Author: Superpaige (Page 83 of 180)
The other day I went to a soccer game with my soccer playin’ daughter, Megan. Indoor, soccer, in case you were wondering what kind of insane team plays in the frigid weather and the snow. We were joking before the game that she was a Jedi knight, and the other soccer players would come to her and say, “Help me Obi Wan Megan. You’re my only hope.” She hit my arm and said, Maaa- ommmm. Typical response.
But during the game, I looked up from my book (yes, I do read at my children’s sporting events. Doesn’t everyone?) and saw that they had put Megan in as goalie. My little, not quite 5 ft tall, 80 pound 12 year old was playing goalie. Why is she playing goalie? That’s not her position. Eek. Needless to say, I put the book away.
Every time the other team got near their goal, my stomach tied itself into knots. Argh! No! No! Get back in the goal! Nooooooo! My little Obi Wan Megan WAS their only hope, and it wasn’t going well. Not only were they outsized and outplayed by this older, better team, but now they have my tiny little daughter as goalie. I felt like standing up and screaming, “Use the force! Use the force Obi wan Megan!” but I didn’t. I let her play out her stint as goalie with dignity.
About 1/2 way through the period, the coach switched her out and let someone else take a turn at the carnage, and I could breathe again. I much prefer watching her dashing across the field kicking the ball instead of trying to use her body to stop the ball. When the game was over, I braced myself for the disappointment and sullenness that might follow a loss such as this one. After the game, I met up with my little jedi and said, “Good game. How was that, playing goalie?”
“It was kind of fun. But I’m not really tall enough to be a good goalie,” and that was it. No sulking, no anger at the loss. Just joy to be able to play soccer.
Now if only I could make piano a sport.
Because of Ryan and his unfortunate illness this week, we decided to postpone Jenna’s baptism. She was a little disappointed, but was very good about it.
And not having the baptism on Saturday actually made our weekend much more simple. The girls got to go to their basketball and soccer games, which they were willing to miss, but were happy when they actually got to attend. Especially since it was picture day. But we still wanted Jenna to feel like her birthday was special. On Friday, her actual birthday, she got to go out to dinner and go shopping with her grandparents. She picks the restaurant, and she picks the presents. She came home with a Los Hermanos t-shirt, a balloon from Toys R Us, a light bright and a small stuffed animal. I think she did alright.
Saturday cake master Julene brought over the cake she had made as per Jenna’s request. When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she said she wanted “a bunch of white bunny and one orange bunny.” I have no idea why. But when I told Julene that’s what she wanted, she wasn’t deterred. She ended up making the bunnies out of cookies, with one orange cookie bunny in the middle. As usual, it was darling. 
After we went to Dinosaur Museum we came home and had a quick dinner and then ate cake. 
The only problem is–there’s too much cake. It was just the seven of us, instead of the 40 people we had planned on helping us eat the cake. And we don’t need to be eating all of that cake.
I’ve joined in a Biggest Loser Challenge with my sister and some of her friends, in fact, and cake is the last thing I need. But I did save all my points for the day so and passed on the pizza that the kids were having and ate a salad instead, all because I wanted just one piece of cake. And it was indeed extremely yummy cake. A bit too much frosting, which I scraped off, but oh-so-yummy. But I am not made of will power. If there is a cut up cake sitting on the counter for more than 30 minutes, I may find myself snitching. So, first we loaded up a paper plate with six big pieces of yummy cake and took them over to the neighbors. Let them eat cake! They were appreciative, of course. Then I took that cake and portioned it out into individual serving sized containers to be frozen or taken for lunches. It looked like this.
So now that cake is out of sight, and hopefully out of mind.
Friday night Ryan and I had plans to go to see Lord of the Dance. I won the tickets back in November, and it’s been on our calendar for a while. Yes, it was on Jenna’s birthday, but we scheduled something fun for her so she wouldn’t mind that mom and dad were gone. Well, Ryan didn’t want to go, so at the last minute I threw out the invite to a few friends, and my friend Lisa was quick to respond that she wanted to go. So she was my date for the evening, and we had a great time.
The show was incredible! It’s a show basically about good vs. evil, and the dancing is amazing. How do they do that, I’d like to know. And from now on, I think all wars should be fought like that. We select our best dancers and have a dance off to fight our wars. No one gets killed, there may be a few injuries but no casualties, and we all enjoy a real good show. How about it, world leaders?
