Holidays, Shelf Cooking, and Bonding Time

September 10 was Ants on a Log Day. We had fluffernutter sandwiches and ants on a log. See my blog post for September 14, 2020 for an explanation why we celebrate with fluffernutter sandwiches on that day. We didn't have any marshmallow fluff so we used real marshmallows. #shelftember

 

Other Shelftember foods we had near that time:

Start with a box pasta meal. Add cooked pasta, some extra seasonings, and cooked bacon from the freezer. It stretches a lot farther. That's shelf cooking!

 

Sometimes I forget that something as simple as beans and rice works for a quick lunch.

 

Homemade bread, spinach before it goes bad made into a salad, casserole from the freezer (tortellini casserole from A Season of Family Meal Plans), and a banana.

 

My husband has always been better at throwing things together to make a good meal. He knows how to do shelf cooking. He took my leftover black beans and some polish sausages and veggies and made some yummy yummy food. He's awesome.

September 11, we remembered.

September 12 was National Video Games Day. I had every intention of playing video games that day but by the end of the day I was too tired. Sigh.

It was also Hug and High Five Day and National Chocolate Milkshake Day. 

Jet helped me make cornbread muffins to go with our dinner of Sausage Veggie Skillet (with extra zucchini because it was cheaper than yellow squash) and rice-n-cheese (instead of orzo-n-cheese because we have rice, not orzo). Both those recipes came from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3, of course. Our chocolate milkshakes were yummy.

September 13 was the Anniversary of The Animaniacs premiere in 1993 so we listened to Animaniacs music. It was also Roald Dahl Day so I put on music from Wonka.

After after school snack of parfaits to celebrate International Chocolate Day and National Peanut Day (and quoting the movie Shrek about how ogres, onions, and parfaits all have layers), I let the kids have the kitchen for Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day and they made pizza. 

September 14 was Eat a Hoagie Day so I made hoagies/buns for people to use and it was National Parents Day Off but I really don't remember what Jeremy and I ended up doing, if anything. I did get a picture late at night of the moon and clouds.

September 15 was Double Cheeseburger Day and National Linguine Day. We had spaghetti with sauce (it had hamburger in it- well, ground turkey, tee hee) and two types of cheese (double cheese, tee hee). #shelftember

September 16 was Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day and National Play-Doh Day. I was complaining about not having time to make play doh and Jeremy pointed out that I played with dough in order to make cinnamon raisin bread which tasted so good by the way.

 

September 17 was Monte Cristo Day. Did you know there is a Count of Monte Cristo musical? I found out when I tried to get Alexa to play music from The Count of Monte Cristo while I was making food and it put on songs from a musical. Fun. I decided to do something new this year and made Monte Cristo Slider Sandwiches from sixsistersstuff.com

Yumm. I made more later to freeze so we could pull out sandwiches when we wanted them.

 

September 18 was National Cheeseburger Day. So we pulled hamburger out of the freezer (ground turkey) and made smothered beef burritos from... you guessed it... A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3.

Of course walks, snuggles, and other kinds of bonding have continued. I love my family.

My parents made a quick trip to Utah for my dad's 60th high school reunion. They stopped by to see Jet and me one day. I love my parents.

Grandparents, Great Grandparents, Great Great Grandparents, You Get the Idea

September 8 was Grandparents Day. I wished my mom... and my sister... a Happy Grandparents Day. Toward the end of September, my niece had her third baby, so that gave my sister another grandchild and my parents another great grandchild.

It was also National Actors Day and one of my children was being dramatic.

Speaking of grandparents, great grandparents, etc., September 9 was President Russell M. Nelson's 100th birthday. 100! There was a broadcast we watched at home. I thought about making birthday cake but I was too busy that day. It's okay because Nichole's ward was doing a big birthday party FHE where they watched part of the broadcast and had birthday cake. 

I loved the broadcast. It felt really good to watch it. One of the people who spoke of what a wonderful person President Nelson is was one of his great grandchildren. Another was one of his daughters. They had such great things to say about him being a Christlike person.

A few days later, our stake had a service day. I was able to go help tie some quilts. I haven't done that in a while. I remember doing it with my mom for Relief Society activities when I was a kid. Ah, memories.

I was only going to stay for half an hour or so. I ended up staying three hours.

September 9 was also Wonderful Weirdos Day (celebrated just by being us) and International Sudoku Day. Lucky took time to work on a sudoku puzzle.

Timpanogos Storytelling Festival

Jeremy's big balloon build was for the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival at Thanksgiving Point. This year was the 35th anniversary. Jeremy and Debbie were asked to do a balloon scene based on James Christensen's, "Tales Beneath Timp," the artwork that represents the storytelling festival.

I love how it turned out.

We as a family were able to go to the storytelling festival. I spent most of my time at the "family tent," which is not a surprise. Children's stories, puppet shows. 

That tent was also near the Secret Garden where they were holding Dungeons and Dragons games. They had a dragon outside that Jet absolutely loved and wanted to keep going back to see. So cute.

We celebrated Play Outside Day and World Beard Day at the festival on Saturday, September 7.

Since it was Shelftember, we packed meals and snacks for the day.

Nichole and I dropped the boys and Jeremy off at home before coming back for a little bit more storytelling fun. The boys had salami sandwiches for dinner at home for Salami Day.

While I was listening to more stories, Nichole took some time for hand sculpted pottery.

Jeremy went up with some other birders to see some Flammulated Owls that night.

Lazy Mom's Day 2024

September 6 was Lazy Mom's Day. I was able to sort of celebrate this. It was also Read a Book Day, which I was also able to sort of celebrate.

Jet and I went for our walk on a popular birding trail but I didn't have my binoculars or camera so I practiced birding by ear. Marsh wrens, Caspian terns, Sandhill cranes, and plenty of others. I love hearing birds. As we were walking we ran into a couple birders visiting from Holland. That was fun to chat about birding places around here with people from out of country. It was still a relaxing walk.

I actually sat down to watch a movie that day.

Snuggles!

Snuggles?

It was also the birthday of someone close to me so I wore my bow earrings while I was running errands.

Timing was right while I was out so I stopped by Jeremy's work to surprise him when he finished. He was pleasantly surprised. 

It was also Read a Book Day. Tee Hee.

That evening, I took a little more time to be lazy and went out to Hill Park to watch the sunset.

So I sort of celebrated Lazy Mom's Day.

Some September Holidays

September 3 was Skyscraper Day. I made a couple skyscrapers out of mini jalapeno popper egg rolls. So good.

September 4 was National Wildlife Day. Jet and I saw some scrub jays on our morning walk.

Since Nichole went back to school and I've been getting Jet up when I take boys to school or buses, we've been going on walks often. It's nice bonding time.

Later we made a balloon delivery to Jeremy who was working on something special (more on that later).

That evening with our dinner we had two desserts since it was Eat an Extra Dessert Day. To go along with Shelftember, we had salad bar so we could use up spinach before it got too old and we got out salad fixins which haven't been used in a while. Our desserts were homemade cookies and otter pops.

 

Speaking of Shelftember, Jeremy was given food while working on the balloon build, so he brought me home leftovers which worked well for lunch. Yumm.

September 5 was Cheese Pizza Day and Be Late for Something Day. They boys were helping make pizza dough but were late taking the dough out of the Bosch. Tee Hee.

Besides our morning walk, Jet and I went in the evening for another walk, this time to Bridal Veil Falls. Jet enjoyed being in the stroller but did not want to get out when it was time to head home so we were late getting home. I guess he was just trying to celebrate the holiday.

He just wanted to play in the stroller. "I'm wearing a hat."

What?

 

Catch of the Day