What Do You Do When You Don't Have Pictures For Your Post?

April 26 was National Pretzel Day. We ate pretzels (but not homemade).

April 27 was Tell a Story Day. Jeremy celebrated it observed the next day when he told me a story. 

April 28 was Terry Pratchett's Birthday. We talked about it a lot in our family, including quotes. 

April 29 was International Dance Day. I was told that Jet has been doing a great job dancing at school (the elementary school dance festival is coming up in May). It was also National Zipper Day. Jet took the opportunity to zip the vest I was wearing all the way up to the top (to my upraised chin).

I have no pictures for any of this. 

The End. 

FHE Activity

FHE Activity: 

Glow stick story time.

Everyone creates a character out of glow sticks then tell a story together.  

We had so much fun with this. Then we got to having other fun with glow sticks...

including wrapping them around juggling balls and enjoying glow in the dark juggling. 

  

Family history story:

Back in our college days, my brother had glow in the dark balls that he would juggle at parties and things. Memories!

Catching Up April 2025 part 4

April 27 was Tell a Story Day. I told the kids a story. I don't remember what story I told them but I did. It was probably another family history story. 

Wait. I remember. We started looking through pictures to find a baby picture of Jr. for seminary graduation. We found some pictures of Jeremy and me from when we were dating and told the kids some stories about hiking up Rock Canyon in the snow with my brother to get pictures.

Oh, good memories. And silly memories. You see where our kids get it?

I love that I've had Jeremy in my life longer than I haven't. I look forward to the time that I've been married to him longer than I haven't. It won't be long.

Jeremy also told the kids the story behind this photo he got of a black gibbon (at the Hogle Zoo while we were dating).

It was yawning.

 

April 28 was Terry Pratchett's Birthday. I continued to read Wyrd Sisters. The kids watched Going Postal.

It was also Blueberry Pie Day so I made Thronis's Blueberry Pie from The Fablehaven Cookbook. Yumm.

It was also Great Poetry Reading Day. I read a little bit of poetry.

Spooky Story and Picture

To celebrate the anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's death on October 7, as a family we wrote a "spooky" story and had an AI generator make a picture based on a summary of the story.

 

Here's the story:

A Short Spooky Story

By the Telford family

One day a skeleton was walking in the graveyard. He was looking all around when suddenly he saw… the ghost of a pineapple. The pineapple explained it had been chopped into pieces to put on a pizza and couldn’t move on until such a grievous sin could be resolved. Santa flew overhead and took the pineapple away on his sleigh, yelling hooray. “That’s mine” said a little boy. “No,” said his mother, “that’s daddy’s.” The little boy darted forward and grabbed the arm of the skeleton. Dashing away before the skeleton could stop him and yelling something about putting it on a pizza. “You think that’s humorous?” the skeleton said. The skeleton rattled after him while the mom followed quickly behind. “You’ll end up on the naughty list just like that pineapple,” she yelled. The boy ignored her and continued to run laughing gleefully until he tripped. He tripped right over a tombstone, pizza. The arm bone flew out of his hand and landed on his head. Santa came back for his hawaiian pizza only to find a little boy on it. “Now that’s worse than pineapple,” he said. He removed the boy and gave the skeleton back his tomato covered bone before picking up his pizza. The moral of this story is if you have a bone to pick about pineapple on pizza expect to be sleign.

 

Here's the prompt:

Santa grabs a tombstone pizza that has a boy on it. There is a skeleton with tomato paste on his arm and a ghost of a pineapple. The boy’s mother stands nearby and watches. This all happens in a cemetery at night. Santa’s sleigh is in the background.

 

Here's the resulting picture:

 

Some More Holidays

November 17 was National Homemade Bread Day and National Butter Day. 

Easy to combine holidays that day.

 

November 18 was National Apple Cider Day.

I figured after working for hours on Jeremy's book that day and the day before, I earned some nice apple cider in the composition mug.

