow/snowball(?) plushies were able to throw in their hot chocolate.

 

 

By the way, I have to mention the sweetness of Lucky. When we went out to the van to go to the library on Saturday, he grabbed the scraper and wiped snow off the windshield for us. What a sweetie and what nice service.

Celebrations With and Without Pictures

October 5 was Get Funky Day. One of us was in a funk that day. I said it counted.

October 6 was National Noodle Day. My plan was to make stroganoff with egg noodles. I asked Jr. Jr. and Lucky if that would be good for them after their dentist appointment. They didn't think so. They would rather have rice... with chicken cooked in gourmet sauce. 

Well, I gave them what they wanted. And I made stroganoff with egg noodles. It was just one of those days. It is not often I cook multiple entrees.

Ooh, that reminds me of something that happened recently. It was a leftovers for dinner night and I noticed there was spaghetti sauce that needed to be eaten up but no leftover spaghetti. So I cooked up a bunch of spaghetti noodles and... the kids all took the pasta but didn't touch the spaghetti sauce. Sigh. Now I know why there was leftover spaghetti sauce in the fridge but no spaghetti. Actually after I mentioned something, I think Nichole put some sauce on her pasta.

October 8 was Fluffernutter Day. Tee Hee. We did have fluffernutter sandwiches for dinner.

October 11 was International Day of the Girl Child. I put on the menu plan "boys make dinner" so Nichole and I (the girl childs) could have a break. Jeremy wasn't feeling well so he left dinner making to the boys boys. Jr. made Polish sausages with mashed potatoes and cheese. Lucky made hot chocolate. Jr. Jr.... didn't. I tried to do some catching up of my blog while they were and were not making things.

That day was also It's My Party Day so the kids and I sang that song. 

And here's another thing. For Family Home Evening treat one night, Lucky got out pretzel sticks and mini marshmallows and instructed us on how to make certain things and in what order to eat things. I think he enjoyed having that power. 

What They Missed- August 17

Monday, August 17-
The day they came back.
I sewed two more masks before putting the sewing stuff away. Lucky and Jr. Jr. were having fun with them.

Lucky: My precious.

The boys were saying, "If you want your precious, you have to wear a mask." They are silly.
When they found out Dad and the other kids were coming home that night, they said they won't be able to get in. I told them Dad has keys. They started brainstorming how to make some sort of magnet that would get his keys away from him. They tried to get Jet in on it, too, asking him to distract Mom so they could do these things. They interpreted his looks as his willingness to help out.
I love the creativity in this family.

Jet had fun cleaning Mommy's face since she cleans his so often.

There were more things due at the library so we took back library items and recycled glass. I remembered to put the glass in the van this time. In the van, the boys had paper and clipboards to work on their plan for when Dad got home. They also challenged each other to draw different things.

We drove up to Bridal Veil Falls again. Jr. Jr. didn't want to get out (it was too hot at 97 degrees). Lucky did want  to get out. We parked in a spot where we could see the falls well from the van and both boys ended up getting out. They threw rocks while Jet slept.

Both boys put masks on without me asking them to even though there were no people near our van at all. I think they'll be able to handle getting into the habit of face masks for school.
I tried to take pictures of the boys with the falls in the background. Lucky explained that it was "too sunny."

When we got home, the boys "locked" me in my room with Jet as a distraction so they could "carry out their plan."

Later Jr. Jr. fed Jet so I could do dishes.

Lucky helped make pizza.

The boys took out the garbage and fed the birds.

For my Family Home Evening lesson, I used The Friend magazine for August 2020. We sang "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man." We read Helaman 5:12 and talked about building our foundation on Jesus Christ and not something else. If you follow him you'll be okay even with the storms of life.
Jr. Jr. built a structure out of cards that was easy to knock down.

Lucky built a structure out of blocks that was... easy to knock down. He kept redoing it until it was hard to knock down. The cards were always going to be easy to knock down. Anyway, they got the idea and had a lot of fun.

Jr. Jr.'s treat was marshmallows dipped in chocolate. We had to hold off on the activity because we ran out of time.

Jeremy, Nichole, and Jr. came home. Yippee! I love them so much and was happy to see them. Jet was a little hesitant at first but quickly warmed up to them.

They were exhausted. But they're home!