National Breadstick Day 2022

October 28 was National Breadstick Day.

Breadsticks are a lot faster to make than roti or naan but I wanted to make Indian food anyway... to go along with our leftover Mediterranean food.

Tee Hee. I'm not authentic.

Jet was my baking buddy again.

Economics Sale

Remember back in 2019 when Jr. Jr. made balloon wands with sugar skull faces for the Economics Sale at the elementary school? 

This year was Lucky's turn. He picked the culture of Ancient India and created (with help from his family) a snakes and ladders type game called "Tigers and Elephants."

Lucky drew the game board, Nichole and Dad both designed the elephants and tigers, and Lucky told Dad where to place them on the board. A couple of us helped put playing pieces (pennies) and dice in bags and put those with the boards in page protectors.

I like how it turned out. And Lucky's advertising? "If you're bored then come get a board."

Great job, son.

Kids Make Dinner

I made the kids make dinner again.

They made macaroni and cheese, garlic bread, no bake cookies, and apple crisp.

That's all I have to say about that.

The KAT's Meow

Jr.: Why is it best to go on dates after you get a sunburn?

Mom: Why?

Jr.: Because while you're healing you're appealing.

Mom: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. 

Mom: What should we eat for breakfast?

Jet: Cookies.

Mom: No, we're not going to eat cookies. We need to eat breakfast. What should we eat for breakfast?

Jet (takes a moment to think about it): Eat chocolate cake.

*Laughter*

Jet: Eat chocolate cake. Eat chocolate cake.

-a minute later-

Jet: Eat chocolate marshmallows.

-Later-

Mom: We need to eat real food for breakfast. What should we eat.

Jet: Uh... candy.

 

We had fried rice. 

Jet found my phone and pushed the Siri button, saying, "Hey, Siri, text Jeremy." Siri interpreted it as, "Text Tami," (someone else in my contacts) and asked what he wanted to say. Jet again said, "Text Jeremy," which Siri interpreted as, "Taxidermy." I stopped it before Jet could say yes to, "Do you want to send it?" So Tami almost got a text from me saying, "Taxidermy."

I told this story to Tami later and she got a big kick out of it.

Another Picture of the Sky

Cold/flu season has hit. Blech. Also things are busy with school, etc. Less time for me to use the computer, more time I have to work on other things, then of course not doing anything for a few days because I got sick.

So here we are. The last couple blog posts were mostly ready to go anyway so I posted them. Now since I've got to catch up again, I'll give you more pictures of the sky. It's my thing.

It's a stalling technique.
We get some pretty amazing skies around here, though. These pictures are from toward the beginning of October. I couldn't decide which picture to put so I did both of them. You're welcome.

Jr. Jr.'s Birthday

We got to celebrate Jr. Jr.'s birthday in October. He is now old enough to join in some of the big kid activities at the libraries so he has already done a couple at the Provo Library. One was Teen Minecraft Club. The other was Teen Takeover: Choose Your Own Adventure. The three oldest kids went to that and got to do different activities based on different book genres. They came home with ideas of new books to try. Love those libraries.

While celebrating Jr. Jr.'s birthday, Jet got excited about the candles on the cake. He knew what was supposed to be done to them so he kept blowing them out while I was still lighting them. Finally we got them all lit and he managed to blow out a line of them since I placed them in the shape of a 1 and 2. Jr. Jr. thought that was hilarious since the 2 was the only thing still lit. "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! Now I'm only 2." We finally managed to get them all to the point Jr. Jr. could blow them out himself.

And in true shelf cooking fashion (i.e. learning to substitute), since we couldn't find moose tracks ice cream, we took chocolate ice cream and added mini peanut butter cups to it.

And of course he got to pick his birthday dinner. At first he wanted both garlic bread and soft pretzels but once he decided he wanted sloppy joes, Dad suggested making the pretzels into pretzel buns to put the sloppy joe filling in. He was fine with that idea.

Happy Birthday, Jr. Jr.

Dia de Muertos

I got to help Jeremy deliver balloon puppets for the Dia de Muertos celebration at Thanksgiving Point this year. He delivered balloon sugar skulls a couple days before. The puppets have become such a fun tradition. Kids/people can go around giving them high fives or waving at them. 

It was nice to see things before the crowds got there. There were dancers rehearsing. Such beautiful dancing. And though we only had a little bit of time (I had to get Jeremy to another gig that same day), it was still nice to see what we did see.

It's nice to see a culture that, though it may not be my own, I can respect and see the beauty in.

And of course the rest of the day, I had songs from the movie, Coco, running through my head.

At a later date, the high school also celebrated. Nichole and Jr. both got to perform with their combined orchestras, "Cielito Lindo," a familiar Mexican song.

Yet another day, Nichole's Yoga teacher asked the students to bring in pictures of loved ones who have passed on. Sweet. Nichole brought a picture of her great grandma who she remembers visiting in Washington.