So, even though our weekend wasn’t what we had planned, things turned out well. We’ll get to do the baptism next month, and hopefully everyone will be healthy and happy then.
Winners!!! I let random.org pick the winners for the CD contests, and our winners are Becky,
#49–Becky Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I’d like to win either. Here’s my comment to enter the The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra CD. I love catching them on PBS.
and Mrs. Mommy.
#29–MRS.MOMMYY Says:
January 26th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
the wow looks great
Thanks to everyone who entered, and I hope to have another contest soon.
Today is Jenna’s birthday.
When she was born, the other three kids were very excited to have a new sister.
And what cutie she was!
She really is a joy. She tries to make others happy, and she wants to do what’s right.
She has big goals in life. She wants to be an actress or a singer, or a veterinarian, or a doctor, or a teacher, or a mom.
She’s a good sport.
Jenna is the only one in our family to break a bone, and she had a good attitude about that, too. She loved that wheelchair.
And she loves her animals. I’m proud of Jenna. She is a special little person and I can’t wait to see what kinds of things she accomplishes in her life.
Happy Birthday, Jenna-boo.
Oh, it’s a rough morning here at the Erickson house.
Wednesday nights are rehearsal, which is great. But it’s exhausting, and I came home with an aching back, partly from ringing bells all night, and partly because I used 8 pound weights in my workout class on Tuesday instead of my normal 5 pounds weights. When I came in the house, I started the dishwasher, and then went to say hi to Ryan in his office. Only he wasn’t in his office. He was in bed.
Seems he’d had a violent reaction to something he ate for lunch at Apolo Burger (let’s hope it wasn’t peanut butter), and he’d been in and out of the bathroom all evening. Enough said? So, he was in bed not feeling happy. Well, I got ready for bed, too, and came to bed to try to sleep.
Here’s the thing. Ryan doesn’t usually go to bed at the same time as me. He is a night owl and I’m usually crashing into bed at the earliest possible moment. Seriously. If we don’t have anything going on that night, as soon as I get the kids in their pajamas, I get in my pajamas, too. Then once they are in bed, I’ll crawl in bed to read or watch tv and go to sleep. I’m not one of those people who say, “I get SO much done after the kids are in bed!”. Nope. After the kids go to bed, I breathe a sigh of relief and say I’m done for the day, and enjoy the quiet. But Ryan is one of those putterers, who works on projects at midnight or 1 am. I’ve tried to convince him that it’s not healthy to stay up so late, and he gives me the story that he’s not sleepy, and why go to bed when you’re not sleepy? Whatever.
At any rate, we’ve gotten into this routine that I usually go to sleep alone. In the quiet. With no one breathing or coughing or changing position to try to get comfortable. Get my drift? I like to sleep in the quiet. And when it’s not quiet, or someone happens to be there sleeping at the same time as me, I can’t go to sleep. I can try. I can pretend I’m asleep and hope that it happens. I can lie there thinking of all the things I need to change or work on in my life while silently hoping I’ll get so bored that I’ll eventually fall asleep. So, that’s what I did. For an hour or so. Until Ryan got up and visited the bathroom.
“Great!”, I thought, “now I’ll fall asleep while he’s in there, and then I’ll be asleep, hooray!” But, no. Sleep didn’t happen. I just lay there listening, wishing I knew where my earplugs were, and wondering how long he was going to be in there.
Eventually I gave up. I said goodbye, that I was going to sleep downstairs, but I would reheat my wheat bag so he could have warm toasty feet. Wasn’t that nice of me? I was sacrificing my own warm and toasty feet so he could have warm and toasty feet. Really, my feet were already warm, and he had cranked the heat up to -like-69, so it was plenty warm. I grabbed some blankets and went to go sleep on the couch. Nice plan that it was, I couldn’t really sleep on the couch, either. I must be getting old and stuffy because I want to sleep in my own bed. Sigh.
I did eventually sleep, but when one of the kids woke up to use the bathroom at 5:30, I decided I might as well haul myself back up to bed, so that when they all get up they won’t come and poke at me. I think I also must have turned my alarm off, so that it wouldn’t wake Ryan up when it went off. Oops.
I woke up at 7:26 with an “Oh, crap.” I hobbled down the stairs hoping that my kids had been responsible without me there telling them what to do. Sure enough, they were all gathered around the counter in various stages of getting ready for school. I told them I was so sorry I had slept in and wasn’t up helping this this morning. “That’s ok, Mom,” Megan said, “you were up late last night.” Wow. I had time to brush some girls’ hair, sign some homework, write a check for lunch money and have a prayer before the first group left for the bus at 7:30. I was impressed that they got up, got dressed and got breakfast without me. At least I think they got breakfast. I hope they got breakfast. The Jr High kids left a few minutes later and I breathed another sigh of relief. They did it without me.
