Shelftember

As has become tradition the last few years, each September I join with Jordan Page and many others to participate in Shelftember. Shopping with a limited grocery budget, more shelf cooking, saving money.

The question for me this year was:

Kristin, can you celebrate September holidays AND follow A Season of Family Meal Plans AND still do Shelftember?

The answer:

Yes. Yes, I can. And I did. The whole point of shelf cooking is using what you have which is what Shelftember is also about. Start with what you have. Those cookbooks give ideas for substitutes and I can change things around to have it work for me.

For example, September 2 was Blueberry Popsicle Day. We didn't have blueberry popsicles. We pulled blueberries out of the freezer to have with dinner (with yogurt) then had Otter Pops after dinner. Blueberries and popsicles. We like creativity in celebrating. Shelf cooking is the same way.

The meal for that day in A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3, was Slow Cooker Rotisserie Chicken and Crispy Italian Potatoes. We had meat from a Costco rotisserie chicken that we got a few days before (no need to cook our own), used russet potatoes instead of red potatoes, and rounded out the meal by making garlic bread out of a homemade baguette that had been sitting in the fridge for a while, cutting up apples, and having that yogurt and blueberries I mentioned earlier. 

Jet was once again my kitchen helper. He liked shaking up the bag in order to season the potatoes.

Success. I did this all month long, getting things like produce and milk from the store, but saving a lot of money because I also stuck to my list. My mantra going through the store: Not on the list. Not gonna get it.

I absolutely skipped out on things I normally would have gotten. I did have to buy a 25 pound bag of flour toward the end because we were making so much bread, rolls, buns, cookies, brownies, instead of buying them. A 25 pound bag of flour doesn't cost too much, though, so we still saved money.

I really do like participating in Shelftember every year.

On a different note, September 2 was also Labor Day so I made sure to grab a selfie with the American flag which has also become tradition.

Memorial Day 2024

Memorial Day this year on May 27 was also Grape Popsicle Day. Lucky saved a purple popsicle he had to eat on that day.

The kids and I went to a Memorial Day breakfast that morning and made sure to get some American flag selfies. It's a good thing we did because later we missed Flag Day on June 14. Too busy.

That afternoon, my parents came for a brief visit then whisked Jr. away with them. They did the same thing with Nichole back in 2019. They took Jr. and one of his cousins to spend about a week with them in Oregon. He had a good time.

We celebrated Jr. leaving with S'mores made with giant marshmallows. Bwah ha ha ha.

Last Day of School! Last Day of School!

May is always so crazy with the school year finishing out. I was so glad I got first day of school pictures of the kids back in August. I managed to get last day of school pictures of the boys this year.

Lucky and Jr. Jr. both made gifts for their teachers and cards to go along with them. Lucky made his teacher a balloon flower. Jr. Jr. made his teacher a ship since that was the theme in her classroom. He even made an anchor for it. Inside were paper coins with the names of all the students in the class this year.

For Nichole, school kind of just ended so she didn't have an official last day of school (reminds me of 2020). She went one day when they were doing yearbook signings then I called the office to figure out the schedule for the rest of the week and they said to just keep her home. There weren't any classes that week. O.K.? So she got caught up on sleep and other things.

I didn't get a picture of Nichole on the last day she went to school, but here she is the last day the boys had school.

Since that day was also Grape Popsicle Day, May 27, we did something we haven't done in a long time. We pulled out the popsicle mold and poured Kool-aid in to make our own popsicles. Nice.

National Hamburger Day 2020

No pictures but for National Grape Popsicle Day on May 27 the kids had otter pops.
We celebrated National Hamburger Day on May 28 by having our first backyard barbecue of the season. Yay. And yumm.

Hamburgers and hot dogs and later s'mores.

Jr.'s shirt says, "Which wolf are you feeding?" Apparently he's feeding the one on his shirt.

Bunting Hunting

And then there are those days where you have so much going on in just one day.  Yesterday was one of those days.
Yesterday morning we took the kids to the Orem Library's Teddy Bear Picnic which kicks off the Summer Reading Program.  It was fun... as usual.  Again the kids LOVED the puppet show portion.  They enjoyed the rest of the show as well.

This year's theme for the reading program is "Make it Work," and the Teddy Bear Picnic had a S.T.E.A.M. Punk theme.  S.T.E.A.M.= Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math.

Of course I got pictures of the kids in front of the balloon robot Jeremy built.  It took a while to get the kids to all smile and look at the camera.  I'd think I'd get a good picture then look at it to realize that one child was looking in a different direction or one was making a goofy face or I was concentrating so much on the kids I cut off part of the robot's head.  Sigh.  But I finally got one.

After the Teddy Bear Picnic, we headed up to a park in Murray where we were told there was an indigo bunting hanging out.  Several people saw it the day before and were able to tell us where to find it.  Good thing because that park is huge.  The boys were more excited to get wet by the sprinklers but Nichole helped us finally spot the bird.  We kept hearing it and would get glimpses of it and finally we were able to get some pictures.  Hey, two life birds which are blue in two days?  Not bad.

Lucky: How dare you, sprinklers.  How dare you.

We had snacks at the Teddy Bear Picnic and ate lunch on the way home from "bunting hunting" so we didn't hear a lot of complaining about being hungry.  That's good.
When we got home, I couldn't help it, I fell asleep for a while before taking Nichole to activity days... sort of.  One of the leaders just got released so the other one forgot to give a reminder to the girls.  Oh well.  So the leader was sweet and gave Nichole and I each a popsicle when no other girls showed up and we went back home.
Then we had dinner and it was time for Mommy-Daughter Date.  The boys watched a movie in their room while Nichole and I watched a movie in the living room and ate snacks.  Good time together.  We had ice cream and popcorn and Nichole had gummy bears.

So it was a busy busy day, very full. 

Interpreting Expressions

September 2 is National Blueberry Popsicle Day.  Where do you find blueberry popsicles? 
Jr. Jr., Lucky, and I went grocery shopping this morning and looked in the freezer section.  We did find fruit and veggie bars, one flavor of which was blueberry medley.  There you go.  Blueberry popsicles.  So we had those for after school snack.

While we were eating our fruit and veggie bars, Jr. started "interpreting" everyone's facial expressions.  He was getting pretty creative.  I didn't write any of them down, but apparently one of the facial expressions I had was something like me wanting to shoot all the kids with a yellow paintball gun and say they were aliens and there was more but I can't remember.  I had no idea that was the expression I was showing. 

Oh, I love that creativity.