Family Home Evening Circus

One day after school, Jet was excited to show us he got circus tickets. How fun. Now we knew we weren't going to take him to the actual circus but we knew we could create a circus at home.

My idea for it was watching a circus movie and eating popcorn. Simple celebrating like we did with Drive-In Movie Day.

Jeremy, awesome husband that he is, suggested some other ideas somewhat last minute to add to the "experience" so it was still simple but this is how it turned out for Family Home Evening this week (when we finally got around to doing this activity).

Jet picked a family member to come with him to the "circus" because he had two tickets. He kept changing his mind so I don't know who finally came with him but it doesn't matter because again it was mostly for him.

So... he (and his guest) presented his tickets to whoever was taking them. We had "Entry of the Gladiators" (the epitome of circus music) playing while they watched Jr. Jr. juggle light up balls. 

Lucky made Jet a balloon animal. 

Jeremy filled the stock pot to the top with popcorn. 

We also had more gummy sharks (because Jr. Jr. requested them) and some peanuts. 

At one point I looked at the kids on the couch and said, "And there are the clowns." Tee Hee. They're so patient with me.

Actually Jeremy showed the kids a picture of him with clown makeup on and I complained about how I never liked clown makeup when it was requested for shows. Yeah, we can do circus things.

We watched the movie, The Greatest Showman, because... of course. I didn't fall asleep and watched the whole thing.

Even More September Catching Up

September 12 was Hug and High Five Day. Some of the teachers at the elementary school were giving high fives as students were leaving. Lucky made sure to give his dad a hug and "high five" when his dad came home from work. 

 

September 12 was also National Video Games Day. I remembered to wear my Mario shirt this time. Woohoo. I went shopping and the gal helping me to check out remarked on my shirt so I told her it was National Video Games Day. She was very happy to find that out because it gave her an excuse to play later. 

I never got to play video games that day but the kids did.

 

September 12 was also Chocolate Milkshake Day. We made woo-woo.

That evening was Lucky's elementary school Fall Festival. He volunteered to help out since he is on the student council. He got to run a booth during the second half of the festival and got to play and eat earlier. And being the sweet boy that he is, he shared his cotton candy with me.

 

September 13 was International Chocolate Day and National Peanut Day. You know what that means. Parfaits! 

 

It was also Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day. I asked the kids to take care of dinner. 

 

It was National Day of Service. I helped tie quilts and took some time to do other service that day. 
Jet had Primary Program practice then got pizza afterward. 

The next day was the Primary Program and he did a pretty good job this year. He sang some of the songs and stayed in his seat when he was supposed to and stood when he was supposed to for the most part. When it was his turn to say his part, he said it so quickly that it was unintelligible but that's okay. Still cute.

After church, Lucky came to choir with me then we decided to walk home together. I walked. Lucky somewhat walked, somewhat ran. Cute kid.

 

September 15 was Agatha Christie's birthday. Nichole and I discussed it because you know she's into mystery writing. 

 

September 16 was Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day. We had cinnamon toast with raisins on top for those that preferred it.

 

September 17 was Monte Cristo Day so of course we had Monte Cristo Sandwiches. We love celebrating that holiday that way. 

 

September 18 was National Cheeseburger Day. I didn't make cheeseburgers but I took some ground turkey and made stroganoff to go along with sauteed zucchini from our garden. And toast because toast is popular around here, especially with homemade bread.

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.

Halloween 2020

I knew Halloween was going to be on a Saturday this year. We had made the decision not to go trick-or-treating. The elementary schoolers weren't going to have a parade for the public this year. I really didn't want to put the effort into putting together costumes with all the many things going on. I told the kids this year to recycle old costumes or figure something out themselves. When I was a kid, we had a box of dress up clothes to use for Halloween costumes and such. We would often wear something that an older sibling wore previously. We have a box of dress up clothes now. We made some suggestions and this is how they turned out:

 

Nichole- Knitting Lady

Jr.- The Doctor

Jr. Jr.- Skull Kid with Majora's Mask

Lucky- Barrel of Toxic Waste

Jet- Lion

While they were trying out costumes, Lucky put the green toxic waste fabric on the ground around Jet and Jr. Jr. exclaimed, "Jet fits in the barrel of toxic waste." 

The kids wore their costumes to school on Friday. Lucky came home with a spider. Jr. Jr. came home with candy corn which helped to celebrate National Candy Corn Day on October 30.

 

Saturday Jeremy decorated the car as a squid and joined several other vehicles in a parade through the neighborhood. Kids stood out on their driveways or sidewalks and the last vehicle had a bag of candy for each child. Boom. No trick-or-treating necessary. Kids dressed up, got candy. There you go.

When Jeremy got home, he dismantled the squid and added to the decorations the neighbors had already put out.

"Dr. McCoy" was also our contribution. Jeremy hung up a skeleton and put peanut butter and seeds on it for the birds. It didn't work with most of the birds, but the jays had no problem stealing peanuts out of its mouth.

After Halloween was over, Jeremy put "Dr. McCoy" in the backyard where the smaller birds continued to be intimidated by it and the jays still enjoyed those peanuts.

My daughter is awesome. (She wrote that last sentence when I wasn't looking and I'm going to leave it here because it's true.)