 

November 19 was Have a Bad Day Day. Some of us took turns being grumpy for a bit. It never lasted too long. I kept commenting that it was just to celebrate the holiday. Both Nichole and Jr. fell that day. Sigh. You don't always have to celebrate, kids. Sigh.

November 20 was National Absurdity Day and World Children's Day. We talked about that in Nursery on Sunday. The adults did. The children were just absurd at times.

November 21 was National Gingerbread Cookie Day. I've been wanting to make gingerbread men again for years. My father-in-law gave me a recipe for gingerbread cookies so we made gingerbread men for the holiday. Hooray. 

Some of them came out in interesting shapes because they stuck so much to the cookie cutters. This is one that looks different depending on the angle you look at it. What do you think it looks like? 

Lucky and Jr. Jr. had fun with the end of the dough adding embellishments to the last cookies. I didn't make icing so we didn't have gingerbread zombies this time.

The day before, Nichole got a gingerbread man from a teacher at church. Sweetheart that she is, she shared with Jet. Then when she didn't have more to share, she made a gingerbread man out of cardboard for him, and we talked about the story of the gingerbread man. Lucky shared a story he made up about the Antarctic gingerbread man.

Loony Adventures

Jeremy recently was able to see a new bird- a yellow-billed loon.
 

Actually there were two. 

Nichole and I wanted to see them so he took us to the place where he saw them. We didn't see them. We saw other birds but no yellow-billed loons. Just these loons.

Yesterday we decided to try again. We went to the same place and Jeremy was able to spot one of the loons on the choppy water of the reservoir. Nichole and I got a quick look because it kept diving under the water. Oh well. Jeremy and I watched a bald eagle fly over the water. That was fun.

We stopped at another spot and saw some other birds that may have been a different kind of loon. We couldn't get a good look. And there were these loons.

Jr. Jr. requested another muffin night like we did the end of October. So for dinner we had oatmeal muffins again, Christmas banana muffins, orange craisin muffins, and calzone muffins. There was some dough left over from the calzone muffins so Jr. Jr. and I made some braided rolls. It was fun to do muffin night again.

While we were eating, Lucky asked me to tell stories from my childhood. That went right along with #LightTheWorld for that day. Jeremy and the kids started making our balloon Christmas tree that day as well.

To Light the World today we delivered brownies to my sister. Lucky knocked on the door, ran back to the van, and when my sister answered the door, we sang, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." One of her kids then came to the door so we resang, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Then her husband came to the door so we resang, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Then more of her kids came to the door so we resang, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Then my sister came out to her lawn while we stayed at the van and we got to chat for a bit. That was nice.

When we got home, Jeremy and the kids decorated the tree with balloon ornaments and a couple of the kids contributed lightweight ornaments of their own.

For dinner we had a salad bar since it is Radish Night on December 23. It is also National Roots Day which goes right along with radishes.

Lucky read a story to Jet and we continued getting ready for Christmas Day. 

We of course have been keeping up with the real reason for the season with our advent countdown to Christmas scripture study. We have been trying to do service for each other in our family as well as for others. #LightTheWorld for today is about sharing gratitude for gifts God has given. I will say that I am very grateful for #GiveThanks around Thanksgiving. It did help me to get in the right frame of mind for the Christmas season. Even though there have been some frustrating times this December, I've had a better time than some years. I'm grateful we read all of A Christmas Carol this year. I'm grateful we've still been able to do lots of things as a family. I'm grateful we've had some neat experiences in nature. I love nature and I believe Heavenly Father has given me a gift to appreciate the beauty of nature. I am grateful that unlike most years, we haven't really gotten sick this December so far and I think we're close enough to Christmas that it's safe to say we won't be miserable on Christmas. There really are so many things for which to be grateful, the best being the Savior, Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas, everyone. And of course in the words of Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol, "God bless us, everyone." He has and I recognize that.

International Moment of Frustration Scream Day 2020

October 12 was International Moment of Frustration Scream Day.

Nichole brought out her crocheted puppets to celebrate.

That day was also Columbus Day so Jeremy told me that morning he was heading out to make his "rounds." Heh heh. Get it? Get it? 'Cause Columbus? And rounds? Heh heh.

