Bonding Time

One night, Jet asked Jeremy to do a puzzle with him. Sweet daddy that he is, he said yes.

They had a great time together. By the time they finished the puzzle there were three missing pieces. So they went to bed and the next morning before Jet woke up, Jeremy told me about it. I found the missing pieces in the crate where we keep the puzzles (there are a lot of loose puzzle pieces in there) and put them next to the almost finished puzzle. When Jet got up, he was thrilled to find the pieces there and was able to finish the puzzle.

So cute. He wanted Daddy to come home right then so he could show him but was content when we texted Jeremy a picture of it. Awwww. 

Celebrating Eric Carle's Birthday 2025

We love Eric Carle. Such fun books and illustrations. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? was my youngest's favorite book for a while. He had the whole book memorized because he could look at the pictures and know what words went along with them.

So when we found out about Discovery Kits at the Provo Library and that we could get one that was Eric Carle themed, we definitely had to put it on hold. An added bonus is that it became available for us to pick up in time for Eric Carle's Birthday on June 25. Woohoo!

We read books, we did puzzles, we played with character magnets from books.

There were also some crafts but we didn't get around to doing any of those.

It was great. I definitely want to check out more Discovery Kits. It was good bonding time.

 

Lucky got to try something new as well. Book Boxes. We put a certain book on hold (there are two different books available) and it came in a bag with a bunch of envelopes. When he got to a certain page in the book, there was an envelope to open. It had anything from a treat to a game to a sticker or bookmark, something that went along with the action in the book at the time. He got to keep the goodies when he finished and we returned the book and the bag.

That was also pretty cool. 

He read the The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. 

 

I do like different programs and resources at our local libraries. Libraries are wonderful! 

Impromptu Date

Jeremy needed to check on getting something fixed in our van. I volunteered to go with him. It turns out the person said he could get to it right then so Jeremy and I went across the street to wait at a park.

It was North Park in Provo and the pioneer museum was open. I'd never been to the museum just the pioneer village once.

We decided to go in, look around, learn a little bit about pioneer history, put a few pieces on a jigsaw puzzle (It was an Eric Dowdle puzzle of Nauvoo), and enjoy ourselves. 

Jeremy said it's been a long time since we've been able to do something spontaneous like that. It was little impromptu date and it was very pleasant.

Late Night S'mores

August 30 was National Toasted Marshmallow Day. There were late night s'mores... for some. Some went to bed (that would be me).

August 31 was National Trail Mix Day. We had trail mix for after school snack.

September 1 was Chicken Boy Day. We had chicken drumsticks. It was also No Rhyme (Nor Reason) Day which is as good an excuse as any to put together a puzzle while listening to a radio mystery show. It was a 100th Anniversary Pleasant Grove City Strawberry Days puzzle from an Eric Dowdle painting (that's a mouthful).

Last Hurrah

We had our last hurrah Sunday before the kids went back to school after Spring Break.

I recently got a baguette pan so I got to make some nicely shaped baguettes. Ha Ha Ha. 

Who knew baguettes could be so fun?

 

Jeremy and the kids played a board game while Jet played with a puzzle and a fidget spinner.

Apparently this board game had a... drinking game... connected to it?

 

Then the kids convinced Daddy to play a video game.

Good family time before everything got busy again with so many different schedules.

Hurrah!

Pictures and Not Pictures

Sometimes you feel like taking pictures of your celebrating, of the food you eat. Sometimes you don't. So often I have pictures of food because a lot of celebrating revolves around the menu plan. I didn't feel like taking a lot of pictures of food this last week so I didn't. So here you go- pictures and not pictures.

 

Thursday, January 28, was National Blueberry Pancake Day. We celebrated it "observed" and had blueberry pancakes the day before. Yumm. One response from Jr. Jr. was, "You should definitely make these again, Mom." Thanks, Jr. Jr., there are plenty of blueberries in the freezer. I think I shall. I made both blueberry and plain pancakes as some of the family members weren't as enthusiastic about the blueberries (I love berries myself).

I shouldn't be surprised that Jr. Jr. loved the pancakes. In years past, he's loved picking and eating blueberries at my parents' house.

 

Friday, January 29, was National Corn Chip Day. Since we have a bigger family now than way back when we first started making taco soup for this holiday, we don't celebrate "Fill the Stock Pot to the Top" holiday anymore. We have to make a smaller batch since we don't have enough freezer space for the extra. When talking about preparing for the holiday, Jeremy was mentioning other things we could fill the stock pot with instead of taco soup. I had to let him know the holiday was actually National Corn Chip Day not Fill the Stock Pot to the Top Day. Ohhhhhh. So this year I tried a new taco soup recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. It was good.

Since January 29 is also National Puzzle Day, Jr. put on music from video games that have puzzles, especially "Puzzle Plank Galaxy" music from Super Mario Galaxy 2.

 

Saturday, we picked up prizes for doing Provo Library's Winter Reading Program. The completion prize for the teens and adults was a cocoa mug that says, "book. cocoa. sweater. repeat." Love it. 

Now I have two Provo City Library mugs. Jeremy and I each got one almost 20 years ago (whoa that's a long time) as a thank you when we did a show there. One of our many shows we've done over the years. It was probably a juggling show. We only have one of those left so it's fun to have new mugs from the library.

Anyway... we also earned packets of hot cocoa as another prize so we were able to celebrate National Hot Chocolate Day on Sunday, January 31,trying out our new mugs and cocoa.

The younger boys had fun with their prizes as well. Jr. Jr. and Lucky both got marshmallows that they were able to put in their hot chocolate- correction, they got marshmallows their marshmallow/snowball(?) plushies were able to throw in their hot chocolate.

