Other October Holidays

October 24 was National Food Day. We ate leftovers. It was also World Kangaroo Day. Jet and I hopped like kangaroos.

October 25 was Greasy Food Day. It was also World Pasta Day. We ate kind of greasy pasta.

October 26 was Mother-in-Law Day. I wished several people Happy Mother-in-Law Day including my mother-in-law. I love her. It was also National Pumpkin Day. I know several people who carved pumpkins that day.

October 27 was National Black Cat Day. I often see black cats running around our neighborhood. Murphy's Law says on Black Cat Day, I wouldn't see one. At the end of the day, Jeremy reminded me that the neighbors had a glow in the dark black cat skeleton decoration. That worked for celebrating.

October 28 was the Anniversary of when the Statue of Liberty was dedicated and it was also Matt Smith's birthday so I really wanted to watch The Angels Take Manhattan (which has both the Statue of Liberty and Matt Smith) while working on a Halloween costume but that's an episode of Doctor Who we don't have. So I watched Daleks in Manhattan which also has the Statue of Liberty in it. For dinner we had fish sticks and vanilla pudding in honor of Matt Smith's Doctor. We didn't have enough fish sticks so I pulled some curry chicken from the freezer and cooked up some rice. #shelfcooking

It was also National Chocolate Day so Lucky made woo-woo for us. 

 

Balloons and Birds

Jeremy built balloon puppets and skulls for Dia de Muertos at Thanksgiving Point again. We delivered the puppets the morning of the event then headed out to do some birding. We finished one site for our birding challenge and tried out a new birding spot.

We got our selfie. "Agh! The sun's in our eyes." We thought we'd get a better picture under the trees. We got distracted by a late season osprey, though. We weren't expecting to see one toward the end of October. We thought they'd all moved on.

For dinner that night we tried yet another new recipe from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 4, by Jordan Page. White Chicken Chili with Cheesy Garlic Rolls. Mmmm.

Since October 26 was National Pumpkin Day, we had pumpkin bars in the freezer that we finished off for this holiday.

More October Holidays

October 15 was National Grouch Day. I couldn't get the words right to Oscar the Grouch's song, "I Love Trash." This is how I sang it. "Oh, I love trash. Anything dirty or dusty or dingy. Anything rotten or rusty or ringy." Those are not the words.

It was also P.G. Wodehouse's Birthday. We made stroganoff using Worcestershire sauce. Jr. commented that ingredient is Jeeves speaking with a lisp. "Wooster, sir." "Wooster, shir."

 

October 22 was National Color Day. We had an at-home potluck of different colors.

 

October 26 was National Pumpkin Day. I told author Joanna Barker that I would read her book, Miss Adeline's Match, when I got some pumpkin spice hot chocolate. The book takes place in the Fall. That's why it works. I used to get Stephen's pumpkin spice hot cocoa mix every Fall. We couldn't find any this year. We couldn't find any pumpkin spice hot cocoa mix in the stores. My husband got creative. He bought me a pumpkin spice frosty and I put some in my hot chocolate. It totally worked. So, I drank my pumpkin spice hot chocolate and read her book. Although, now that I've read the book, I would recommend drinking spiced apple cider while reading it because there is a whole apple harvesting section in the book. So if you're looking for a way to celebrate Fall (you know... next Fall because it's practically Winter here now, although there is also a scene in a snowstorm so I guess it fits both), I recommend reading Miss Adeline's Match and drinking apple cider. But then take a break and read later in the book with hot chocolate (it doesn't have to be pumpkin spice) during the part with the snowstorm. There. That's how to celebrate. Of course I also used my Provo City Library cocoa mug. Very appropriate.

October 27 was National Breadstick Day.

Bye Bye, Pumpkins

October 26 was National Pumpkin Day. Nichole's and Jr.'s carved pumpkins didn't survive very well. We didn't do anything to preserve them and it was getting late the night they carved them anyway so the pumpkins later just sat and rotted. Oh well. I took the time on National Pumpkin Day to take pictures of their sad state and to throw them away. We celebrated.

Speaking of pumpkins, Nichole had an art project to paint a pumpkin. She painted two ravens and a turkey. The ravens each held jack-o-lantern buckets and the turkey wore nose glasses and a bow tie. She won an award for best animal for that pumpkin. Nichole said, "Because birds are the best animal."

Lucky recently also brought home a pumpkin... with two stems. His pumpkin looks like it was skewered with the stem from another pumpkin.

National Color Day 2020

October 22 was National Color Day. It was also Make a Dog's Day.

Jet and I went for a walk along the Provo River. There were still some Fall colors. Several people had dogs on the trail. Boom. Celebrated.

For dinner we had hot dogs and Polish sausages with multicolored condiments. Boom. Also celebrated.

And what is it with pumpkins in the river? I saw a couple more while we were walking.

This one didn't make it into the river. Tee Hee.

Carving Pumpkins- Zoom Style

October 21 was Reptile Awareness Day. Jr. Jr. and I talked reptiles while doing spelling homework. "Spell 'screech' as in screech owl, which is not a reptile but a bird." Chimpanzees are mammals, not reptiles.

