Happy Valentine’s Day!

2012
02.14

It’s the day of pink hearts and frosted cookies!

To get ready for valentine’s day, we made some boxes, we decorated, we made cookies!

(This is Jenna’s owl box. I didn’t get a picture of it all finished, but it has cute wings now.)

(This is John’s cow that he painted, but then was sad when his teacher said they didn’t have to make valentine boxes, so he didn’t even get to take it to school.)

(This is how my kitchen table looks when the kids work on projects like this.)


For some of the teachers and friends, we made these love potions. Can you tell what the drink is?

I then made some that were caffeine free.

I even decided to decorate a little bit for the day of hearts.

I loved when I saw ornaments hanging from a chandelier for Christmas, so I thought, why not do that for another holiday? It looks better then it shows in the picture.

I put a little heart garland on the banister.
And put a few heart and love things on the table in the hall.

That is also where I decided to hang the painting that my sister did for me. I don’t love the framing job (since I kind of did it with stuff that was around the house), but I hope I can do a better job with it soon. I still love the painting, though, even if I’m not thrilled with how I framed it.

For the school party, I plan on playing Valentine Bingo, and Heart Lava. I’ll have to post pictures later.


Oh, and how about this sweet valentine card for my honey?

And tonight–Lady Antebellum Concert! Oh, yeah!

I hope you have a fun holiday with YOUR loved ones!

17 Miracles

2012
02.12

Today was a hard day.

We found out that a dear friend has cancer, and it really shook us hard. They don’t know what kind of cancer it is, or what the treatment plan is yet, but they know from the MRI that it’s in a lot of his body. This man is one of the happiest, friendliest, most helpful, most energetic, generous people I know. Not only is he our neighbor and friend, but he’s our doctor. He’s EVERYONE’s doctor. He makes house calls, answers our medical questions in or out of the office, and he’s a GREAT man. He’s also young and strong (he ran a marathon last year for heaven’s sake!), but he’s been having unexplained back pain for the last 5-6 weeks. His wife, sick of his grumbling, finally said, “Go and get an MRI, for heaven’s sake!” and thank goodness she did. Hopefully now they can figure out what this cancer is and how to treat it.

At church, nobody knew. I don’t know if they just weren’t going to tell people until they knew what they were dealing with, but his wife was there in primary just as happy as ever, conducting junior primary. The Stake Primary was there to do sharing time, as it was ward conference today. Once the Stake Primary presidency started doing their thing, I stepped out into the hall for some reason, and there she was in the hall, with the Relief Society president and another friend, crying. What’s going on? I stepped closer, and one of our friends whispered, “It’s JB. He’s got cancer.” Oh. MY. Goodness. WHAT?

When Senior Primary started, the bishop came in and asked all the kids to please pray for him, and that we would have a special fast in his behalf. By that time, she was in no shape to conduct the meeting, and I stepped in. It’s just so unbelievable.

I feel so helpless to help my friend. I offered, no TOLD her that I would be bringing over dinner one night this week, and we asked what she needed. I think she doesn’t know what she needs, but they are scared. Scared of the unknown, of the worst, of the coming months.

After church we had to get the place straightened up and dinner ready, as we had invited another family over for dinner. We had a delicious dinner of glazed pork chops.

Which, by the way, is a really yummy and easy way to cook pork, and you can find the recipe here.

Later, I decided I wanted to watch the movie 17 miracles.

Bad idea. I knew it was going to be sad. Why did I think that watching a sad movie was a “good idea”?

Cried through the whole thing.

Sigh.

A good cry is some times a good thing, but some days it’s just too much. Right now I need optimism, not melancholy. We all need hope and happiness and helpfulness to support this family. They could use one of those miracles.

stop growing up

2012
02.10

I hate it that my kids are all growing up. Hate it! Why can’t they just stay little and adorable? Maybe I should not ever again look at old pictures of them when they were little. It makes me sad to think that I don’t get to experience that fun babylicious time again. I would pick up stranger’s babies and offer to take care of them, but for some reason people frown on that kind of behavior. Ryan actually gets to get his baby fix in the nursery. Not only does he get to play, sing, and have snacks with the 18 month to 3 year old set, he gets to hold the younger babies that people bring in to drop off for just a little while. The other day, he held one little guy for about an hour while he was sleeping.

