I Love Nature!

Have I mentioned that I love nature?

I LOVE NATURE!

A Nutella Weekend

It was a Nutella kind of weekend. Friday the 5th of February was World Nutella Day so we had Nutella sandwiches. 

It was also National Wear Red Day. I kept reminding the kids all morning and even the night before, "Wear red. Wear red," then I went and put on a grey shirt without thinking and never changed to a red shirt even when I did think about it. Sigh.

I did however read aloud to Jet for World Read Aloud Day on that same day. You should have seen me getting into Hand Hand Fingers Thumb and drumming on a big can. "Dum Ditty Dum Ditty Dum Dum Dum."

For after school snack that same day, we celebrated Bubble Gum Day with gumballs that came through Nichole's candy dispenser THAT SHE MADE! 

She made it in one of her classes last year. How cool is that?

Saturday the 6th of February was the anniversary of when Alan Shepard hit golf balls on the moon. We ate "astronaut sandwiches" made with tortillas and... you guessed it- Nutella.

I also tried out a new recipe for macaroni and cheese to celebrate National Cheddar Day on that day.

Sunday the 7th of February some family members ate more Nutella. I told you it was a Nutella weekend. Nichole took some time to play Swan Lake music on her recorder to celebrate Ballet Day.

Groundhog Day!

It's February. It's cold in the mornings when I take Nichole to school. I often say, "It's cold out there this morning. It's cold out there every morning. What is this? Miami Beach? Not hardly." So when I woke up on February 2nd, I had the great idea of how to wake the boys for family prayer. Jeremy and I found the words used in the radio broadcast in the first waking up scene from Groundhog Day and read that scene for the kids. "Okay, campers, rise and shine," and "It's Groundhog Day!" Some of the boys were not that enthusiastic. But it woke them up. Tee Hee.

Nichole brought home a book from school that had a Groundhog Day type thing going on where it kept repeating. 

Since February 2nd is also National Tater Tot Day, we ate a quick dinner of tater tots and some hamburger (imitation groundhog), so I could go watch Nichole perform in an orchestra recital. Good job, Nichole.

And good job me for braving my separation anxiety being away from my baby that long.

The boys watched Groundhog Day while we were gone.

And that's how we celebrated February 2nd this year.

100th Day of School

Lucky brought home another "100 days brighter" hat from school for the 100th day. He loved last year's hat and he loves this year's.

Jr. Jr. brought home a picture of him as if he was 100 years old. He pointed out to us that he has wrinkles on his hair. Heh Heh Heh.

Mommy, Look

Lucky: The mountains look like zebras. Now they're called "Zebra Mountains."

Pictures and Not Pictures

Sometimes you feel like taking pictures of your celebrating, of the food you eat. Sometimes you don't. So often I have pictures of food because a lot of celebrating revolves around the menu plan. I didn't feel like taking a lot of pictures of food this last week so I didn't. So here you go- pictures and not pictures.

 

Thursday, January 28, was National Blueberry Pancake Day. We celebrated it "observed" and had blueberry pancakes the day before. Yumm. One response from Jr. Jr. was, "You should definitely make these again, Mom." Thanks, Jr. Jr., there are plenty of blueberries in the freezer. I think I shall. I made both blueberry and plain pancakes as some of the family members weren't as enthusiastic about the blueberries (I love berries myself).

I shouldn't be surprised that Jr. Jr. loved the pancakes. In years past, he's loved picking and eating blueberries at my parents' house.

 

Friday, January 29, was National Corn Chip Day. Since we have a bigger family now than way back when we first started making taco soup for this holiday, we don't celebrate "Fill the Stock Pot to the Top" holiday anymore. We have to make a smaller batch since we don't have enough freezer space for the extra. When talking about preparing for the holiday, Jeremy was mentioning other things we could fill the stock pot with instead of taco soup. I had to let him know the holiday was actually National Corn Chip Day not Fill the Stock Pot to the Top Day. Ohhhhhh. So this year I tried a new taco soup recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. It was good.

Since January 29 is also National Puzzle Day, Jr. put on music from video games that have puzzles, especially "Puzzle Plank Galaxy" music from Super Mario Galaxy 2.

 

Saturday, we picked up prizes for doing Provo Library's Winter Reading Program. The completion prize for the teens and adults was a cocoa mug that says, "book. cocoa. sweater. repeat." Love it. 

Now I have two Provo City Library mugs. Jeremy and I each got one almost 20 years ago (whoa that's a long time) as a thank you when we did a show there. One of our many shows we've done over the years. It was probably a juggling show. We only have one of those left so it's fun to have new mugs from the library.

Anyway... we also earned packets of hot cocoa as another prize so we were able to celebrate National Hot Chocolate Day on Sunday, January 31,trying out our new mugs and cocoa.

The younger boys had fun with their prizes as well. Jr. Jr. and Lucky both got marshmallows that they were able to put in their hot chocolate- correction, they got marshmallows their marshmallow/snowball(?) plushies were able to throw in their hot chocolate.

 

 

By the way, I have to mention the sweetness of Lucky. When we went out to the van to go to the library on Saturday, he grabbed the scraper and wiped snow off the windshield for us. What a sweetie and what nice service.

Burns Supper

Robert Burns the Scottish poet was born on or around the 25th of January so in the UK it's popular to have a big celebration/supper on the 25th. The kids and I decided to celebrate and had a modified version for our purposes. We learned about suggested foods for a Burns Supper and ate what I made because it is not the time for me to go all out trying to figure out and make all these Scottish foods. 

And I definitely wasn't going to have us eat haggis. We did talk about "piping in the haggis," where a haggis is paraded in with bagpipe music. We put on some bagpipe music and paraded around ourselves. 

Notice Lucky's shirt is backwards because January 25 was also Opposite Day.

 

We talked about how after the haggis is brought in at a traditional Burns Supper, someone recites the Robert Burns poem, "Address tae the Haggis," with lots of gestures and enthusiasm. We watched a YouTube video of someone doing that and the kids thought it was both fun and disgusting with the squeezing out the innards of the haggis.

Another common part of a Burns Supper is a lot of toasts. So we put bread in our toaster oven and had "toast."

It was fun to learn something new and perhaps someday I'll try to make Scottish food. It's just not the season right now.