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The Trials of a Busy Mom

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Spring Break Fun–or what we’ve been up to this week

April 15, 2011 / / 2 Comments

It’s our Spring Break around here, but we haven’t been totally slacking. Yes, there has been some sleeping in and some lounging around reading books, but we can’t do THAT all week, could we? Well, some of us could. Others are wanting to be more entertained.

Cole, actually, is the lucky one this week. Ryan’s brother called Sunday night to see if Cole would like to go to Disneyland with them the next day. Their son had invited a friend, who had to have emergency surgery and couldn’t go. So, Cole got to go. which is nice, since he didn’t go with us when WE went to Disneyland in January. So, he’s having a totally different spring break than we are!

Monday night we went to Provo to see the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU museum of art. If you haven’t taken the chance to see this FREE exhibit, you really should. We wandered through a few other exhibits, too. Strangely enough, the kids really liked the war posters.
We had to explain things about ‘saving fat’ and war bonds and things, but it was an interesting display.

We also liked this huge stack of books. Yes, it’s art. And very cool.

A $5 bucket of chalk is definitely a spring break necessity. The kids and friends spent several hours (on the one nice weather day) drawing with chalk. Yes, they’ll probably go through the whole box in one week, but that’s ok.

Colorful creations are always welcome on my driveway and sidewalk, even if they are just going to get rained and snowed on.

My girls wanted to go and do baptisms at the temple, so on Tuesday I took them there. The smaller kids and I did some errands and killed some time waiting for them. They said it was SO CROWDED and they had to wait a long time. That just makes me happy that so many kids were doing temple service during their spring break!

Wednesday we planned to go ice skating. I had checked the Peaks Arena website, and Wed was the only day this week that they were open early, so we got ourselves ready and over there by noon. Jenna, in particular, has really been bugging us to go ice skating. We tried a few weeks ago when we got an invitation from our mortgage company for a free night of skating, but when we went, it was SO CROWDED that we seriously couldn’t find anywhere to park. We just left. So, when we got there this time, there were hardly any cars in the parking lot! Which was encouraging, until we saw the sign on the door that said, “Due to mechanical difficulties, we will not be open until 2:00”. Ugh. That won’t work, as John had a baseball practice later in the afternoon. I had planned to skate from 12-2. There must be a curse on us that we can’t actually GO ice skating. Maybe roller skating would be better. Well, I was scrambling for something fun (and cheap) to do, so I picked up food and we went to a fun park in Pleasant Grove.

We had a fun time playing there for the afternoon, and got home in time to take John to baseball practice and the girls and I planted three tiny apricot trees in the yard. We still have three cherry trees to get to, but our days of sunshine and temps above 39 degrees have been limited.

Thursday we decided to go to Thanksgiving point, to one of our favorite places, the dinosaur museum. The kids can spend hours there, building, digging, and exploring. After 3 hours, we still had to drag John out of there. I decided on the way home that it would be a perfect date night for Ryan and I, so I stopped and picked up a couple of movies from redbox, and got tacos and pizza for them. Perfect! Then Ryan and I went to see Limitless. Not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but an enjoyable date night, nevertheless.

Today is Friday, and I’ve promised to take a certain daughter of mine to buy shoes. And she’s nagging me almost to death. She’s got talent for persistence, that one. We’ve also got to make dinner and take it to someone in my neighborhood, and Megan gets to babysit tonight. Natalie gets to take care of the neighbor’s dog while they are out of town. So, as you can see, there’s still lots of ‘excitement’ around here. I’m hoping I can find friends for the kids to play with so they won’t just be hanging around the house all day.

So, even though we haven’t done much, didn’t go anywhere, we’ve been enjoying our spring break week. Now, if we can just get a little bit more “spring” in the weather, that would help.

Spring Break 2011

April 9, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Well, our Spring break is starting off….cold. Snowy and 38 degrees isn’t my ideal weather pattern, but I guess we just enjoy our days off trapped together in the house. Sigh.

Friday night, the elementary school hosted a beach party. I wasn’t really sure what all that entailed, but the kids REALLY wanted to go. Hmmm.

We were hosting a party for Megan and her friends at 7, but I agreed to take Jenna and John to the beach party from 5-7. And then I wouldn’t have to make dinner because I would feed them an overpriced hot dog meal at the school. So, even though it was cold and snowy, we dug around and found whatever “beach wear” we could find, and headed off to the school after we picked up one of John’s friends.

After eating our “dinner” and I use that term VERY generously, we headed to the gym where the dance action was happening. Imagine a whole bunch of kids, all in their shorts and flip flops, hanging loose on the dance floor. And many of the parents were dancing, too.