How do parents come to terms with the fact that they will not get to snuggle any cute little newborns anymore? I love my kids, and I love the stage they are in right now, but I miss when they were little.

We have a keypad that works as a digital frame, and it picks a random bunch of pictures and displays them for the day. When it’s showing especially cute pictures of the kids, it makes my ovaries hurt.

I saw one super cute picture from when they were little, and I said to Ryan, “I know why we have so many kids–cause they were SO DARN CUTE when they were little. They tricked us into having 5 of them!”

Can I help it if I prefer FREE?

2012
02.09

We are planning a trip for spring break. A trip to Nauvoo to see some LDS church history sights and play and have fun with the family. Thankfully, we were able to book the flights using miles from Ryan’s extensive traveling (Thanks, Ryan’s job!), and we’re getting some pretty decent deals on hotels.

As we were talking about the trip, hubby said to me, “Now don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but…..(long awkward pause) maybe you could relax a little bit on the trip, and….maybe let the kids order drinks once in a while.”

What? Are you calling me cheap?!

Well, yes, I AM cheap, or as we in the cheap community like to call it…”Frugal”. I do admit that I like to win my vacations instead of pay for them; if it’s possible to use a coupon at a restaurant, I will try it; and I have a frequent diners card for just about every place we go to eat. Is there anything wrong with that? We try to stay at hotels with free breakfast, and if not, then we end up keeping cereal and milk and granola bars and oatmeal at the hotel to avoid the cost of eating out for breakfast. And drinks! Don’t even get me started about the mark-up on drinks! If everyone in my family orders a soda at $1.99 to go with their meal, that’s an extra $14 added to the meal. I can’t change my personality just because I’m on vacation!

Once when in San Diego, we went to a yummy yogurt place, and with the 7 of us and my parents, we filled up an entire punch card. So, we let Cole get the free $5 worth of yogurt right then, since we were leaving in the morning and most likely never coming back to that place to use our rewards card. He piled on the toppings and enjoyed a yogurt overload. Hey, there are perks to being the only teenager on vacation, you get to be the designated glutton!

We all laugh about the time that we were at Disneyland, and I used the free birthday tortillas from the Mission tortilla factory to make pb & j roll ups, but the jelly all smooshed out of the rolled up tortillas and ended up in a huge sticky mess in the bag. Fun memories!

Of course, nothing can compare to the cheapness in college. Some friends and I went to Disneyland, and instead of buy ANY food in the park, we had brought Captain Crunch cereal, bread, and peanut butter. Halfway through the day, we trooped out to the car, and ate our cruchilicious-peanutbuttery feast. My aunt, who was Disneylanding with us that day, just laughed and laughed at our cheapness.

And sporting events? I can’t say we NEVER go unless they are free, but that’s pretty close of an assessment. Go, Jazz! Same thing with concerts. I’m ok sitting in the nosebleed section to see a concert (Lady A next week–so excited!), although I must admit that those 2nd row seats to see Michael Buble were pretty sweet. I do pay full ticket price for Broadway (or touring) musicals, if I have to. I guess I do have that weakness. I mean, I TRY to win tickets, but it doesn’t always work out for me.

But I did listen to him and agreed that I would try to not stress out about money while on vacation. If that means paying for some things in advance and setting aside a certain amount of cash to use for entertainment and eating out, then I can get on board. Or maybe I just let him pay for everything and not look at receipts (or menus) so that I’m blissfully unaware of how much we are spending. Nope, can’t do that.

I can’t be the only one who tries to save money even while on vacation. How do you do it? Do you just get into that “I’m on vacation” mentality and spend with reckless abandon? Or, like me, do you still try to keep it simple and not go all extravagant even though you are on vacation?

