Catching Up January 2025 part 1

We toasted in the New Year at midnight and had New Year's Nachos.

January 2 was National Buffet Day. I made dinner Fend For Yourself that night.

We also finally got out to donate to the Giving Machine right before it closed for the season. We donated "piglets," "art classes," "five visits and meals to a senior," and "empower through play."

We did not get a good family picture like we did in 2022 but that's not the point so... who cares?

 

I got out for morning walks before school started up again.

January 4 National Spaghetti Day. We ate spaghetti. It was also National Trivia Day and Utah's Birthday so we did some Utah trivia. It was also Play Outside Day (which is every first Saturday of the month). A few of us went out to see barn owls (and some other birds but we went specifically for the owls). When we got home we warmed up with hot chocolate.

We celebrated National Bird Day, January 5, a day early with the owl search, although we did eat chicken for dinner on the 5th. We watched The Big Year on Saturday as a family.

 

January 6 was Sherlock Holmes' Birthday. Lucky celebrated by going to "elementary" school the first day back after Christmas Break. I watched a TV show with a Sherlock Holmes character.

It was also National Cuddle Up Day and National Bean Day so you better believe we cuddled up while eating chocolate (which comes from beans). 

 

January 7 was Old Rock Day and National Bobblehead Day so I got out to take pictures of Jr.'s bobblehead with mountains (old rocks). I haven't done that for a few years so it was fun to do it again.

 

January 8 was Elvis' Birthday. We watched Lilo and Stitch.

We started over with "A Season of Family Meal Plans," volume 1, by Jordan Page.

That's enough catch up for now.

Celebrating in January

January 4 was National Spaghetti Day. Besides eating spaghetti, we went around singing a song from the Sandra Boynton album, "Philadelphia Chickens." The Aardvarks have a part in their song where they sing, "We hope you like spaghetti." We sang that part a lot that day.

It was also National Trivia Day. I started watching a movie with characters who were good at trivia. Also that's the day I wrote the little tidbit on my blog about Ralphie from A Christmas Story being in Elf (though it wasn't posted until January 6).

 

January 5 was National Bird Day. Nichole and I thought about going birding with friends but decided not to based on the snow. Instead we had them over to play a game and eat treats. There were some bird cards in the game we played. 

Since it was National Whipped Cream Day, I made more "Fairy in a Jar Layered Gelatin Treats" from The Fablehaven Cookbook but this time I followed directions for layering it in a 9x13 pan. Those were the treats we shared with our friends. 

It was good bonding time before Nichole and the daughter both headed back to college after Christmas Break. 

Jeremy and some of the kids celebrated National Bird Day by watching The Big Year. I went to sleep because that's what I do.

We all had skillet chicken parmigiana for dinner because chickens are birds and with leftover spaghetti from Spaghetti Day.

Jr. Jr. wore his chicken legs socks he got for Christmas on National Bird Day.

 

January 8 was Elvis' birthday. It was also a relative's birthday. We asked him what kind of treats he would approve of so we could have on for FHE treat. One of the things he likes is chocolate chip cookies so that's what we had to honor him on his birthday.

Summer Reading!

I was going to write about all our Summer Reading adventures in one post but changed my mind. Here's the second post.

We continued to do service and received service. Made cookies for neighbors. They made us fried squash which we had with our dinner one night.

Later when someone was going through a hard time, we gave them chimichangas so they wouldn't have to worry about dinner.

We made so many chimichangas. Some to eat, some to freeze, some to give away. This picture is of the chimichangas in our stock pot. You know our stock pot- the one we used to use to make a seven times batch of taco soup? Yeah, that stock pot.

Took all of the kids to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. It was Jet's first time there. And... dinosaurs. He loved it, especially when it was time to dig for fossils.

He even got into calling out, "Oh no, it's going to eat me," for a picture in front of the megalodon. Tradition.

Nichole got some good sketching in, of course. She's been wanting to go to that museum for a while, too.

One of the reading activities was to have someone read a book you recommend. I recommended Spindle by W.R. Gingell to Nichole. It's the first book in a series and Nichole is already farther along than I am in the series now. Lucky recommended Wizard for Hire to me. I loved it. I just finished the second book in the series and will definitely read the third. After I read the first one, that meant everyone (except Jet) had read that book so Lucky put together a trivia game for us to play based on it. It was fun. Jr. Jr. and I were on a team and Nichole and Jr. were on a team. We had team names and even team handshakes. Later, Lucky was able to give the trivia questions to Jeremy so he was able to be involved. Book trivia was another Summer Reading activity.

I'm sure I can't remember all the activities we did but it was another great Summer Reading Summer.

We went to the Orem Summer Reading Finale. They had Polynesian dances including a fire dancer. I was telling one of my children about torches and fire because of my experience juggling fire. Yes, I have juggled fire. Jeremy used to juggle fire in a lot of his birthday party shows.