*

John was such a wild and crazy dancer that I couldn’t really even get a good picture of him.

*

Jenna was gettin down, too!

She even started a congo line with several friends, and it seemed like they were really having fun.

The whole thing was put on not by the school or the PTA, but by the dance DJ, who had a discoball and everything. I think he brought the concessions, too.

When they did a ‘parent’s dance’, I found my kids and forced them to dance with me asked them to dance.

Whether they wanted to dance with their old mom or not.

It was a fun party.

We didn’t stay all that long, however, because at about 6:30, John’s little friend came and found me and told me that he wasn’t feeling well. Uh, oh. I definitely don’t want a sick kids on my hands, especially a sick kid who isn’t even my kid. So, I told the kids we would leave in 10 more minutes. Luckily, they got to do the Hokey Pokey before I had to drag them away.

When we got home, Megan was ready and waiting for her friends to come over. They did come, and she had a fun informal ‘party’ of snacking, laughing and movie watching. We joined in to watch Inception (weird), which went WAY too long. The party was supposed to end at 10:30, and the movie went until 10:45. Sorry, parents. And since Ryan was out of town this week, I didn’t even have him to man the late night activities. Thankfully, the girls’ parents all came to pick them up and I didn’t have to drive anyone home.

Saturday, we awoke to MORE snow. Ick.
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I told the kids to dig out the boots and snow stuff, because they were MAKING a snowman today! Less than enthused, they did actually go outside and have some fun there for about an hour.

And make a snowman they did. I have no idea how long this snow will last, or how long it will keep snowing. My hope is that it warms up by Monday so we can have a fun week of jumping on the tramp, riding bikes and playing with friends.

Hey, who said, “Good luck with that?”
I heard you.

Happy Birthdays

April 7, 2011 / / 1 Comment

It’s spring birthday time around here. Cole and Megan have birthdays 9 days apart.

When they were little we used to sometimes combine the celebration, but now they don’t want anything like that.

Cole
Cole is now 17. SEVENTEEN! How can he possibly be that old? Or more importantly how can I be that old? Ahem. Moving on.

Cole had the misfortune of having his birthday the day after Ryan and I got home from our New York Trip. Or, if you want to get technical about it, it was the day we got home, since we came home VERY late the night before. He also decided to go and take a practice AP test in the morning. So, by the time he was done with that, we were all up and functioning, but we had no big party plans. Natalie volunteered to make a cake, but sadly, that cake wouldn’t come out of the pans, so it became a trifle. And not a very pretty one at that. He called from the test and asked if he could invite a few friends over and have a movie and game day party. Fine. So, that was his party. He and five or so friends watched Lord of the Rings 2 and 3, then played some games. I did my hostess duties and served food and stayed out of their way.

Megan

Megan turned 15 on Monday. FIFTEEN! Now we’re going to have to go through the whole learning to drive thing AGAIN, and I can’t believe my baby girl is that old! Ack! Where has the time gone? For her birthday, I wanted to try to make it a special day, even though we weren’t having a big party, and it was a Monday. So I sent out a plea to my friends to all send her birthday texts throughout the day. Because she HATES to draw attention to herself or even let people know that it’s her birthday. Whose child is she, anyway? Well, I can’t let her birthday just pass without her friends knowing about it, so I thought the text thing was fun. I also made little muffins and took them to my neighbor who was driving morning carpool and asked her to give them to the kids and tell them it was Megan’s birthday. Needless to say, she thought that was totally dumb. And I got a text from her specifying the fact that she didn’t need or want special treatment on her birthday. Ha! And then she got TONS of text messages from people she knew and didn’t know, wishing her a happy birthday. My old friend Ken Clayton, who now lives in Singapore, sent her a text wishing her a happy Birthday all the way from Singapore. Even though at first she told me she thought that was weird, hopefully she secretly thought it was cool, and it will make for a memorable birthday.

Then we all went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. She’s also having a little informal friend party on Friday, where her pals come over and watch movies and play games. I’m not planning anything, and I’ll just break out some snacks and maybe a pizza. Easy birthdays!

I hope they enjoyed their birthdays! These kids are really the greatest, and I love them both, even though they insist on growing older.

And you thought your meeting was boring

April 7, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Ryan is in Korea right now. Just a short trip, with about half of that travel time. Not my idea of fun. Actually, probably not anyone’s idea of fun. The highlight of the trip for him was going to be that on the way home, he has a layover in Japan and he’s excited to buy some Japanese candy from the candy store in the airport. Yay. Anyway, he sent me an email explaining that he was falling asleep in his meeting. And then suggested I try this to have the same experience myself.