Later that day, Nichole and Jr. participated in a pumpkin carving youth activity via Zoom.

Jr. thought he'd carve one appropriate for 2020. Nichole made hers two-sided. One side had a triforce on it and the other had a Guardian from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Fall Break- A Walk in the Wind

The first full day of Fall Break. Nichole and Jr. had a project to work on so Jeremy and I took the rest of the kids for a scooter ride in the canyon. We told the boys to bring coats just in case. I didn't take one myself thinking it would be warm enough with just a long sleeve shirt. I didn't realize it was going to be that cold and windy. We got out early enough to beat the sun to the trail we were walking. That made it colder. Poor little boys. They made it, though- the two-mile trek from Vivian Park to Bridal Veil Falls. 

Jeremy dropped us off at Vivian Park then went to switch vehicles at Bridal Veil Falls so we'd have the van as soon as we finished our walk. While we were waiting for him we went to look at the water. There was a pumpkin in the water. What?

When Jeremy got back we headed out.

Jr. Jr.'s fingers were too numb to scooter a lot of the time. He kept asking for snacks to warm him up so I took the scooters a lot of the time. I'm sure glad I brought snacks.

At least at one point we found a bridge in the sun. That warmed us up a little. Jet wasn't too miserable. He managed to fall asleep in the stroller.

When we got to Bridal Veil Falls there were not that many people there so I was able to get a picture of the boys with the falls before we hurried to warm up in the van.

"We made it!"

When we got in the van, Jeremy got a text showing a drawing Nichole did on the computer.

Beautiful job, Nichole.

 

Later in the day, the kids made mug cake cookies for each other. Jr. Jr. started it when he made one to make Lucky feel better after accidentally knocking him over. Sweet children.

Note: Since we took our walk in the wind, a fire started that went into Provo Canyon and burned a lot of area in there. So please enjoy the pictures on my blog from before the fire.

Catching Up on the Last Five Months- 6

Let's talk about October.

Toward the beginning of October was General Conference.  The kids played Conference Bingo and we had our traditional nachos.  We also took some time between sessions to play a game as a family and eat jelly beans.

During the Women's session of Conference, we watched at home and Nichole decided to pick up some cardboard and make it into a music box with gears that make it turn.  I tell you, "If you give Nichole a medium."  Right?

Another one- Nichole's been into making cheeseball lately so she decided to make one in the shape of a sugar skull, then on the back wrote, "I am Murray, the demonic cheeseball."  It was based off of Murray, the demonic talking skull in the Monkey Island games.

And because she loves dragons, at a Young Women's activity, she painted a pumpkin based on a book series she likes, "Dragon Slippers."  The boys also got pumpkins from school but I never got a picture of those.

Our talented daughter also had an orchestra concert that our whole family went to.  She is now in advanced orchestra.

I joined in with other birders who were doing a Big Sit in October.  Basically it's how many species of birds can you see in a 24-hour period from a 17-foot diameter circle?  Birders were coming and going throughout the day.  I was there for a few hours.  Jeremy came and stayed for a bit when he came to pick me up.  Good socializing time with other birders and getting to see birds.

Our ward held a Fall Fest and Chili Cookoff.  They had a few different forms of entertainment.  One was Jeremy doing a juggling/magic show then twisting balloon animals later.  This is a new ward so they're still learning about us.

Several of us want to do some writing, so we had our own family writing workshop.  I made themed treats.
Gummi bears because Jr. has a gummi bear pencil topper, pencils made from pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate or butterscotch or whatever for erasers, book worm brownies.  I should have waited longer for the brownies to cool before putting the gummi worms in.  And a breakfast casserole, because I was hungry.

During Fall Break, we brought a friend along and went to Goblin Valley.

click on the pictures to see them bigger (especially the second picture, you really want to get a bigger look at the second picture) 

We celebrated Jr. Jr.'s birthday in October.

Jeremy took Nichole and Jr. to a book signing for Brandon Mull's latest book.

We again spent time at the Orem Library and met the libary's newest resident, a tarantula.

Some nice neighbor kids came over with rakes and raked leaves on the front lawn.  The boys enjoyed jumping into the pile of leaves.

We also spent some late nights working on costumes for Halloween (especially October 30).

Here's what we ended up with.
Nichole was Kendra in her Knights of the Dawn outfit from Fablehaven (book series by Brandon Mull).

Jr. was the Skull Kid from the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

Jr. Jr. was bubble wrap curser.  If you came up to him he decided whether to let you pop some bubble wrap or curse you to become bubble wrap.

Lucky was a ghost.

The kids had fun trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and we also joined in at a neighbor's bonfire to hang out and hand out candy there.

That's how our October went.  I'm sure we celebrated some holidays from our Calendar of Celebration, but it doesn't look like I took pictures specifically of those so... oh, well.  I don't always remember from that far back without pictures?

I'll talk about November later.