Jr. and Nichole both won prizes from Orem. Nichole put a lot of tickets into the one she won. Jr. put one ticket into the one he won. He has that luck when it comes to drawings.

Post Late at Night

It's too late. I'm tired. I don't want to blog. I just want to go to sleep. So I'll just quickly say today, January 4, was National Spaghetti Day. 

It was also National Trivia Day. As I was driving home from running an errand today, I was listening to the radio when they gave some spaghetti trivia. I thought that was awesome.

Jeremy found out later on that January 4 is also Utah's birthday, the anniversary of its statehood. He suggested some things we could do to celebrate that in future years. Green jello, funeral potatoes. Heh heh heh. I told him what we had for Utah Day back in May. Funeral potatoes, green jello with carrot shavings. Heh heh heh.

Jet was a handful again. He helped me scrub potatoes for dinner's onion roasted potatoes then when I put the chopped potatoes in a bowl of water to soak, he thought that was such a great thing, so several times he climbed on a chair to splash in the water and play with the potatoes. Finally he made such a mess, water all over the floor, chairs, table, etc., I said enough and resorted to putting on Cocomelon which he fell asleep to. It's exhausting being so mischievous.

Now he's still awake but I'm hoping he falls asleep soon. I'm so tired. I have a sweet husband who said he'd take care of him so I can do my blog post, though. I love my husband.

I love my toddler, too. We did have fun dancing and reading books again today.

Turkeys and Veterans and Pizza, Oh My

Jeremy was out of town at a fair convention so the kids and I celebrated a few things without him.

 

Jr. Jr. and Lucky went to a little Thanksgiving Dinner where they got to do crafts and eat food.

The next day, November 11, was Veterans Day.

It was also National Sundae Day so we had Chinese Sundaes, also known as Hawaiian Haystacks.

The next day, November 12 was Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day. Sadly there have been a few years when we've missed this holiday. Can you believe it? I made sure to celebrate it this year. Individual pizzas with lots of choices for sauces and toppings including dessert pizzas.

That day, Jr. also entered a Fablehaven trivia contest at school because the newest Dragonwatch book came out in October and they had a couple copies to check out. The two people with the most points would get to check out the book first and the top 10 scorers would get a metal bookmark. 

When Nichole and Jet and I picked him up from school, I asked how it went because he'd been studying/reading books to prepare. He let me know he got 11th place. Oh, no. That's too bad. Barely missed it. We gave him sympathy.

Mom: Oh, man. Seriously, you got 11th place?

Jr.: Just kidding. I got 10th.

Mom: Really? So you did get a bookmark. Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Jr.: Yeah. 1+0=10, right?

Mom: No. It equals 1.

Jr.: Oh, so I guess I got 1st place.

That made me laugh because he totally had us going. Thinking how sad that he didn't even get a bookmark, to happy to find out he did, to ecstatic to find out he got to check out the new book first. Yay! Nice one, Jr. He also got to check out another book and besides the bookmark, he also got some stickers.

Way to go, Jr.

I keep telling you we're Brandon Mull fans.

Spaghetti Trivia

January 4 was National Spaghetti Day and it was National Trivia Day. 

Jr. and I made teriyaki spaghetti stir fry together while doing trivia games. 

Later we learned some trivia about spaghetti.

Happy Birthday, Harry Potter

July 31 is Harry Potter's Birthday. The character turned 40 this year. Busy day for us.
I made bean dip for lunch. Oh, did I fail to mention July 31 is also National Avocado Day?

Nichole helped me figure out our menu plan and treats since she's a bigger Harry Potter fan than I and can think of more obscure references to food in the books.

Nichole: There are bananas, potato chips and sausages because in the 1st book at the island with the shack Uncle Vernon made them eat bananas and potato chips for dinner. Then Hagrid came and cooked sausages for Harry and gave him his birthday cake. In the 6th book, Ron and Harry are cutting vegetables, so we can have carrots. Butterbeer, jelly beans and chocolate frogs are pretty obvious in their reasoning. I can't remember a specific bread reference, but I like bread, so... Dobby shut his ears in the oven? Mrs. Weasley gave Harry lots of toast when he came to visit? Amos Diggory was given toast when his head appeared in the fire and he warned Mr. Weasley about Mad-Eye Moody.

Thanks, Nichole.

A few of us also made wands and we all participated in an online Harry Potter trivia game put on by Orem Public Library. They've been having Harry Potter activities all the month of July and this was the final on Harry Potter's birthday. The team we were playing for won.

We had fun putting on a big Harry Potter Birthday Party for Nichole back in 2017.
This July, my sister's family put on a big Harry Potter party (with social distancing) for my nephew. See what they did on her blog, Finding Time to Create. It's pretty awesome.