If you’d like to have the full meeting experience I’m having here, I
suggest the following:

* Set the room temperature to 72
* Run all the showers on hot until you get 70% humidity
* Queue up some foreign language films with no subtitles
* Start watching the foreign language films at about 4pm, and watch them
for the next 8 hours.
* Take notes about the film on a nice, warm computer.

Fun Fun Fun!

Right. And he didn’t mention the whole “be on a plane for many many many hours” part. Funny Ryan. Well, hopefully he can stay awake through those meetings and do what he came to do.

In which I don’t mention chocolate, but you know I’m secretly thinking it

April 7, 2011 / / 7 Comments


You may have forgotten that it’s the season of Lent right now, and that I’ve given up sugar for this time. I don’t know HOW you could have forgotten, but I have been trying to not be totally whiny about it, and if you aren’t doing Lent, then you might not think about it. Well, it’s still on. Until Easter, which is still a ways away. But I am hanging in there and doing very well. I haven’t had any break downs where I’ve shoved cookies into my mouth. I did make myself some sugar free lemon cookies a while back, and I ate “a few” of those that day, but since then, they have stayed in the freezer, waiting patiently for me to eat them.

But, since I don’t want all this suffering and pain to be for naught, I am also really trying to eat well and cut down on the carbs as well, so I can lose some weight. And exercise. Yeah, that too, although I will admit that’s not my main focus right now. I’m NOT PERFECT, folks. And I’m not on a tv show competing for lots of money, either, so I’m doing what I can do.

Well, since I have already taken ALL the joy out of life, why don’t we just cut back on the diet coke consumption while we’re at it. See if we can take Paige ALL the way to the edge of sanity and PUSH her over, shall we? I know my mom would be happier if I gave up the sweet sweet beverage that is diet coke all together, but I don’t know if we’re going to go there. It’s not like I’m drinking a 44 ouncer from Harts or Kountry Korner every day, but I do usually have ONE can of diet coke with lunch. Or, if I go out to lunch or dinner with friends, I will sometimes order a diet coke. But I will admit that diet coke makes me happy, and the thought of a life without diet coke makes me sad. Even that “Ptchssshhh” sound of opening a can of diet coke brings a smile to my face.
Does that make me an addict? I don’t know.
It’s like I’m at a meeting. My name is Paige and it’s been three days since my last drink. And then we sit around and drink coffee and eat donuts. Except that I don’t drink coffee and I can’t eat donuts!

And so I’m grumpy. OH SO GRUMPY. We went out to dinner on Monday for Megan and Cole’s birthdays, and went to Texas Roadhouse. And (here’s the part where you need to be proud of me) I didn’t have a single roll. Not one. Can you believe it? I ordered a grilled chicken salad and ate it while looking longingly at the kids’ fries and sticky ribs and chicken fried chicken. Should have ordered the steak and a sweet potato, but I ate my salad. Come on! Who orders a salad at Texas Roadhouse? Stupid people, that’s who! And water. I drank water. It was a fun dinner out with the family, but I came home and felt all sorry for myself. And to avoid grumping at my kids, I hid in my room and devoured…. a book. You thought I was going to say I had some secret stash of reeses peanut butter cups hidden in my bedroom and I went in and secretly ate it, didn’t you? No. I was good, and I read a book. Thankfully, the scale moved a little bit in the downward direction the next morning, or I probably would have just THROWN all the good intentions out the window and snarfed a cupcake for breakfast. I still might. You don’t know.

Some friends have invited me to lunch today, and I’m still debating. The place they want to go has really good salads, and I would probably enjoy being with friends. But would I again feel sorry for myself because other people might be ordering cookies and brownies and great sandwiches? Maybe I’ll treat myself to a diet coke. Just one.

When being a parent is hard

April 5, 2011 / / 7 Comments

Without going into too much detail or embarrassing my children (what? NOW you’re worried about embarrassing them?), we are going through a bit of a struggle with one of our kids right now. When there are five children, it seems they often ‘take turns’ being the difficult or worrisome child. Thankfully. There are only two of us parents, and we would go crazy if they were all going through difficulties at the same time. But one will coast along easily for a time, while another goes through something very hard and might need more of our attention and concern. I don’t think there’s ever been a time when they were ALL smoothly sailing at the same time. That might just put us parents out of a job.

