Holidays, Shelf Cooking, and Bonding Time

September 10 was Ants on a Log Day. We had fluffernutter sandwiches and ants on a log. See my blog post for September 14, 2020 for an explanation why we celebrate with fluffernutter sandwiches on that day. We didn't have any marshmallow fluff so we used real marshmallows. #shelftember

 

Other Shelftember foods we had near that time:

Start with a box pasta meal. Add cooked pasta, some extra seasonings, and cooked bacon from the freezer. It stretches a lot farther. That's shelf cooking!

 

Sometimes I forget that something as simple as beans and rice works for a quick lunch.

 

Homemade bread, spinach before it goes bad made into a salad, casserole from the freezer (tortellini casserole from A Season of Family Meal Plans), and a banana.

 

My husband has always been better at throwing things together to make a good meal. He knows how to do shelf cooking. He took my leftover black beans and some polish sausages and veggies and made some yummy yummy food. He's awesome.

September 11, we remembered.

September 12 was National Video Games Day. I had every intention of playing video games that day but by the end of the day I was too tired. Sigh.

It was also Hug and High Five Day and National Chocolate Milkshake Day. 

Jet helped me make cornbread muffins to go with our dinner of Sausage Veggie Skillet (with extra zucchini because it was cheaper than yellow squash) and rice-n-cheese (instead of orzo-n-cheese because we have rice, not orzo). Both those recipes came from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3, of course. Our chocolate milkshakes were yummy.

September 13 was the Anniversary of The Animaniacs premiere in 1993 so we listened to Animaniacs music. It was also Roald Dahl Day so I put on music from Wonka.

After after school snack of parfaits to celebrate International Chocolate Day and National Peanut Day (and quoting the movie Shrek about how ogres, onions, and parfaits all have layers), I let the kids have the kitchen for Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day and they made pizza. 

September 14 was Eat a Hoagie Day so I made hoagies/buns for people to use and it was National Parents Day Off but I really don't remember what Jeremy and I ended up doing, if anything. I did get a picture late at night of the moon and clouds.

September 15 was Double Cheeseburger Day and National Linguine Day. We had spaghetti with sauce (it had hamburger in it- well, ground turkey, tee hee) and two types of cheese (double cheese, tee hee). #shelftember

September 16 was Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day and National Play-Doh Day. I was complaining about not having time to make play doh and Jeremy pointed out that I played with dough in order to make cinnamon raisin bread which tasted so good by the way.

 

September 17 was Monte Cristo Day. Did you know there is a Count of Monte Cristo musical? I found out when I tried to get Alexa to play music from The Count of Monte Cristo while I was making food and it put on songs from a musical. Fun. I decided to do something new this year and made Monte Cristo Slider Sandwiches from sixsistersstuff.com

Yumm. I made more later to freeze so we could pull out sandwiches when we wanted them.

 

September 18 was National Cheeseburger Day. So we pulled hamburger out of the freezer (ground turkey) and made smothered beef burritos from... you guessed it... A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3.

Of course walks, snuggles, and other kinds of bonding have continued. I love my family.

My parents made a quick trip to Utah for my dad's 60th high school reunion. They stopped by to see Jet and me one day. I love my parents.

Our Vacation, Thy Creations, and Our Relations- Part 1

Let me tell you about the best vacation I've had in a long time. I love Jeremy's suggestion for the title of the post.

First off, let me mention that the last couple times the kids and I went to Oregon (last year then 5 years before that), Jeremy was not able to go with us so it had been 8 years since he had been in Oregon. Both times without him we kept things kind of chill and didn't do a lot except of course to go to Shore Acres last year and on a near to where my parents live nature trail both times. Tradition.

When we went to Washington both times Jeremy flew in then drove back with us, last year only getting a few days there.

This year, Jeremy took enough work off that he had a real vacation. And it was wonderful. 

The day before we left as we were packing our car top carrier, it started sprinkling. We had to get our tarp out of the trunk to cover it up "just in case." It's a good thing we did because it started pouring down. Heh heh. Jet and I got soaked then I had to wash our clothes because we were wearing some of what we were going to wear on the trip. Heh Heh. Jet was very happy to play in the rain and I figured he deserved to. The rain felt really good, cooling things down after it had been hot for a while.

