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The Trials of a Busy Mom

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The Nauvoo Temple

April 16, 2012 / / 1 Comment

We had the opportunity to attend the temple while in Nauvoo. The temple, so long a symbol of pioneer sacrifice and heartache, is now rebuilt and beautiful. I don’t know how the placement of the rooms compares with the original temple, but it is breathtaking.

Because three of my kids were over twelve, they were able to go inside. The adults went upstairs to do a session. We rented our temple clothing there. It was a busy day, with a stake from Peoria there that day. But they did manage to get everyone in to the scheduled session (you have to call ahead and make an appointment. No walk ins here.) There was a little bit of a mix-up with my temple packet I had to ask for help..twice! But that’s enough about that. It really is best to bring your own temple clothes, I guess.

I’m glad that we were able to work temple service into our vacation. It was a really special experience to be there with my parents and my kids, all going to the temple together. The kids finished first, so they walked the four blocks back to our motel.

Special memories that I hope they will treasure.

St. Louis Arch

April 15, 2012 / / 0 Comments

I must admit that I haven’t really given the St. Louis Arch much thought. I have been to St. Louis before, but it was always a passing through. We would fly in, then drive to our house in Illinois. We had also gone to the LDS Temple in St. Louis, but since we had a babysitter with the little ones at home, we didn’t stay around to sight see. Until this week, when we stayed two nights in St. Louis.

arch

We followed the GPS downtown, although it sent us through the streets on a confusing goose chase. Come on, GPS.
But, since it happened to be the opening day of baseball season for the St. Louis Cardinals (did you realize they won the world series last year? They Did!), we got to see some of the celebratory parade and carnival, as well as the stadium.

We finally made it to the parking lot and walked over to the arch. It was just beginning to rain.

We should have taken more pictures there. Darn.

After purchasing our tickets, we had some time to explore the Museum of Westward expansion. It’s a pretty fun museum, but there are creepy automaton people talking and telling their stories.

The kids also did some fact finding to earn their junior ranger badges.

We watched a film about the making of the arch, and it was FASCINATING! Did you know….

* The Gateway Arch is the tallest national monument in the United States at 630 feet.
* Construction began February 12, 1963, and the last section of the Arch was put into place on October 28, 1965.
* The Arch weighs 17,246 tons. Nine hundred tons of stainless steel was used to build the Arch, more than any other project in history.
* The Arch was built at a cost of $13 million.
*And did you know that not one worker lost his life in the making of this grand monument?

It’s insane! Who even thinks of building a HUGE arch 630 feet high, and then who decides that they can build it? It blows my mind. The project manager of MacDonald Construction Co., Stan Wolf, said that a 62-story building was easier to build than the arch: “In a building, everything is straight up, one thing on top of another. In this arch, everything is curved.”

And even more amazing is that people can GO UP to the TOP!!

You travel up to the top in these little pods. Each pod can seat 5 people.

The pods are constantly readjusting, because the ride is not straight up. It’s kind of like a ferris wheel.

If you’d like to see a video of the trip up (not MY trip up, but some random guy on youtube, you can see that here.)

At the top you can actually walk around in the enclosure and take pictures or look out the little windows. If you lean WAY over, you can see the base of the arch. I did not lean way over. I could barely lean into the window. Yes, I’m squeemish.

For me, it was not a pleasant or wonderful experience, but it was truly and AMAZING experience. I don’t like being up that high, nor do I like leaning way out to see the magnificent view, but, oh what a view.

family pic in the arch

Here’s our whole group up there in the very top.

When we came out of the monument building, it was POURING rain. No more pictures, sadly, as we dashed to the parking garage.

There were so many more things to do in St. Louis, and at least one other really cool museums we had kind of planned on seeing, but the kids were MUSEUMED OUT. It was almost 3 pm, they were hungry and tired, and didn’t want to walk around and see any more STUFF. We decided to find a Steak n Shake. Yum. In fact, many would say it was the best meal of the trip. It turns out it was happy hour, so we got a few shakes (well, more than a few) to go with our yummy hamburgers. Heaven. Wish we had one of these in Utah.

