National Kazoo Day

Today is National Kazoo Day.

We had squid pups for dinner.

Those statements are not related, but Lucky wanted to show his person he made out of hot dog and spaghetti.

In another completely unrelated statement, a very wonderful and helpful birder took me out today to find my current (not anymore) nemesis bird.  Thanks, Suzi.  Not only did we find a northern pygmy owl, but we found three.

Trust me. There is an owl in these pictures.  Pygmy owls are just teeny things.  Can you spot it?

Click on the pictures to see them larger.

It was a wonderful morning/afternoon and just what I needed.

Old Rock Day 2017

We now return to your regularly scheduled blog post. 
Old Rock Day today, January 7.  While I was menu planning a while back, I asked the kids what we should have for dinner for Old Rock Day.  Jr. suggested we have squid pups (what the kids now call squid dogs) but call them squid fossils.  Sure.  Jeremy picked up some chocolate rock candy at the store so we had some of that, too.

Simple celebrating or as Jeremy would say, "Almost... elementary."  Which goes along with Sherlock Holmes' birthday yesterday.

Talk Like a Pirate Day Observed 2012

Talk Like a Pirate Day is on September 19th, but we are going to be too busy that day to celebrate how we would like, so for Family Home Evening on Monday, we had Talk Like a Pirate Day Observed.  This holiday is a big deal for us.  We don't do the simple, quick celebrating for it like we do with some holidays.  We really get into it.

 And put a lot of work into it.

Three years ago was when we really started getting into this holiday.  I blogged about it in 2009.

Last year, we added some more fun.  I blogged about it on September 19th and a few days later.

Some of the activities have really become tradition as the kids have come to expect them.  Jeremy always builds a pirate ship out of our couch with a PVC mast and material hanging from it as a sail and an upside down unicycle for the helm.  We also always have a balloon cannon.  This year it didn't work as well.  I think it got bumped too many times.  Oh well.  We still had fun with our balloon sword fight.

For dinner this year, we had squid dogs and carrot hooks and ketchup and grape juice.  The kids wanted the squid legs to be pink so we squirted some red food coloring into the water and it worked really well. 

I was the galley cook who dished out the food.  Arrrr.

For Family Home Evening Treat, Jeremy made skull and crossbones cupcakes for us.

Jeremy put together a treasure hunt for the kids.  The clues were very clever and they did a really good job figuring them out.  As they figured out clues, they earned gold dubloons (like in Jake and the Neverland Pirates from Disney Junior, for those of you with little kids).

The first clue came as a message in a bottle.  At the end, the treasure was a bunch more dubloons and the game, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean for the Wii. 

And earlier in the day, as Jeremy, Jr. Jr., and I were getting ready, we put on some pirate music and worked and danced.

And after school Jr. used a piratey pencil while he worked on homework.

And of course through it all, we had fun talking like pirates.

Family Home Evening- Oceans

For Family Home Evening, we did an ocean theme for our activity and treat. Daddy made us squid dogs to eat while watching Oceans by Disneynature.

We combined it with dinner so Jeremy and I had ours in some chowder (which we didn't even bother offering to the kids- I didn't want to hear any complaining). It would have been more appropriate if it was clam chowder, but we didn't have any so we enjoyed cheesy potato instead.

Along with the squid dogs and chowder, Jeremy cut apples in the shape of turtles with fish to the side.

It was a nice family activity.

Extra Fancy?

Last night we were enjoying a nice dinner of squid dogs

when Jeremy looked at the bottle of ketchup and asked the question,

"What makes it extra fancy tomato ketchup? It's not just fancy, but it's extra fancy."

So, I would like to pass along the question to you. Does anyone know what makes it not regular, not fancy, but extra fancy ketchup? Please, I'd love to know.

I wouldn't mind hearing some creative, if not entirely accurate, ideas as well. It might provide us with some fun laughs the next time we have ketchup with our dinner.

Squid Dogs

In the February 2010 issue of FamilyFun Magazine, Jeremy found a little section about making "Squid Dogs." So we decided to have them for dinner.

Cut hot dogs into sections, poke several uncooked spaghetti noodles through each, then boil them until the pasta's cooked. It was fun and easy, which was nice after a long day of running errands.

Before and After