Well, this child is……having a difficult time. And while I try to help correct this problem, I wonder if I’m being too hard. I often lose my temper because we’ve been over this a HUNDRED TIMES, and I don’t see why you keep doing this….this THING that is wrong. At times we’ve both been in tears, the child and me. Last week I couldn’t deal with it one. more. time. and pleaded with my husband to “take care of it” because I was so angry I didn’t know if I could control myself. Looking back, I’m angry at myself that I got so emotionally involved and lost my temper.

And I have NO idea how to make them stop. I don’t want to get angry, I don’t want to lose my temper, I don’t want to have to go through this SAME thing over and over and over again. Why can’t you just GET IT? At the same time, I want to just take them in my arms and say it’s ok, I’ll take care of it. Mommy will make it better and you won’t have to worry about it anymore if it’s too hard for you. But then how would the child ever learn? So, I correct and discipline and pray, and try to reinforce that I really do LOVE this child. I would do anything for this child–for all of these children, if it would guarantee them a happy life.

It is then that I catch a glimpse of how our Heavenly Father feels about each one of us. He must look at me and say, ‘Paige, you KNOW that’s not good for you. You KNOW that will not make you happy in the long run. We’ve been over this before, yet you still continue to make the wrong decisions.’ And I’m sure he cried. Yet he still loves me. He still wants what’s best for me. And for you.

I want to be more Christlike in my disciplining,
“Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;
That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.”

I’m trying.

Sisterchicks Book

April 2, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I just read Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes by Robin Jones Gunn.

I actually took it on the plane with me, since I always need some kind of distraction while flying (I do not enjoy flying), but it wasn’t as attention grabbing as I would have liked. I only read for about 30 minutes into the flight, then I put it away and watched the in-flight tv.

The story is about Summer, who gets a call one day from the dr’s office and informs her that her mamogram was “abnormal”. Instead of scheduling a biopsy appointment, she books a flight to Holland to go and see her pen pal of over 40 years, Noelle.

During their week together, the two friends meet for the first time, catch up on recent happenings with their families, and explore the Netherlands together. Since the setting is spring, when the tulips are out, I can say I definitely wanted to be there with them. The closest I came to Holland was Germany, where they have a lot of tulips themselves, but nothing like the vast tulip empire in Holland. I enjoyed hearing about the sites they visited and the adventures they had.

Unfortunately, I found the book a bit preachy, and a bit boring. There were no plot twists, not much action, and no suspense to keep me engaged. It took me a while to finish the book, and if I hadn’t been writing a review, I don’t know if I would have finished it at all.

Sorry I can’t give it a higher recommendation.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. I was not compensated for my opinion.

How to do New York on the cheap

April 1, 2011 / / 3 Comments

We decided to keep track of our expenses in New York, just to see how much our “free trip” cost us, and Ryan whipped out a little program on his phone and REALLY kept track. Every souvenir, even snacks he wrote down. I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t be so vigilant about the record keeping, but it was interesting to know how much we were really spending.

We already had the most expensive part covered. The prize included the airfare and the hotel, which was the MAJOR expense.

Date Category Description Amount
21-Mar Travel 2 bags checked $50.00
21-Mar Food Lunch at DFW $9.00
21-Mar Taxis Taxi from LaGuardia to Hotel $35.00
21-Mar Food Long Room NYC $36.47
21-Mar Food Walgreens (Snacks) $11.46
22-Mar Travel MetroCards (2) $58.00
22-Mar Food Lunch at the Met $22.50
22-Mar Clothing Hat $14.62
22-Mar Entertainment CityPass (2) $158.00
22-Mar Food Oatmeal $5.99
22-Mar Food Hi-Chew $3.46
23-Mar Taxis Taxi to Nate Burkus Show $7.00
23-Mar Food Lunch at Mangia Salad Bar $21.00
24-Mar Food Lunch at Ellis Island $22.32
24-Mar Souvenirs Souvenirs at Ellis Island $12.84
24-Mar Souvenirs Liberty Bear $13.07
24-Mar Souvenirs Souvenirs — Empire State Bldg. $27.40
24-Mar Food Baja Fresh $20.46
25-Mar Entertainment Hotel Internet $19.37
25-Mar Food Snacks at Central Park $12.00
25-Mar Tips Bag handling tips, etc. $7.00
25-Mar Taxis Taxi to JFK $60.00
25-Mar Food Dinner at JFK $24.41
26-Mar Travel Parking at SLC Airport $35.00