So, instead of exploring all that St. Louis had to offer or seeing one more fabulous museum, we went back to the hotel and the kids swam in the pool. They were quite happy with that decision.

Differences

April 12, 2012 / / 1 Comment

While in Nauvoo, we wanted to go see some of the sites that aren’t owned and operated by the LDS church, rather by the Community of Christ Church (formerly known as the Reorganized LDS church). The tour began with a film about Joseph Smith and his time spent in Nauvoo. Quite different from the Mormon telling, they mention that at the age of 14 Joseph Smith went into a grove of trees and had a ‘religious experience’.

It was interesting to visit the homes of Joseph and Emma Smith, and hear more sides of their story.

What I missed, though, was the testimony bearing. At most of the other sites in Nauvoo (the ones run by the LDS missionaries), they sprinkle their testimony in with the history. At these sites, the guide ended with a hint for monetary donations. But even without any bearing of testimonies on the tour, our testimonies inside are still bright. We know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, not just a religious and community leader. They wouldn’t allow us to take any pictures inside the houses, but there were many period pieces, some owned by Joseph and Emma.

One fun surprise was finding this little tiny baby turtle right outside the house. It was wandering around, a visitor from the river. We were all fascinated by him, and hoped he got back to his mother safely. (We found a dead one in the road a few minutes later–sad)

Many thanks to Cole, who figured out how to upload pictures even without the camera cord (and since the card was full, it was vital!) More posts and pictures later!

Hannibal, Missouri

April 12, 2012 / / 0 Comments

We are currently in Hannibal, Missouri–Home of Mark Twain.

We went to the Mark Twain museum yesterday, and I was shocked that none of the kids had seen Tom Sawyer or read the book. Remember the old one with Johnny Whittaker? And did you know that was Jodi Foster who played Becky? Yep.

Well, when we get home, we will be watching that movie, for sure.

We had fun exploring a “riverboat”, raft, and other things from the book.

Today we will see Becky’s house, and Tom’s house.

While we were able to find a restaurant that stayed open past 5, all the shops seemed to be closed, so maybe we can catch them today.

Families are fun

April 10, 2012 / / 3 Comments

We’re having so much fun in Nauvoo. I need to write a few notes so I will remember, then later we can fill in the details of the story.

When we landed in St. Louis, 13 year old said, “How does the luggage get here so fast?” Um, it’s on the plane with us. We all had a good laugh about that one.

Traveling by car to Nauvoo from St. Louis, we stopped to eat at a Wendy’s around Hannibal. We got there JUST at the right time, when there was hardly anyone in the place. Just after we had ordered, though, in came a baseball team from the Kansas city (?) something with a P. While they were all trying to order, in came a women’s volleyball team from the Unviversity of Illinois. For the kids meal prizes, they had games. There were rockem sockem robots (for thumb wars) and flippin frogs. I said to the kids, “I hope we don’t get any of those flippin frogs.” They burst out laughing and we’ve been laughing about those flippin frogs all week.

Our motel in Nauvoo is really pretty roomy. I booked the suite at the Motel Nauvoo, and it’s got two bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, and small kitchen. For a family of 7, this is GREAT space. My parents are in the room next door, which is just a normal single room. Often when we are traveling, we put two kids up in my parent’s room, but at this one, we don’t have to. My complaint, though, is with the kitchen. They told me when I booked this place that they didn’t want us
cooking.
There is a microwave, fridge, stove and oven, but the Stove and oven aren’t to be used. I don’t even think they work. But it’s like they don’t want us eating here, either. There are a lot of cupboards in the kitchen. They contain….wait for it……four plates and three cups. Seriously. Not even a spoon or a knife or Not even a spoon or a knife or anything. We bought sandwich making stuff, cereal and milk, so that we could make our own breakfasts and maybe pack a lunch, since the eating places here are limited (more on that later), but we were perplexed when we tried to make sandwiches, and found we had no knife. Spreading peanut butter with a spoon is possible (I DID buy plastic bowls and spoons, luckily), but cutting cheese with no knife? Not so great. And it was Sunday and NOTHING is open in this tiny town. We had to cut our cheese with dental floss, and I do say it worked out quite well.