 

 

By the way, I have to mention the sweetness of Lucky. When we went out to the van to go to the library on Saturday, he grabbed the scraper and wiped snow off the windshield for us. What a sweetie and what nice service.

Puzzling Chili

National Corn Chip Day on January 29 used to be "Fill the Stock Pot to the Top Day." We'd make a huge pot of taco soup, eat some with corn chips, then freeze the rest. Well, our family has grown since we originally started doing that and we have less room in our freezer now for that much leftover taco soup. We don't fill the stock pot to the top anymore. This year, in fact, we decided to make turkey chili instead of taco soup. We still ate it with corn chips and we still had leftovers, but the leftovers fit in the fridge and would be eaten before too long.

January 29 is also National Puzzle Day so Jeremy and Lucky got some bonding in working on a jigsaw puzzle. Lucky loves puzzles and it's fun to see those two putting a puzzle together.

Annual Taco Soup Day

Here we go again.  The day that used to be known as Fill the Stock Pot to the Top Day has come upon us again.  However, now we only do a double batch of taco soup instead of a seven times batch.  We've gone back to the original name of the holiday, National Corn Chip Day.

January 29 is also National Puzzle Day.  We didn't start on our new Eric Dowdle puzzle.  Instead the kids and I played Go Fish with Jr. Jr.'s spelling words.

Something on a Stick Day 2018

March 28 is Something on a Stick Day.  Here's a simple idea: craft stick puzzles.  You draw something on the craft sticks then mix them up and put them together again.

Here's a video about it:

A story about the video:
Both Lucky and ZZ had lined up their craft sticks for the video, but the paper we were using to cover the counter (thank goodness) got shifted and when ZZ's sticks were disrupted she didn't line them back up.  We tried to get her some more craft sticks to draw on (you can see them at the end of the video on the side of the screen), but by then Lucky was so far ahead in the instructions, we didn't want to stop him and make him start over.  So Lucky did the majority of the project on this one.  That's okay.  You should have seen it when the kids made slime together.  Lucky wouldn't even touch the stuff.  That was definitely more ZZ's project.

Also, Lucky insisted on not just introducing himself as Lucky, but as "Crazy Lucky."  What can you say?  He's 4. 

ZZ and Lucky will be making more videos together so check back on my YouTube channel as well as here at my blog to see how a couple of 4-year olds...

January Catch Up

So you want to know what we did in January that I didn't blog about (which was most of the month)?  O.K.  Let's catch up.

We celebrated:
January 7 was Old Rock Day.  A birding friend (yes, there was still a lot of birding) gave us an old rock- stigmaria.  It's a fossilized root.  Did I mention our birding friend is also a paleontologist?

January 8 was Elvis’ Birthday.  We didn’t have any Elvis movies to watch or songs to listen to.  We watched “The Court Jester” for Family Home Evening.  “Long live the king.”  That movie also had Angela Lansbury in it who played Elvis’ mother in a few of his movies.

January 10 was Peculiar People Day.  We celebrate by existing.
January 16 was Appreciate a Dragon Day.  Lucky watched "How to Train Your Dragon."  Nichole wore a dragon necklace.
January 17 was Popeye's birthday.  We had chicken salad with spinach in it.
January 18 was Winnie-the-Pooh Day.  Lucky and I played with “My Friends, Tigger and Pooh” figurines.  Later, Lucky put together a Winnie-the-Pooh puzzle.  We had a honey themed dinner- honey glazed ham, rolls with butter and honey, salad with honey mustard dressing.  Yumm.

January 19 was Brew a Potion Day.  It was also National Popcorn Day.  We watched “Hocus Pocus” while eating popcorn.

January 20 was Cheese (Lover’s) Day.  I think we had something cheesy for dinner.
January 21 was Squirrel Appreciation Day.  We didn’t celebrate that day but Jeremy got some good squirrel pictures a couple days later.

January 23 was Pie Day.  I made impossible cheeseburger pie for dinner and an apple pie for dessert.  We used our new Pi plate.

January 24 was National Compliment Day.  I tried to be nice to my kids all day.
January 25 was a Room of One’s Own Day.  I did spend some time in my room that day reading and watching a movie, but I wasn’t able to spend as much time as would have been nice since Jeremy was working.  Oh well.  I wasn’t going to tell him not to work just so I could celebrate by being lazy.  Also the DVD player I was using to watch my movie kept goofing up so it wasn't as relaxing because of it.  Oh well again.
January 28 was National Kazoo Day.  Jr. shared his talent.

January 29 was National Corn Chip Day.  We had chili and corn chips.  January 29 was also National Puzzle Day.  The kids watched me play some Monkey Island.

January 31 was Backwards Day.  We had dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner.  The boys were very happy because they also had dessert before their morning meal.  They didn’t think about wearing their clothes backwards this year.  Oh well.  Jr. did walk backwards when coming to meet me after school.

We did other things:

Jr. Jr. got an award for a school project he did.

 Jeremy and Lucky went to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point one day.

Lucky and I had a teddy bear picnic.  It was too cold to have it outdoors so we picnicked in the back of the van while Daddy was out birding (told you there was birding).

Jeremy and I went on a date to a dinner with other birders.

We dragged the kids out birding with us a few times. 

We also enjoyed a nice drive around the lake one evening.

We met some new birds- blue jay, Northern pygmy owl, and Pacific wren.  There were some others as well.

We found a friend outside the church building on the way to church one morning.  A red-naped sapsucker. 

It was still there when we got out of church and when we went back for choir practice.  When we got out of choir practice it was still there so I was taking pictures when another birder came up behind me with her camera.  She found out from Jeremy about the sapsucker and it was a new life bird for her.
Over the next few days several other birders came to see the sapsucker.
 
And that was January.