Actually when he was about to leave, Jet reached up for him so Jeremy took him. Jet is often clingy with Mommy so whenever he reaches out for someone else, they usually take him. Everybody adores that baby. This time, however, when I tried to take him back, he held on to Daddy, waved Bye to me, and looked to the door. He wanted to go with Daddy to make his "rounds." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Get it? Rounds? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Anyway... we compromised. I got my shoes and socks on and he and I went for a walk around the neighborhood while Jeremy... ran errands.

While we were out for our walk, we saw a little dog waddling around. It was barking and after a little while Jet started making sounds. I figured out he was imitating the dog. So cute. A little bit later, we heard some birds and he started making sounds there, too. So cute again to try to copy the birds. When we got home we went to the backyard and watched jays get peanuts from the feeders. They are big enough and were close enough that Jet was able to see them easily.

After school that day, Lucky brought home a story and some little white ghosts on sticks. In the story, the little ghosts eat things that are not white and turn different colors. It was cute to listen to him telling the story.

I'm glad he's having fun at school.

More April Celebrating... With Food

Since we're so busy with school at home right now, most of our celebrating revolves around the menu plan.
April 13 was National Peach Cobbler Day. Oh, yes. Mmmm. It turned out well. And currently I've got peaches in the freezer for two more cobblers. Jr. Jr. turned out to be the biggest fan of this peach cobbler. It made a lot (not everyone in the family is a fan) so there were a lot of leftovers and he was happy to have some whenever he could.

April 14 was National Dolphin Day. We ate tuna loaf. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. We made sure to use dolphin safe tuna. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Mmm, putting this blog post together, I want tuna loaf again. I should put it on the menu plan.
April 19 was National Garlic Day. I made twisted breadsticks with butter and garlic salt and parmesan cheese on them because I was originally planning on making garlic bread but I didn't have French bread for it (I had made French bread but we were saving it for Monday's dinner) so I used a trick I learned from ourbestbites.com to season them after they come out of the oven and I used some dough we had in the fridge.

April 19 was also National Hanging Out Day. We do a lot of that at home with our family, not with friends right now.
April 20 was National Cheddar Fries Day. I made a simple cheese sauce from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner and poured it on French fries (not homemade). Jr. used the French bread I made and made apple cinnamon French toast casserole from the book, Budget Bytes. Yumm.

April 21 was Tuna Rights Day. We didn't have tuna loaf. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. We had salmon patties. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

April 22 was Earth Day. Jr. Jr. drew and colored this fun picture for a school assignment and our family got out for an Earth Day walk together.

We didn't let the kids get out the bike and scooters this time and this was my interpretation of how some of the kids reacted.

April 23 was National Picnic Day. We had picnic food for dinner.

April 24 was National Pigs in a Blanket Day. Nichole had a lot of fun wrapping the bits of hot dog into fun blanket shapes. Creativity strikes again. If you give Nichole a medium...

April 25 was East Meets West Day. We had teriyaki with angel hair pasta (recipe from hillbillyhousewife.com) and watched Big Hero 6 (San Fransokyo?)

April 25 was also National Zucchini Bread Day. My zucchini bread didn't turn out as well as it normally does- the batter anyway. It still tasted good, it was just a weird consistency this time- more like a cookie batter than zucchini bread batter. Oh, well. I've got more zucchini in the freezer waiting to become bread.

I also forgot to take a picture of it before we ate half.
April 26 was National Pretzel Day. Homemade pretzels, yumm.

I took a break in the middle of making pretzels so we could go for a Sunday evening walk as a family. This is another thing we're encouraged to do as a ward. Go out for Sunday afternoon or evening walks, say hi, but don't get too close. It was nice to chat with some people while they sat on their porches or from across the street.

Lots of celebrating with food... and walks. Gotta work off all those food calories, I guess.
P.S. April 27 was National Tell a Story Day. We didn't celebrate with food but one of Nichole's assignments was to read her short story and have it evaluated, which she did on that day.