TOTAL: $686.37

If you break it down into categories, we spent
$85 on checking bags and parking (could have avoided that $50 if we were flying Delta or Jet Blue, or if we had not checked bags, and the parking fee if we had had someone drop us off and pick us up)
$102 on taxis (if we really wanted to be frugal, we could have taken public transit to and from the airport, but that just sounded like a huge pain)
$162.15 on meals. We went out to dinner with an associate of Ryan’s one night, and he picked up the tab. That was our most expensive dinner and we didn’t have to pay! The rest of the time, we didn’t really plan our meals, but when we were hungry, looked to see what was around. While not cheap, our lunches and dinners averaged about $25 each. Our hotel did not offer us free breakfast, but we made oatmeal in our room and that was good enough for breakfast.
$26.92 on snacks. We stopped in at Walgreens and got some snacks to drag along with us, and I also had packed some snacks from home, including a few bottles of diet coke in my checked luggage. Everything in NY is more expensive, so I should have let Ryan pick out snacks here at home, and we could have saved on the snacks. But sometimes, you are starving and just HAVE to buy a hot dog and some nuts in central park.
$158 on the New York Citypass. This is a real money saver! It included admission to ALL the attractions we went to, and we did them all. There were also a few extras that were included, like the audio tour at the Empire State Building, which was included with the city pass, and even though I would never have paid the extra cost, it was really a neat way to view the city and learn. And it saved us standing in a few lines to purchase tickets, so it was WELL worth the cost.
$67.93 on souvenirs. Yes, we are totally cheap. I would have liked to have gotten a really cute purse, but I didn’t end up doing that. The only thing I bought for myself was a hat, and it was kind of a necessity because it was cold and windy. We bought some stuff for the kids, and that was it.
$58.00 on two week long Metro cards. Even though we were only there 5 days, the week long metro cards were worth it. Otherwise we’d have to buy a ton of single use cards for $2.50 each, and that would have cost even more money.
$26.37 misc. This includes tips and internet. We used Ryan’s loaner smart phone for most of the time, but did splurge on one nights internet charges (almost $20 for internet each night is so steep, we tried to do without it)

We didn’t see any Broadway shows, which would have seriously upped our total. We instead attended tv show tapings, which was also really fun.

So, there you have it. Our grand total for 5 days in New York City was under $700! How’s that for cheap?

Let’s talk art

March 29, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Let’s talk Art. At the MOMA, Museum of Modern Art in New York, one of the first pieces we came to was a collage of food packages that the artist had eaten in one year. It reminded me of our ‘garbage collage’ we had in college. But this guy sure ate a lot of frozen strawberries.

I may not be the best at modern art appreciation. So much of it looks like something a five year old could do if given a large canvas and some paint. But much of it was thought provoking, even beautiful.

I was very pleased to finally come to some famous artists.

There was VanGogh’s “starry Night”, and works by Picasso and Dali and Warhol! So close I could touch them (but I wouldn’t even try, since there was security EVERYWHERE, and they would tell you to step back from the painting if you got to close).
That was amazing. But we could only take so much Modern Art, especially when we had already walked a bunch and been on our feet for hours.

While Ryan looked up directions for the next leg of our adventure, I actually laid back and closed my eyes on a padded bench thingy for just a couple of minutes. It felt like heaven.

I appreciated the art at the Met art museum more. I tend to gravitate toward the beautiful colors, the landscapes, and the flowers.

And there were so many works of art from all over, and from so very long ago.

We could have spent days there. Or weeks, even. It was truly amazing. And I’m glad it was the first museum we went to–before we were “museumed out”. There were tons of school groups there, and I felt a little envious of the New Yorkers who could come and see this amazing museum anytime they wanted. Not that they all do. We tend to not always appreciate the gems in our own backyard. Which reminds me, have you gone to see the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU art museum? We are going next week. I’ve heard it’s amazing. And it’s right here local, and it’s free. So we don’t have to travel all the way across the country to experience breathtaking works of art.

Hey, isn’t that Paige on the Late Show?

March 28, 2011 / / 4 Comments

Yes, we were on TV on the Late Show with David Letterman. I hadn’t seen the clip, because I didn’t stay up late enough to watch it that night, and a certain son of ours forgot to set the machine to record it, even though I asked him to. So, Ryan found it online and cut it down to just the clip that we are in, so we can show our kids and our friends.

Coincidentally, the song that they are playing in the background is one we have played in bells. I can’t remember what it’s called, but I know we’ve played it.

So, there you have it. Our big Late Night debut.

Someone at church mentioned that they had seen us on tv, and my sweet young neighbor came up to me and said, “Sister Erickson, were you really on the David Letterman show?” I had to explain that we were in the AUDIENCE, not guests on the show. Maybe someday.

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