Watercolor Evening

July 16 was Ginger Rogers' Birthday. I fell asleep during a movie with Ginger Rogers in it.

I also fell asleep before I remembered to tell anyone to use spinach with their lettuce for taco salad. It was Fresh Spinach Day. I didn't have any myself because I fell asleep. Luckily other family members put the leftovers away because I didn't.

I was tired because we did all this after Nichole and I got back from an evening Relief Society activity where we made watercolor cards.

I am not the artist Nichole is and don't know what I'm doing with watercolors. That's okay, though. I still enjoyed socializing and eating snacks. 

I based my watercolor picture on the rainbow we saw in Oregon last month. 

Nichole based hers on this picture she took at Cape Arago on our Shore Acres day in Oregon. 

I like that our Relief Society has been doing such a variety of skills and activities. I still wear my charm bracelet on most Sundays to church and have been keeping my sourdough starter alive for over a year.

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.

Spinach Days

March 26 was National Spinach Day. It was also Make Up Your Own Holiday Day and Jeremy wanted to make up the holiday, I Don't Have To Go In To Work Day, but it didn't work. Poor guy.

But we did celebrate Spinach Day. To go along with Spinach and salad dressing (our kids are into simple salads- spinach with or without dressing, lettuce with or without dressing), I made Creamy Garlic Pork Chops, Classic Mashed Potatoes (both from "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volume 1), and applesauce. 

I don't make pork chops (I didn't even know pork chops could come boneless, I never look for them in the store), I don't make mashed potatoes from scratch (I am an instant mashed potatoes person- they're so much easier), but I made both for this meal. I am definitely trying new things with these books by Jordan Page and The Page Company. And we're actually getting through the bags of potatoes that we buy from the store. Yay.

I'll tell you my true opinion. Pork chops were yummy. Mashed potatoes weren't as good. They were easy but I need to do a better job at seasoning them. More garlic, that's what we need. And the spinach wasn't part of the meal plan, but it was a good side dish and fit the holiday.

Speaking of spinach, the next day we had spinach again with our dinner, this time with more than just dressing. We had Best Ever Fettuccine Alfredo (with spaghetti instead of fettucine) and Butter Lettuce Salad (with spinach instead of butter lettuce). We also had some homemade wheat bread to go along with it.

I'll tell you my true opinion. I definitely did some shelf cooking with the alfredo sauce recipe. I combined cream, half and half, and powdered milk with water. Used up the rest of the cream that we had in the fridge and the rest of a container of half and half we had in the fridge. We still have another unopened container of half and half that Jr. Jr. brought home from a youth activity where they were making ice cream, so no hurry on that. Anyway, the alfredo sauce was good. I still prefer the alfredo sauce we usually make and will probably stick to that one, but it's okay to try new things, especially when you have ingredients you need to use up. The recipe I usually use is Guiltless Alfredo Sauce from ourbestbites.com and most of us in the family love it. O.K. About the salad. It was good. The green olives in it were a pleasant surprise for some people. Honestly, I got myself a bowl of the olives to munch on while I was making dinner. I like green olives. It was a good salad but not craveworthy.

As far as the homemade bread goes, we did the traditional tear into one loaf to snack on and slice the others after they've cooled. I know we're not the only family that does that. Jet used to tear into all the loaves. A little bit of this loaf. A little bit of this one. Thinking about that makes me laugh. So many fun memories with this family.

On a different note, March 27 was Manatee Appreciation Day. I did sing, "Barbara Manatee" to celebrate. And thinking ahead when a picture of a manatee popped up on the laptop a few days before, I took a picture of it so I could look at it on the holiday. Celebrating in simple ways. Tee Hee.

It's a blessing to be able to celebrate what we do. We have friends in Haiti who are dealing with things that we don't even have to think about dealing with. 

To take their children's minds off of what they are going through at this time, our friends set up Google Meets with people to take time to talk to the girls, read books, or whatever. Jeremy signed us up so we got to chat with them, show them silly Jet. Jeremy put together a presentation about animals and birds of Utah so they could learn about them and find out what birds Utah has in common with Haiti. Then he made a couple of balloon animals for them to see since that's what we do. I hope it helped. They seemed to enjoy it.

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Goofing off on National Goof Off Day? I think not. On March 22, Jet decided to be a big helper and helped me make dinner.

I was making Green Goddess Pitas from "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volume 1. He saw me putting together the cabbage filling, saw the spinach that I was going to use for the dressing, and decided to help by putting bits of spinach in with the cabbage. So we had whole pieces of spinach in with it. That's fine.

Since we did need the spinach in the dressing, I gave Jet a measuring cup and he filled it with spinach himself to put in the blender. He started to do more in the measuring cup so we had a bit more than just the cup of spinach it called for which is fine.