By Sunday evening, we were getting tired of eating our pitiful floss cut cheese sandwiches and cereal, so we went looking for eating establishments. The Hotel has a dining room, but it’s only open until 2 on Sunday. Every other place in town seemed to be closed. We were getting set to drive to the next town, (about 10 miles away), when my mom must have called someone or looked something up and discovered that the GAS STATION had a little grill in it, where they serve pizzas and burgers. So, we went up the street and into the gas station. A hamburger tasted pretty good, even if it didn’t have lettuce and tomato. But there was nowhere to eat there, so we carted it home and the nine of us ate around our tiny table. I jokingly said, “I hope you enjoy your Easter feast.” We all had a good laugh about that.

Hello Nauvoo

April 9, 2012 / / 1 Comment

After a day of traveling, we made it to Nauvoo.

It looks like I picked a winner in the hotel department this time. Our suite in the Nauvoo motel has two bedrooms, with a small kitchen and living room. Only one bathroom, so the seven of are going to have to carefully time our showers, but I think we can make it work.

I discovered that I left out the one sweater that I had planned on wearing a lot this week. Its a gray cardigan that goes with everything. Blerg. I will survive without my sweater. I guess. Shake it off, Paige.

Update… We have been here two full days. We went to church, then the visitor’s center. We also spent a bunch of time at the family life center, where we learner about pioneer pottery making, weaving, bread making, barrel making, and we even made our own rope. We have visited many of the restored homes and businesses in old Nauvoo. The hardest thing is finding places to eat, especially on Sunday. Our ‘Easter feast ‘ consisted of hamburgers and piazza from the little gas station grill, eaten in our motel suite.

Oh, and I found my grey sweater!

More later!

T is for Tupperware.

April 4, 2012 / / 15 Comments

The other day Hubby staged a COUP!

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a coup, but more like a REVOLUTION, or maybe a Protest.

Yes, a protest against our Tupperware drawer. Alright, so it wasn’t like a sit in or a demonstration. What he actually said was, “I am not taking my lunch ANY more if you don’t do something about that container drawer. I can NEVER find the containers and lids that match!”

Really? This drawer? Oh, he’s just being over dramatic. There are tons of lids and containers that match! On closer look, I could only find one or two lunch sized containers that had their proper lids. Where the heck do those lids all go? They are sneaking out in the middle of the night for secret parties? Well, whatever it was, I had to take care of the situation.

I had one of these Gladware sets, so I brought it up from the basement. And I thought I would put all my mismatched tupperware type stuff in that box. Ha. I had to put all my old stuff in a big garbage bag.

I only saved the new stuff that all matched and a few essential mixing bowls.

So it ended up looking like this. Well, until the dishwasher finished washing, and then there were a few more dishes to add to the mix, but I love my new streamlined drawer! No more fiddling to try to find lids!

If I were really good at purging, I would just throw that whole garbage bag right into the trash. But I’m not really good at purging, so I put that garbage bag full of containers and lids in the basement, as a trial separation. The if we can live without each other, THEN I’ll toss the whole bag in the trash.

Maybe.

I’m linking with Jenny Matlock’s Alphabee Thursday

Sixteen Candles

April 4, 2012 / / 5 Comments

I’m not sure how this all happened, but my little Megan is now 16!

She’s excited to get her driver’s license, but has no interest, really, in dating. When I told her that now that she was 16, she could go out with boys, she said, ‘I don’t really know any boys.’ Sure that she knows some boys, I asked about boys in her classes, but she says she doesn’t talk to them, as that would be weird. Her 13 year old sister went on about how she knows all kinds of boys, and there are many nice boys in her classes. Heaven help us when THAT one turns 16. But Megan, she’s more the kind that I will have to poke and prod into dating, kind of like I am her brother (which we will get into in a later post, but let’s just say he WILL be going to PROM, if I have to ask the girl myself). And that’s ok. Not all of us dated much in high school. In fact, I think that only a very small, but vocal population does all the dating in high school.