The next morning we packed our wet tarp back in the trunk along with the rest of our trip stuff and headed out in the rain.

Road Trip!

Waving at my sister as we passed by on the freeway.

Welcome to Idaho.

Waving at my mom's hometown.

Waving at our friends' home as we passed by on the freeway.

We weren't quick enough to get a picture of the "Welcome to Oregon" sign as we crossed the Snake River so I got creative.

Apparently the doll head made the trip with us and kept popping up in different places.

We made sure to celebrate on the drive. National Sunglasses Day and National Handshake Day were both on June 27.

We finally reached our final destination at my parents' house in Oregon.

I'll share more of our wonderful vacation later.

Read-a-Thon

The elementary school had a read-a-thon again this year so Lucky did a lot of reading during those times. It was Star Wars themed this year.

Jet and I went to Parents and Pastries with Lucky again to have treats and read books.

At the end of the two weeks, Lucky was one of the top readers in the school so he got to be on stage during the final assembly doing an act with the other top readers. It's a good thing he was wearing Jedi clothes that day.

He also got a medal and all the kids in the school got light sabers to take home. Fun.

Once again, I'm glad my kids love reading so much. And it's fun that Lucky likes a challenge... especially a reading challenge.

Parents Visit

My parents came to visit and went to church with us. I would like to say, I love my parents. I loved growing up with them. They were (and still are) a great example of a lot of things. I have so many good memories and feelings about my childhood with them as my parents.

I made sure to get a quick picture right before I left (because I didn't get any pictures of Jeremy's parents when they came to visit in April. Sigh).

I love family.

Christmas is Over

And just like that, Christmas is over. Well, not the real reason for the season. We all need to continue following Jesus Christ and trying to be more like Him, serving others, showing love. But the present unwrapping (and last minute wrapping) is over. 

It was interesting. After staying up so late Christmas Eve (I was exhausted with a sick child for a few days leading up to Christmas and ended up with a headache and taking a nap that evening while Jeremy and Jr. finished making dinner so we ate late, did our little Christmas Eve program, let the kids open their PJs from Grandma and Grandpa, and got pictures of them wearing their PJs before sending them to bed so Jeremy and I could finish wrapping presents, etc., while Jr. tried to get Jet to sleep), I finally got Jet to sleep so Jr. could go to bed himself and then went to sleep myself. Christmas morning another child woke up sick. When it was time to go to the living room for presents and to Zoom with Jeremy's parents, Jet didn't want to get up. I picked him up and made it as far as the door before he pulled me back to my bed and made me lie down. 

Eventually I convinced him to come out to the living room for presents but he protested again when I wouldn't let him take a toy with him from our room. I assured him there would be something else but he was upset until I brought him all the way out and set him down where he could see the dinosaurs that Santa had brought him. There were a bunch. He was very happy after that and went around saying, "Dinosaur. Rarr. Rarr."

This was the first year in a long time I didn't make handmade gifts for the kids (not even bookmarks). Nobody complained, though. Lucky made handmade gifts for us, though- a cute card, two ornaments with his picture on them, and a cute snowman ornament made out of an electric tea light with light up nose and earmuffs. Soooooo cute. 

Poor Lucky, though. We paused from time to time throughout the day because he had to go be sick in the bathroom.

We still had nice Zoom meetings with Jeremy's parents that morning and my parents and two of my brothers later in the afternoon. 

Jeremy and I were still so exhausted and ended up taking naps that afternoon. Then I couldn't believe how much more I slept that evening and even that night. I'm so grateful for my family looking out for each other because I went to rest just a little and it turned into a whole lot. I woke up well rested this morning but still ended up taking a nap this afternoon. I guess dealing with all the... everything... leading up to Christmas took a lot out of me. Preparations, sickness in the home, life. We'll have to see how this next week goes.

There's also the possibility that changes in the weather could have affected me, tired-wise. That sometimes happens to both Jeremy and me. We didn't have a white Christmas, but it was white when Nichole and I went to Sacrament Meeting while Jeremy watched from home with the boys. That option is a blessing since we've had so much sickness this school year. Blech.

Anyway, so obviously since I slept so much on Christmas, I didn't blog that day but I've blogged every other day this month so that's not too bad.

So I hope you had a Happy Christmas and are enjoying National Candy Cane Day on December 26.

Keeping finding reasons to celebrate.