Paige Paints (part two)

2012
02.08

After we got the three walls painted in green,
(and there’s the new tv mounted on the wall)
I wanted to do the fourth wall a different color. Why? Because I can. I was thinking of a darker green or a brown. So, I took in my trusty pillow sham and compared colors again. I ended up with a chocolate-y brown.

Because of work (I ended up subbing three days in a row-ugh) and a funeral and other such LIFE, I didn’t get any time to paint until Friday. So, Friday morning, I was READY. I put on my paint clothes (which my kids curiously think are my pajamas. While I do sometimes paint in my pajamas, I have dedicated a certain pair of yoga pants and t-shirt as my paint clothes, so that I don’t ruin any more items), and started moving things out of the way, and cleaning the walls and baseboards. Where is that darned screwdriver I used to take off the plug covers? Text to Ryan, who says it should be on the dresser. Not on the dresser. Go searching the house for a screwdriver. Finally find one, and commence taking the plug covers off. My sweet hubby had taken apart the paint stick and cleaned it (what a sweetie, right?), but then I had to put it back together. Just a word about my beloved paint stick. I have mentioned before that it’s the only way to paint, and how much I love the paint stick.
Well, this Wagner paint and roll wasn’t working properly when I started painting the green. No problem, I’ve used this paint stick for several rooms already, so I’ll just open up the box of this other paint stick and use it. Well, having not taken this new paint stick apart, I wasn’t familiar with the assembly of it. And those instructions? Not the clearest. Another call to Ryan, who explained how to do it. I tried, but I just couldn’t get it quite right. Dang. And I’ve got the paint can opened and everything.

At this point in my frustration, I realized that perhaps painting wasn’t the thing for me to do that day. I had cramps and was extremely grumpy from a certain monthly occurrence that was indeed at that time occurring. I didn’t want to end up totally frustrated and throwing things, after all. I decided to just wait on the rolling of the paint until hubby could come home and rescue me. But since the paint can was already opened, I had to see how it looked on the wall, right? I just did a little bit of edging and called it good for the moment.

So, Friday night, we got busy with some paint. It’s SO MUCH FUN, that the kids all want a turn painting.


But they tire quickly.

The next morning we got back on the painting wagon, and finished that wall.

Now it’s done. Hooray!

I took some pictures just to show the finished room.

Although in the spirit of full disclosure, my bedroom NEVER looks like that. NEVER. I’m notoriously messy. There is usually a pile of laundry somewhere, a pile of clothes on the chair (I haven’t brought the chair back in, I’m just realizing), and I do intend to hang those things up on the wall. When I figure out where they should go.

But I am thrilled to FINALLY have some color in my room.
It only took 10 years in this house, and the threat of mounting a tv on the wall to get me to decide. And you know what? Now that there is some color on the wall, the non centered windows don’t bug me so much. I will probably still do some curtains in there. Eventually. Maybe in another 10 years.

Tuesday, you kill me

2012
02.07

The schedule today goes something like this:

Cole and Megan both stay late after school for various things.

3:45 take Jenna to the school for storytelling.
4:00 take John to cub scouts (pick up a friend along the way)
4:20 is about the time Megan usually texts me to pick her up from the school when driver’s ed is finished.
4:30 take Natalie to piano
5:00 pick up John from cub scouts, pick up Natalie from piano, pick up Jenna from the school, and take Megan to American Fork high for range driving. (yeah, right!) I’m hoping Cole will be home by then to help me at that busy time.

Hello, Monday!

2012
02.06

\

It’s Monday morning and my kitchen counter looks like this.
Sigh.
We have two different school projects going on there, if you can’t tell.
Megan is building an art piece from junk, hence the broken Roomba with things dangling.

Natalie had to make a scale model of some kind of food, so she made a miniature cake mix.

Not shown on this counter, but also messing up my kitchen would be two valentine’s boxes that are being worked on (one is a cow, and one an owl).

Add to that the dishes from Sunday, and the general mess from making lunches, etc, and the Sunday paper that is now on the counter.

So, my counter looks like a bomb went off, and it will take me hours to recover from the weekend, while NOT DISTURBING their works in progress of course.

That’s what Mondays are for.