I love that he chooses to help in the kitchen. You know he's my baking buddy. He's also my cooking buddy. He likes when I hand him the measuring spoons and cups to dump ingredients into something. He wanted to help cut onions with a plastic knife but we put a stop to that once he started rubbing his eyes. Poor kid. I did give him pieces of cucumber which he was able to cut with a plastic knife.

Sometimes he really is a big helper. And sometimes... I mean he did help clean the wall the day before... after he took a pencil and ran it back and forth along the wall multiple times.

This is why I refuse to read my children the book, "Harold and the Purple Crayon", which is one I read in my childhood. It's a fun book but I don't want to give them ideas (especially Jet).

The pitas turned out well. It was my turn to make hummus to go with it and we had some left over for Chip and Dip Day on March 23. I also made tzatziki with sour cream (so good) for Chip and Dip Day. I used the recipe from the beginning of the year when we made pitas before. Some people had salsa with their chips.

Earlier that day, Jeremy, Nichole, Lucky, and I went on a Utah County Birders field trip. Unfortunately it was getting ready to storm so there wasn't a lot to see in the way of birds but it was still nice to be around my birding peeps (see what I did there, birding peeps? 'Cause small sandpipers are called peeps? Tee Hee).

We got a thunderstorm and hail later that day and the next day we got snow.

Ah, Spring.

The next day after that, March 25, was International Waffle Day. Jet decided to be my helper in the kitchen again and helped stir the waffle mix before I put it in the waffle iron. Then he was happy to help eat the waffles. Tee Hee.

More Celebrating in January

January 16 was Fig Newton Day. We ate fig newtons. Do you remember the commercial way back that said, "It's not a cookie. It's a newton"? I looked at the packaging for fig newtons and it calls them cookies. Ha.

It was also Appreciate a Dragon Day. Dad did some writing about dragons.

January 17 was Museum Selfie Day. Jeremy had some stuff to do at the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point so he made sure to celebrate the holiday while there.

It was also Popeye Day. I sang Popeye cartoon theme music over and over to the kids while we ate Popeye spinach.

It was also Hot Heads Chili Day. Let me tell you how I did some shelf cooking those two days, following "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volume 1.

I was thinking of making some spicy chili on Hot Heads Chili Day and the day before I was going to make lasagna soup with garlic bruschetta. Well, Jr. wasn't feeling the greatest that first day and said Ogre Stew sounded good to him. Ogre Stew is kind of like a white bean chili and it was a bit spicy so we had it for Hot Heads Chili Day Observed. 

The garlic bruschetta was supposed to use fresh tomatoes but we were out so I took a can of diced tomatoes, added the other ingredients, and cooked them up to make a sauce. Then I took my homemade baguettes (The Food Nanny recipe), cut them in rounds, and made them into garlic bread to put the sauce on top. It worked.

So the next day I made the lasagna soup to go with spinach salad. I also made cornbread muffins which were suggested in the book but I used a recipe I always use instead of the one from the book. That's another thing about shelf cooking. If I have a tried and true recipe why look for something else?

 

Lucky very nicely took pictures then edited them to make me green like spinach.

Some January Fun... That Hasn't Already Been Mentioned

Sometimes you just have to dance to the music. In this case it was music from Singin' in the Rain. In fact, I think it was the song, "Singin' in the Rain."  

January 15 was National Bagel Day. Breakfast sandwiches for dinner? Yes, please.

 

Live long and prosper.

 

January 16 was Appreciate a Dragon Day. Nichole wore her new dragon-themed shirt and her new dragon earrings and as is tradition, she sketched a dragon.

She and the boys also played "toss" with the dragon that she made in elementary school. 

January 17 was Popeye Day. We had food with spinach for dinner including Popeye brand spinach.

 

One way to get exercise in during the Winter. Roll the ball down the hall and chase it.

January 18 was Winnie-the-Pooh Day. We had honey roasted carrots with our dinner. I also made granola that day but used maple syrup instead of honey because I wasn't thinking and we had syrup we needed to use up.

 

Sometimes in life, you just have to stop and play with monster trucks. Did you know that because they're "monster" trucks, they roar?

 

And this...

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.

Ham!

For National Glazed Spiral Ham Day on April 15 we had a nice dinner of ham, potato salad, green salad, and stuffing. 

There were some big pieces of spinach. 

There was also some fun at the dinner table.

Jr. Jr.: Aagh. Mom's disguising spinach in the ham. She's secretly making us eat spinach.

The funny thing is Lucky wouldn't eat the ham but he would eat the spinach.

Lucky: I don't like this kind of ham because it comes from pigs. 

Mom: Then what kind of ham would you like that doesn't come from pigs?

Lucky: The kind that comes from ham-burgers.