Early November Holidays (with and without pictures)

I am thankful we can celebrate even if we don't get pictures.

November 2 was Plan Your Epitaph Day. I said several times during the day things like, "Here lies Jr. Jr. He wouldn't go to bed when his mom told him to."

November 3 was Sandwich Day. I told everyone to feed themselves sandwiches. I also quoted Lilo & Stitch.

November 4 was King Tut Day. Kids watched Batman: the Animated Series. Nichole and I had a discussion about the old Adam West series with King Tut as one of the villains.

November 5 was Stress Awareness Day. I was aware of stress. I took a picture of me aware of stress.

November 6 was Men Make Dinner Day. Jeremy took time the day before to make lecso (Hungarian food). It's good reheated. I enjoyed it for dinner on the holiday.

Catching Up July 2025 part 1, though I'll probably lose track because of how long it will take to do all the catching up

The beginning of July saw family members getting sick (I was exhausted from taking care of sick people and getting sick myself), Jeremy going off to a fair in California (he also messed up his back somehow so the night before his trip, he had a Priesthood blessing and went to urgent care so they could help him out and Lucky and I did the heavy lifting of his supplies and I drove him early the next morning to Marcus's because they were driving together), and Jr. Jr. going off to Young Men Camp without Lucky because Lucky got sick and had to stay home. It would have been his first time.

There were also other stresses and Nichole and Jr. took swim lessons. 

Let me explain the corn husk picture. I got up early to clean one day and decided to take the bag of corn husks up to the outside garbage. As I was walking up the stairs, the bottom of the bag broke open and all the corn husk/silk/garbage fell out on the stairs. It was one of those shrug it off and deal with it moments. Did I mention there were stresses?

We observed rainbows for Summer Reading. Some of us saw rainbows in sprinklers and Jet and I made rainbows with a prism. 

We started harvesting vegetables from our garden.

We also celebrated Nichole's birthday.

We celebrated other holidays but I'll write about those in different posts.

We also saw blessings and had some faith building experiences. 

Sandwiches and Mummies

November 3 was Sandwich Day. Sometimes I will give Jet a sandwich on one piece of bread folded over. Sometimes I will give him a sandwich on two pieces of bread. On Sandwich Day, I gave him a sandwich on two pieces of bread which he told me should be folded over. So he folded it over and ate it like that. Tee Hee. 

 

November 4 was King Tut Day. I thought it was appropriate to make a pizza mummy. I made one in October and that one had eyes but the dough raised in such a way that it was like the mummy was lying with its head back. I didn't bother to put eyes on the King Tut mummy. 

November 5 was Guy Fawkes Day. I explained Guy Fawkes to a couple of my kids. I didn't burn anything, though, not even dinner. Ha Ha. 

Dinner was supposed to be Quick and Tasty Lettuce Wraps with Coconut Rice from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 4 (by Jordan Page), but because of shelf cooking, I made them into bowls instead, using regular rice, baby spinach (instead of making wraps), but I did put the filling on top of the rice and spinach and since I keep coconut in the freezer, I sprinkled some of that on top of everything.

November 6 was Stress Awareness Day. Several of us were very aware of stress that day.

It was also Nacho Day but apparently I didn't get any nacho pictures. I must have been too stressed.

November 7 was Men Make Dinner Day. Lucky made Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps, Jr. Jr. made braided rolls, and Jr. made Kool-aid. I went to sleep and missed dinner. I wasn't adjusting to Daylight Savings ending very well. I had my food for breakfast the next morning.

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...

Year of Miracles

We've decided 2023 is going to be a year of miracles. And not just for us. Miracles will happen for many this year.

We have some big stresses going on right now. The year has barely begun but we're already seeing blessings along with the stress.

It's going to be okay. Through it all, we know that Heavenly Father loves us and is watching out for us. And knowing that really matters.

Christmas Day 2022

So let's talk about Christmas Day.

First of all, we got the star on the tree.