Megan really is talented. She has the attention to detail that makes her a really good artist.

She spent SO MANY HOURS on this owl assignment, but look how great it turned out.

Last weekend we hosted her birthday party, an “IRON CHEF Cupcake Challenge” party. With the provided cake mixes and a bunch of other add on ingredients, the girls made their cupcakes.

Oh, and they were wearing mustaches, since all the best chefs wear mustaches, right?

The girls had a lot of fun creating their cupcake masterpieces. I was surprised at how serious they took this challenge!

Some were mint, chocolate, peanut butter, toffee, with toppings like strawberry, blueberry, banana, and even lemon.

When they had their cupcakes all frosted and decorated (I bought 9 pounds of frosting from Costco, by the way. Yes, that ended up being a little excessive, but you don’t want to run out of frosting, and I didn’t want to have to make that all myself. Did you not know that Costco sells frosting? Well, there’s my little tip for you. Just go to the bakery and ask for frosting. They will sell it to you for $2 a pound. Of course, a pound of frosting doesn’t go very far, so I asked for 3 pounds of white frosting. And then thought, I should get chocolate frosting, too, if they have it. So, three pounds of that. And when the lady asked me if I’d like some cream cheese frosting, I said, what the heck? I’ll take some of that, too) they had to present their cupcakes on a platter or tray. Then each team chose their top two to be judged.

Yum. The rest of the family got to be the judges. The chocolate one with bits of toffee and peanut butter chips really was the best. Silly me, I forgot to give out the prize for the first place team. Oh, well. They had mucho fun, anyway.

We sent as many cupcakes as we could home with the girls.

It was a fun party for my fun girl.

Happy Birthday, Megan!

We’ve had better days, how about you?

April 2, 2012 / / 3 Comments

A rough day was had by all. In the words of my almost 16 year old, when I asked her how her day was, she said, “It sucked.” Allow me to elaborate a bit.

Today my assignment was in first grade and John and Jenna’s school. I hadn’t yet subbed for this particular teacher, but she never seemed really friendly when I would see her at school, so I didn’t know what to expect. Imagine my surprise when the class was well behaved and quiet. Until the pm group arrived at 9:15. You see, our school is an extended day school, where half of the kids come at 8:00 and do reading and writing with a smaller group. They are called the early birds. The ‘later gators’ come at 9:15. When the early birds go home at 2:15, the late kids stay and do their small group reading and writing. Guess how many kids want to do reading and writing after half of their class goes home? None. I’m just sayin.

Anyway, things were still going reasonably well, but one girl straggled in late, wearing pajama pants and slippers. She dragged around, telling me how she did not feel good, but that her mom said she couldn’t miss work one more day or she would get fired. Too much information, little girl. While the kids were in the library, I stopped in at the office, and mentioned that I had a little girl who was dragging around acting like she was sick, but her mom was at work. Office lady knew EXACTLY who I was talking about, and told me that this child was always acting sick, and her mom had laid down the law and wasn’t going to let her play wolf again. Hmmm. With that information, I stopped feeling bad for this poor little girl, and saw her as the manipulator that she probably is.

At math time, this little girl just sat with her head on the desk NOT doing any work. But at least she was quiet. Another boy in the room wouldn’t do any of his work AND his main goal in life seemed to be to misbehave and disrupt the rest of the class. How had I not noticed him before? Oh, he was at off with an aid or special rescourse teacher. We made it to lunch, but the principal announced that it would be a shortened recess day, because of the cold temp and the STRONG wind. So, that’s 10 minutes less time for lunch for me. After lunch, this little girl followed me around complaining of how sick she was, and that no one would play with her. When it was reading time, she curled up on a couple of bean bags and ‘fell asleep’. I wasn’t sure if she was really sleeping, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let her sleep through my science lesson.