That makes me wonder, what am I getting up for? They could just get ready and go to school on their own while I languish in my nice warm bed, right? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Things do not always go so smoothly.
But today I’m thankful that my kids can be responsible enough to get ready (at least today) without any prodding from mom. And I’m hoping that my sweet husband gets feeling better soon. So that I can sleep.
Our little family video/LDS bookstore/post office is a thing of the past. Now we have no post office in our city. Again. And I have a package to mail to my friend in Arizona that may NEVER get to her, now.
I don’t know what it is about that little strip mall. You’d think that a business could stay there for more than a few years. Last spring I went to the dance store to buy tights, and found that the dance store had been replace with a tanning salon. Oh! I’ll admit I had never been to that dance store before, but I knew it was there.
I’ve been to this family video store many times. I have even bought things other than just rented a movie. I have used the post office many times, also, and I am confused and sad that it’s not there.
What do we have to do to get a post office in our city, I ask you?
Oh, it’s giveaway time, it’s giveaway time. I love giveaway time. Sing it with me, folks….
That’s ok, you don’t need to sing it.
I love it when there’s a giveaway carnival at Bloggy Giveaways. You can enter lots and lots of contests all week. It’s too many contests, actually. If a person weren’t careful, they could waste a WHOLE lot of time entering contests. Or so I’ve heard. (ahem)
In the spirit of giving, I looked around my office to see what I could give away.
I always have a few Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD’s to give away, and this month is no exception. I have a brand new sealed copy of the CD Praise to the Man.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square are pleased to announce their latest recording entitled Praise to the Man: Songs Honoring the Prophet Joseph. This recording is perhaps the most uniquely “Mormon†recording released by the Choir and Orchestra as well as a testament to the faith and legacy of Joseph Smith and the early Latter-day Saints. Filled with new arrangements of beloved LDS hymns, this recording evokes the feelings of those early saints—feelings of hope, faith and joy.
Now I understand that this CD is not for everyone. But you never know, you just might love it. It’s a beautiful CD, and Mack Wilberg’s arrangements are, as usual, astounding.
So, in the non religious music category, I also have the Best of Now, now that’s what I call Music 10th Anniversary CD to give away.
This CD has songs from P!nk, Katie Perry, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, U2, Coldplay, and many others. in fact, if you’d like a whole list of the artists and songs on this CD, you can check it out on Amazon. I think this would be a great listen to in the car CD.
So, there you have it, folks. Two CD’s for you to win!
How to enter--Just leave a comment, and let me know which CD you would like to win. If you would like to enter for both, please leave two separate comments. And if you could say hi or tell me something about yourself or why you like this blog, that would ALSO be nice. I will draw two winners on Friday, and this contest is open to US visitors only, please.
And have fun entering contests. You can check out all the contests over at Bloggy Giveaways. Just don’t let it take over your life.
I want to tell you about my latest home decorating project. 
I had mentioned before how my sister the artist drew some portraits of my kids for my Christmas gift. Well, after I got them all framed up, they just looked too washed out against our off white walls, so I decided I needed to paint. I had also bought myself this mirror for my birthday, and realized it would rather sit on a wall that wasn’t white, too.
Since Ryan had Friday off, he said he would help me paint if I would buy the paint. You don’t have to tell me more than once. I immediately went to Wal Mart to buy paint. I wasn’t exactly sure what color I wanted, but I knew it would be in the brown or gold family. I picked up about three different swatch colors and in five minutes had decided on a color. It’s called February Gold.
I actually liked the darkest color on the card, but I heard somewhere that you are supposed to go one shade darker than you actually want. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I did that, and ended up with this gold color.
With a little help from my number one helper, I got to work painting. Lucky for me, he had school that day, so I did the bulk of the paint job after he left for school, and by the time he got back, it was done. Ryan did the top edges with the cool edger thing, and I did the walls with the cool roller thing that sucks the paint into the handle.
It really makes painting go a lot faster, and there’s less drips and spills than using a roller and a tray (and no, they didn’t send me one to use and try out and review here, I just like it). I does, however, use a lot of paint. I used a whole gallon of paint on just two walls of that room.
