When Kids Remember Past Creativity

Getting back into things after vacation isn't always the easiest thing. Luckily, I put together some freezer meals before we left so we were able to have food ready to go and Jeremy picked up a few things at the store such as fresh spinach so we were able to celebrate Fresh Spinach Day on July 16. We got tamale casserole out of the freezer to go along with it. 

Since it was Ginger Rogers' Birthday, Nichole remembered a time when Jr. Jr. got creative with letter rearranging (see my July 26, 2022 post about it) so we had a choice between ginger ale and orange soda to celebrate her birthday this year.

Since it was also Personal Chef Day, Jr. was our personal chef and made us pancakes. Later we watched the movie Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn because in it she is at cooking school. "One two three, crack. New egg." At one point she is also going to make food for him- be his personal chef for an evening.

 

July 17 was National Hot Dog Day and Yellow Pigs Day so of course we made pigs in a blanket with yellow mustard. Nichole wore her racing pigs hat which she won on Yellow Pigs Day 10 years ago (see my July 17, 2014 blog post about it).

 

July 18 was Sour Candy Day. Some family members ate sour candy.

July 20 was Moon Day. I had every intention of getting out Oreos for us to make phases of the moon cookies then I forgot. I do that sometimes. We did have astronaut sandwiches with dinner.

July 21 was National Junk Food Day and National Ice Cream Day. When kids came to me asking if they could eat certain foods, I would tell them, "I don't care. Eat whatever you want," to paraphrase Muppets Most Wanted.

July 23 was Vanilla Ice Cream Day. Jr. made S'mores Milkshakes from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3. 

We are definitely getting a lot of use out of those books. It's actually pretty amazing how many recipes that work for certain holidays are near where I'm already menu planning from in the books (within a few weeks). I'm not talking about Easter and Halloween (though there are recipes for those holidays), either. It's holidays like Vanilla Ice Cream Day like I mentioned or Eat Brussels Sprouts Day (I blogged about that one on February 1, 2024).

 

Well, there you go. Creativity and meal planning.

Ginger Rogers' Birthday

We like celebrating Ginger Rogers' Birthday every year on July 16. Sometimes we watch Ginger Rogers' movies. Sometimes we dance around. Sometimes we drink ginger ale. This year was one of those years. Not the dancing and movie watching, but the ginger ale drinking.

Jr. asked about ginger ale for Ginger Roger's birthday. I told him that would justify the ginger part but what about the roger part. He told me when I said yes, he'd say, "Roger Roger."

Creativity gets rewarded in this family, which is why Jr. Jr. got orange soda because if you rearrange the letters in "orange" you sort of get "roger." r-o-g-a?-e-and cut off part of the 'n' to get 'r'. Told you creativity is rewarded. So ginger soda and rogaer soda.

July 16 was also National Fresh Spinach Day and Personal Chef's Day so we had salad bar with spinach for dinner that evening so people could prepare their salad however they wanted.

Bonding Time

July 16 was Ginger Rogers' Birthday. We didn't watch a Ginger Rogers movie that day but the kids were so funny and put on a quick puppet show based on the song, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" from the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie, Shall We Dance? I put the video of them doing it on YouTube.

July 16 was also Personal Chef's Day so we had personal pizzas on tortillas just like last year.

Both Jr. Jr. and Lucky got bonding time with parents that night. Jr. Jr. and Jeremy went owling and ate "chuckles." They didn't see any owls but Jr. Jr. told me when they got home about seeing mice and deer and I could tell he had a great time.

Lucky and I played video games while wearing our bathrobes and Jet looked on. Lucky's choice. By the end I had to take my bathrobe off, though, because it's Summertime and soooo hot. Also by the end, Lucky decided that even though we were on the same team playing Mario Kart, he would try to defeat me. Bwah ha ha ha. Jr. made us all some popcorn to snack on as well. During a pause in the game, Lucky brought out a surprise. He got us each a can of pop (himself and me, not Jet). So cute. Jr. had ginger ale because of Ginger Rogers' birthday. Because Jr. was so helpful, he and Nichole got to watch a show in another room while Lucky and I had our bonding time.