The Christmas KAT's Meow

Jeremy: Name a prophet who told about Jesus before He was born.
Lucky:
Jeremy: Hint- We just read from one in scripture study.
Other kids whisper.
Lucky: Amuel?
Lucky: Salma?
Finally he figured out that Alma and Samuel were both prophets who fit the description.

Other Things That Happened in January

Jeremy, Nichole, and Jr. went on a birding field trip the first day of the year. All three of them are participating in the birding challenge this year so they want to get out there among the birds. It also helps Nichole with a biology assignment.

Yep. Real birders go out in weather like this.

The three of them also went to the annual UCB dinner at the Golden Corral. Since I wasn't able to go, Jeremy made a sign of me holding Jet. It said, "Hi. My name is" then had my name with an arrow pointing to my face and Jet's name with an arrow pointing to his face. The sign was based on my Catch of the Day picture from December 11.
Also at that dinner, Jeremy and I were introduced as new officers in the group's leadership. We get to collect bird of the month articles for the monthly newsletter. It was so nice of them to think of us and ask us to help out in that way.

There's actually been quite a bit of birding already this month for these three.

In 2019 we studied the New Testament for our scripture study. In 2020 we are studying The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
We've challenged everyone to read and finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the year for their personal scripture study, besides us studying it together as a family. Lucky is using a chart from The Friend Magazine for January 2020. He is excited to be reading so many verses (not every single verse of every single chapter for a 6 year old, there's a list). I am amazed at his reading. He was not reading much when he started kindergarten. Now he's reading words like "commandments" and "accomplish." Those are not kindergarten words.

The Friend Magazine has lots of great ideas for studying the Book of Mormon. It also has other fun things. For Family Home Evening treat one night we had cookie dough dip which we dipped graham crackers in. That came from the January 2020 Friend.

A friend gave us a cheese, sausage, crackers set. Jeremy found several kinds of cheese on sale at the store and we had some crackers in the pantry and ham and pepperoni in the freezer. So we had a cheese, meat, and crackers night. The kids had fun trying out the different kinds. The hit of the show, though- the sweet hot mustard that came with the set. Lucky especially loved spreading it on his crackers. It's fun to try something new when the kids are up for it.

Some Celebrations in January

December 31 and January 1- New Year's Eve and Day
We had nachos. Our friend gave us individual sized sparkling cider bottles so we each got one to toast the new year.

At midnight, Jeremy again had the kids starting the year off on the right foot or left in Jr.'s case.

January 4- National Trivia Day
The younger boys and I told each other bits of trivia that day.

With my time (and arms) filled up with baby, I realized I could celebrate some of the same ways I celebrated when Lucky was a baby- watching movies based on the holidays.

January 6- Sherlock Holmes' Birthday
I watched the Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr.

January 8- Elvis' Birthday
I watched an Elvis movie, "Fun in Acapulco."

January 11- National Step in the Puddle and Splash Your Friends Day 
Jeremy was out birding with the older kids that day so they got a picture for me.

January 13- National Rubber Ducky Day
I watched a YouTube video of Ernie singing that song.

January 14- National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day
We had hot pastrami sandwiches for dinner.

I already blogged about Appreciate a Dragon Day on January 16. 

We didn't celebrate Popeye's birthday on January 17 like we sometimes do. Recently, friends of ours gave us a calendar that lists national holidays. Woohoo. On the calendar are some we already celebrate and some that we don't... yet. One of the holidays listed for January 17 is Hot Buttered Rum Day. Now we're not going to celebrate anything with alcohol but Nichole pointed out that some of the candies we got for Christmas were toffees and some of those toffees had the flavor of butter rum. Ha Ha. Victory. So I handed out butter rum flavored toffees so we could celebrate this holiday that was on the calendar.

Other Things That Happened in December

Jeremy took the kids to our friends' Christmas village again. This time they had a large dancing Santa. The kids took the time to dance along.

Lucky's Christmas party at school was a Polar Express party. Jeremy built his class a balloon train engine like he did for Nichole's kindergarten class back in 2010.

We also had our annual family Polar Express party. Nichole and Jr. provided background music and sound effects as Jeremy read to us.

We tried some new hot chocolate flavors (cookies and cream, malt) and I fell asleep while watching the movie again.

We put Jet in a cute Christmas outfit and he also fell asleep during the party.

Star Wars episode IX The Rise of Skywalker came out in December. For obvious reasons, I didn't go to the showing with friends this time like I did for episodes VII and VIII and Rogue One. This time Jeremy took Nichole. She'd watched all the other movies at school and at home so she was ready. Good bonding time for the two of them. I'll just wait until the movie comes on DVD.
Speaking of bonding time, Jeremy and Jr. got some bonding time in when they went to get an oil change for the van. It's become their thing.
Nichole and Jr. got together with other youth and went caroling to homes in our ward. It was pleasant to hear our neighbors being caroled to then hearing a knock on our door and opening it to see a group of young men singing to us. Way to LightTheWorld, youth.

The kids and Jeremy took some time to demolish the balloon Christmas tree. They had fun with it.

Some Celebrations in December

December 20- Mudd Day
I watched the first episode of the original Star Trek series with Harry Mudd.

December 24 and 25- Christmas Eve and Christmas
I managed to blog Christmas Eve but we did more after I posted.
Jr. got a fire burning on the TV by our stockings for us- Darth Vader Yule Log.

We had our Christmas Eve program where we went around and said what we'd been up to that year.
The kids then got to open up pajamas to wear from Grandma and Grandpa.

I put Jet's on him for pictures then took them off so he didn't spit up on them during the night. Then I put them back on him in the morning for present opening. Or in his case, present sleeping through.

Actually it was the afternoon when we started opening presents because I was up most of the night with Jet and slept in when I could that morning. Bwah ha ha ha. So we started opening presents about 1pm. Jet just slept in my arms and we opened his presents later when he was awake. He didn't care. ;)

I didn't take pictures of the kids' handmade gifts this year. I didn't have a lot of time so I cut out strip of cardstock and had the kids decorate them for a "project" I was doing. So Christmas day they were surprised by their new bookmarks that they had decorated themselves.

December 26- Wren Day 
Jeremy and Nichole went out birding on Wren Day of course. They saw a marsh wren. And lots of other birds. They didn't just see a marsh wren.

December 28- Stan Lee's Birthday
We watched Spider-man Into the Spider-verse as a family.

For Hanukkah, we ate latkes and played dreidel. 

Appreciate Dragon Art

January 16 is Appreciate a Dragon Day.
Please, appreciate this dragon (and other) artwork that Nichole did for art class.

She also made these trading cards.

That girl's got talent.

Happy New Year

Sickness and lack of sleep make it hard to do blog posts so there's a bit of catching up to do. We have been celebrating. Like the New Year with nachos.

Some other things we did in December. Others in January. I'll have to see when I get a chance to do blog posts. And you'll see when I get a chance to do blog posts.