Paige paints (part one)

2012
02.03

I have been hemming and hawing over my bedroom and how to make it into what I want it to be for about 8 years. I’ve rearranged, made curtains and changed the bedding. I’ve even written to Nate Berkus for help. He has not responded, darn. You may remember last year when I tried to win a bedroom makeover by Mandi? That didn’t pan out, either.

This summer, I bought a cute quilt for my bed, and rearranged the bed yet AGAIN, trying to find some inspiration and get motivated to do what I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Paint. But for various reasons, (a-vaulted ceiling, b-can’t decide on a color, c-can’t decide the best thing to do with the dumb windows that are not symetrical, d-where exactly is the best place for the bed, e-it’s a pain) in 10 years that we have lived here, our bedroom was still NOT painted.

Well, about a week and half ago, my husband informed me that he was getting a tv for our bedroom. Not just any tv, a WALL MOUNTED TV. Not a wall mounted TV! Then I’ll NEVER get to paint. It must be done immediately. So, I went to the paint store, and within 20 minutes had picked out my paint. It was a snowy day, and there was a guy behind me in line at Ace Hardware buying salt. He saw me with my paint and supplies and said, “Ugh, looks like someone’s got a painting project.” I said, “I would much rather paint than shovel snow,” and I left happy.

I couldn’t wait to slap some of that color on the walls. But darn it all if I spent most of my day removing faceplates and moving furniture and washing walls so that I could paint. I use the swiffer duster on the high parts of the walls, just to dust before I wash. I couldn’t wait any longer, I had to just see how it looked.

Here’s some before pictures, and please try to ignore the total chaos that is our room. Instead of moving all the furniture out like you probably should do, I just pile stuff on the bed and move things around a bit.

To pick a color, I took my pillow sham in with me, and picked a color that would match the green. I decided to go bold, and choose a paint called ‘Granny Smith’. Here I was comparing it to the bedspread. Isn’t that a great color? I just knew it would make me happy. And I hoped that hubby wouldn’t hate it.

Once it was on the walls, I couldn’t believe how much I liked it. And Look! The windows just seem to stand out and look so white and pretty! When Ryan came home, he was a bit surprised that I went ahead and started painting even though I didn’t have the right ladder. But when he saw what I had done, he said, “I like that color.” Big sigh of relief. I’ve heard that paint color and furniture are things you should never pick out without your husband. Oops on both counts. But he has pretty much given me free reign to decorate how I would like, so I wasn’t too worried.

I love when a color just feels right. I’ve said before that it’s like the walls were just waiting for me to pick the right color and get them painted. And these poor walls have been off white and boring for a long time. Poor walls.

We had to break out the BIG ladder to do this job. That’s actually not our ladder, we had to borrow it from Ryan’s sister and brother-in-law, and it helped a lot. We couldn’t reach the high vaulted ceiling with just our regular ladder.

And can I mention how much I love the paint stick? You suck the paint into the handle, and then there is no need for pouring the paint into a pan. You still have to edge and stuff, but it makes it so much easier to use one of these paint sticks. Of course, this particular model wouldn’t work for me, after having used it to paint the last 3 rooms, so I opened up a new one I had stashed from the last time I found it on sale. It’s a little bit more complicated to put together and more of a pain to clean, but still well worth it for any painting job.

And there’s the old tv against the nice newly painted green wall.

Stay tuned for pictures of the OTHER wall and see what color we painted that, and pictures of the room when I get everything all put back together.

Happy Birthday, Jenna!

2012
01.30

Big party here over the weekend. It’s not every day your little girl turns 11, after all. She wanted a “late night” movie party, so we decided to go with a pajamas and popcorn themed party.

Aren’t those cupcakes SO cute? Love them.

All of her friends came in their pajamas (well, I guess only 10 of them came), and they played a game while I got dinner ready. I had suggested that we have pancakes instead of the traditional pizza, and I think it was a big hit (and cheap, by the way).