Anyway, By the time the kids got home from school, I was pretty much done with the painting for the day, and the room looked kind of like this.
I was feeling pretty good about the paint job and the color until the kids came home.
“WoW! Yellow walls!” they said.
“That’s gold,” I told them.
“Huh. It looks kind of like yellow to me.”
“Gold. See the sample? February Gold.” I said.
I guess they knew enough not to mess with me, because they called it gold from then on. Good children.
Saturday I did some touch ups, then called on some friends to help me figure out how to arrange my pictures. The sad thing was, that with the new mirror, none of my old “country” decor worked anymore. We stole a few things from another room, and decided that if I painted them all black they could work. But nothing got hung up quite yet.
Monday a friend happened to be coming over. A friend with a background in design. What’s the point of having a designer friend if you can’t ask them design questions? My point exactly. He gave me some different ideas that I really liked.
Tuesday found me spray painting a frame, a shelf and a chair black. I like spray paint! Tuesday Ryan also hung the pictures of the kids. I love them! Unfortunately, with the glass over them and the light from the windows and flash, I haven’t been able to get a good picture. I should have scanned them before I framed them (and actually, I tried to, but for some reason it only gave me 1/2 a picture. Hmmm). So, here’s how they look on the wall, but you can’t really see how wonderful they are from these pictures. You’ll just have to come over and see them in person.
Aren’t they great? This is actually the fourth set of drawings my sister has done for me. She give to me for Christmas every three years, and this is always what I want. If you are interested in having her draw pictures of YOUR kids, you could always contact her through me. She’s quite talented.
Here’s that wall finished.
Then I had to get busy on hanging the mirror and everything on the other wall. I had measured things out on the floor and got impatient and didn’t want to wait for when Ryan could help me, so on Friday I just did it. First I got the mirror up on the wall in the general place I wanted it. 
Then I put the frame below it, the family picture to the side, and the shelf below that. It looked like this.
I looked around the house for things to put on that little black shelf, and found the ‘imagine’ sign in my kitchen and tried it out. It looked great, in my opinion.
So, there’s that wall of the room. It turned out quite nice, don’t you think? Last night, after I got it all arranged and took all the stray toys out of there, I just sat in there and read my book. Alone. Each time a child would come in, I would say, “Hey, don’t bring your stuff in here!” and they would slink out. I guess that’s what I’ve got to do to keep a room clean around here.
Wow. I think this was my best shopping day yet. I planned everything out, searched the sale flyer and my coupons to find coupon matches for all the best deals. I wrote everything out so I knew how many of each item I needed to buy for the specific specials. I played the game.
John was with me, but we were prepared with a game boy and a snack. He was good the whole time. I searched the store for the EXACT items to meet the sale requirements. I had to refer back to my ad several times to make sure the size was correct, as a 16 ounce box of cereal will not be on sale like the 14 ounce box of the same cereal will be. When they were out of an item on the shelf, I asked if they had any more. Yes, it’s stressful and mentally exhausting, but it can be done.
While my cart full of groceries was by no means free, it does my heart good to read my savings at the end of the receipt.
Total spent (with tax) $94.55
Preferred Savings $104.41
Mfg coupons $41.55
Store coupons $21.01
Today’s total savings $166.97 Awesome!
After the groceries were loaded into the car, John and I went to Old Navy, where I did indeed buy that red coat I’ve been coveting. My sister-in-law sent me a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase, making the coat only $39.50 instead of nearly $50. While not a screaming deal, it was enough of a discount to justify the purchase in my mind. That and the fact that Ryan told me he would be getting 40 cents a mile from his trip down to Vegas and back. Usually they will only reimburse up to the amount of a plane ticket, but since he HAULED an entire Suburban full of equipment for the company down and back, they are cutting him a little bit of a bonus. That money goes directly into the “red coat for Paige fund, since she had to suffer without her car for a week so we could haul equipment to Vegas and back” fund.
Our third stop was to Walgreens. I asked John if he was up to one more shopping stop, and he said he was. We were organized and didn’t have much to buy, so it was a short trip. I spent $20 on soda and chips and got $10 back, and used that $10 register reward to pay for nearly all of the rest of my items. Not bad, I must say.
I tried to push it just a tiny bit further and asked John if he’d like to go with me to the paint store, since it’s RIGHT there, and we could buy paint for HIS room, but he was hungry and tired of shopping and said he wanted to go home. I can respect that decision, because I wanted to go home, too.
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