At about the time when the early birds left to go home, that is when the day started to fall apart. Little sick girl decides it’s time to up her sick quotient, and throws up on the floor. Oh, great. Either she wasn’t faking, or she can make herself throw up. The kids who ventured over to look at it closely said it looked like she had been eating crayons. Whatever, I’m staying right over here. Why don’t you go into the bathroom? I asked her. No, I’m ok, she said. What? Go in the bathroom and wash you face and hands, I instructed, and then you can go to the office and call home. Let the office deal with her, right? All the kids are EXTREMELY fascinated by this turn of events, and when the janitor comes, there was not ONE little one reading, I can tell you that.

Meanwhile, I looked at my phone and saw a text from Cole that said “John is bleeding and he banged up his lip. What should we do?” It is times like this when I feel like I am certainly in the wrong place. I should be home, helping my OWN CHILD who got hurt right as he was leaving school, not stuck at school dealing with another child’s throw up. I covertly texted him back (since teachers aren’t supposed to be using cell phones at school, either) and told him to use some ice in a bag on the injury, and I would be home in an hour. He texted back a few minutes later and assured me that John was fine, he had calmed down and was watching tv. I am SO thankful that Cole didn’t have to stay late after school today. Usually he’s not home until 4 or so, but today he must have gotten home at about the same time as John and Jenna got home.

To keep this post from getting TOO long, the barf got cleaned up. Sick girl went home. Obnoxious boy did ZERO work, except for one sentence that I forced him to write while the other kids wrote 8 sentences in their journals. I came home to see my boy looking like this.

It got him out of piano lessons today, and he seems like he will recover. With a little neosporin and some Band-aids he’ll be just fine.

My red chicken coop, looks like this.

(please excuse the quality of this picture, it’s taken from the house, through a window.)
Some strong winds hit these parts. Ugh. I’m trying to get the chicks and chickens all taken care of so that we can leave them for spring break, and now this happens?

At times like this I think of one of my favorite children’s books, Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse,


and when her favorite teacher, Mr. Slinger, says,
“Today was a difficult day.
Tomorrow will be better.’
-Mr. Slinger”
Kevin Henkes, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse

Or, as Howard Jones sings, Things can only get better.
Now, if you excuse me, I have to go make dinner, and see if I can find out why the teenager’s day sucked. Wish me luck.

Speed! (Now we know how Lightning McQueen feels)

March 29, 2012 / / 10 Comments

This week was John’s pinewood derby in cub scouts. We had a month to prepare for it, and wouldn’t you know it, but 90% of the car was done on the next to last day.


Ryan even came home from work early on Tuesday to work on the car.

They sanded and painted. And sanded and taped and painted some more. I hear that John even did his own spray painting and did a great job of it!

(You can see the state of our basement in that picture, by the way. Still unfinished, but there is some progress.)

The best part of this project is the time spent with Dad.

Boys need this bonding time with dad, especially bonding time using tools.

This project involved using tools borrowed from two different friends, at least one trip to the hardware store together and two different kinds of paint.

This is my favorite picture. They were using this drill press thingy (yes, that IS the technical term for it, thank you very much) and I said, “Shouldn’t you be using eye protection?” John turned around, and after rifling through the drawer behind him, put on those cool shades. “Here’s my eye protection, Mom,” he said.

Here’s the finished car, ready for racing.
and here he is at the derby, showing off his car.

Now, it’s not easy to get good shots of that little car speeding down that track,
, but Ryan managed to get this cute little video.

I’m proud of my boys for completing this task. It’s not easy to design and make a car, and it can be disappointing when your car doesn’t win. I’m so thankful for Ryan’s willingness to help John build this car.

John’s car won 3rd place overall, and he was awarded “Best Engine Design”.


I’m linking up with Jenny Matlock for Alphebee Thursday, letter S

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