While I was working on Christmas Eve dinner, Jr. and Nichole made breakfast sandwiches to put in the fridge so that Christmas morning, we'd have something quick to eat before church. Thanks, kids.

Christmas morning we got to come out to see what Santa brought and what was in our stockings. 

I carried Jet out still asleep but after a while he woke to see what Santa brought him then had fun opening the wrapped presents in his stocking- dino cars! He was excited with each car and started roaring (as he does) but as soon as Jeremy handed him a new wrapped present, he immediately handed back the dino car so he could unwrap the next one.

Then we didn't open any presents from around the tree but got dressed, ate our quick breakfast, and went to church where there was a beautiful musical program with special words from the bishop. Lucky got to sing with the Primary and I was able to sing with the choir.

It was what I needed and wanted that morning. I'll be honest that Christmas Eve was rough. I had a nice breakdown. Well, it wasn't so nice. There has definitely been some stress lately. But Christmas Day was just right.

 

At home we were able to Zoom with Jeremy's parents while opening presents (later that day, I called my parents and had a nice chat with them and two of my brothers).

One thing we found out about Jet is that he really likes unwrapping presents whether they belong to him or not. The kids helped bring out some presents Christmas Eve and one present had to be rewrapped. Then during our main present opening Christmas afternoon, we took turns opening presents and Jet was practically launching himself at the presents to try to tear the paper off them. In some ways that determined what present would be opened next when it was the recipient's turn. Three year olds are fast, man.

Nichole was sweet and made this for Jet for Christmas:

 

Christmas Day was nice.

Now we're dealing with the aftermath.

Beginning November

Woohoo. We've reached November in our quest to catch up on my blog. 

You know what November is, don't you? National Novel Writing Month! How appropriate that November 1 is National Author's Day. Nichole had a goal to finish the first draft of her novel before November. She reached that goal and celebrated with hot chocolate in the composition mug. 

My goal for NaNoWriMo is to read her first draft and give her feedback.

November 1 was also National Cinnamon Day. I had apple cinnamon oatmeal.

Nichole needed to go out to get pictures to make up for her digital photography class she missed during quarantine so she and I went out to Bicentennial Park on November 2 to get some pictures. It was a lovely evening. We heard a belted kingfisher soon after we got to the park and later saw it flying around. That's a bird I expect to find at that park. Love it. We also saw a turtle swimming around and plenty of little birds, chickadees and finches and such.

We had some good lighting that evening for pictures and it was a pleasant outing.

November 3 was Sandwich Day. We didn't have peanut butter or tuna fish sandwiches (remember Lilo & Stitch?). Instead, Jet and Lucky both helped me make french bread rolls from Mel's Kitchen Cafe to try out ham sliders from The Food Nanny. Mmmmmm.

November 3 was also Stress Awareness Day and yes, I am aware that I have a lot of stress in my life. But November is also a month of gratitude and gratitude can be a great stress reliever. Last year I wrote about #GiveThanks and "No-Stress November" tips from the Orem Library. I think it's a good idea to look back at the post I put up on November 27, 2020 for ideas on how to get through the stress.

Since we're talking about gratitude, I'll mention something I'm grateful for. I'm grateful I have hair. Not everyone does.

November 4 was National Candy Day. The kids finished off the candy corn left over from Candy Corn Day.

November 4 was also Men Make Dinner Day. Jr. made pizza for us.

Looking at my blog post from last year, the men made a similar dinner that day.

November 5 was Guy Fawkes Day. Alexa and I explained a little bit about who Guy Fawkes was to some of the children.

November 5 was also Doughnut Day. As I've been doing lately with any doughnut or donut (depending on how you spell it) related holiday or celebration, I made cinnamon sugar doughnut muffins from Mel's Kitchen Cafe again. I'll tell you, they are much faster and easier to make than real doughnuts and so tasty.

So there you go. The first week of November... mostly. November 6 deserves its own blog post so look for that soon.