I just put out a bunch of toppings, syrups, whipped cream, and fruit, and then kept the pancakes coming. Man, can those girls eat. I couldn’t believe how many pancakes they were putting down. And loud! You get a bunch of normally mild mannered, sweet girls together in a room, and they are transformed into a gaggle of giggling girls.

When they were sufficiently stuffed and the table was similarly syrupy, they adjourned to the family room to pick a movie while Megan and I cleaned up.

We had to pop the popcorn, but didn’t want to be all loud with the air popper, so I just brought out a few microwave popcorn bags.

I kid you not, as soon as those girls smelled popcorn, they wanted some. Seriously? How can you even think about eating another morsel? Oh well, there’s always room for popcorn. They were eating it as fast as we got it popped, and we went through quite a bit of popcorn. Of course, a lot of it ended up on the floor, I’m sure.

They had decided to watch Soul Surfer, and after the girl lost her arm to the shark, all of the girls were going around with only one arm. I looked at them and thought, now that’s weird, why would she have her arm in her sleeve? And she’s doing it too.
Even John was one armed!

Jenna even opened her presents with one arm! They were taking this one armed thing pretty far!

What a hoot!

Thankfully, their arms did grow back for the eating of the cupcakes.

I had actually planned on ice cream with the cupcakes, but by then I couldn’t believe they were still eating anything at all, and the dishwasher was already full and I didn’t want to dirty more dishes (lame Mom excuse, I know, but it’s the truth). I don’t think anyone noticed the lack of ice cream.

Then they went back to watching their movie, and then playing with the new presents and anything else that looked like fun.

At about 9:30, I thought, Why, oh WHY did I let her put 6:00-10:00 on the invitations? But the time passed pretty quickly, and soon I was saying goodbye to girls and sweeping up popcorn and marshmallows and telling my kids to go to bed.

Not the most elaborate or fancy party, but quite a FUN party for one sweet little girl.
Happy Birthday, Jenna! I hope every birthday is as much fun as this one was, and I hope you always have this many fun friends.

Coach Erickson (oh, stop laughing)

2012
01.27

I had the privilege of subbing for junior high PE today. Even though the though of my own junior high PE experience just about makes me break out in hives (seriously? Climb that rope? Shuttle run? And don’t even get me started on what a JOY it was to traipse over to the Cottonwood spa–excuse me–Rec center–every day for swimming), it was a 1/2 day assignment at my kids’ school, and as a bonus, my daughter would be in that class, so I took it.

My observations:

-Almost everyone loves basketball. Go figure. I never liked basketball, but then again, I have no coordination and trip over my own feet. But even the kids who aren’t that coordinated and aren’t jocks still seemed to have fun.

-Nobody likes that stupid middle court with only one basket. You have to double back to “change sides” and people sometimes forget and shoot when it’s not their basket.

-When subbing for PE, it would be prudent to bring more band-aids. I have band-aids in my substitute bag, but since I wasn’t teaching in a ‘real class’ I didn’t bring that bag, so I only had the band-aids in my purse. I used them all. We also had a girl get clobbered in the chin, and another girl got a wicked bloody nose. With that many girls playing in such close proximity, arms flail and people get hit.

-My girl may not be the most jock like kid there, but she’s not the only one. There are a lot of awkward kids (and if my kids read this, I’m not saying you’re awkward, honey, but you are my daughter, and I didn’t pass on any sporty genes to you because I really don’t have any).

-There are some really young looking 7th graders, and some really old looking 8th graders. Seriously! Some of them were SO short, playing against these giants of girls (taller than me, even). But the short ones are sometimes the best at dribbling and stealing, so it’s not always a disadvantage.

-The best basketball players are not always the tall and thin girls. I observed one girl, who wasn’t fat, but solid. She wasn’t one that I would imagine would be good at basketball. Oh, was I wrong. Swoosh! She carried the whole team! Smooth, and powerful, and a great shot. While some of the skinny tall girls who I thought would be really good, were merely skinny and tall, not necessarily good at basketball.

-And that whistle I bought for myself? Totally came in handy.

So, while I don’t aspire to be a PE teacher, playing one for a day (well, half day, if you want to get technical), wasn’t that bad.



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