Category: Uncategorized (Page 29 of 118)

In case you can’t tell, that’s John coming home from school, and stomping mightily on Dandelions, which are the bane of Paige’s existence this time of year.

— Ryan

I’m going to do you a little favor. I’m going to save you from wasting your money on bad granola bars. Because friends don’t let friends buy bad granola bars, right? And I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to granola bars. In fact, I’ve hardly met a granola bar I don’t like. Until now.

When I saw the Quaker True Delights granola bars, I was intrigued. I got a free sample and a coupon in the mail, and I must say that the chocolate/raspberry one was delicious. So, when I was at the grocery store I picked up a box of the Coconut Banana Macadamia nut granola bars.

I was intrigued. Macadamia nuts? Yum. Coconut? Yum. Banana? I’ll keep an open mind.

Yuck.

It was actually so not good that I spit out the bite I had taken. I was chewing and thought, why am I still eating this? It tastes like the dried bananas went bad or something. So I Spit it out in the trash and threw the rest of the granola bar away. Ugh. No WAY will my kids eat it, I’ll tell you.

I’ll try to feed the remaining bars to my friend’s chickens, but I don’t know if even they will eat it.

Please, don’t waste your money. And Quaker? Try again.

I’m not one of those parents that goes overboard in their kids’ activities, I promise. They have piano lessons, some of them do band at school, and they do one or two sports throughout the year. Ok, I admit, Megan does go overboard on the sporting events, what with year round soccer, then basketball, softball, church sports, and whatever activity comes along that she wants to play. But they are all GOOD activities.

Softball/baseball is one sport that all of my kids will play. Well, not ALL of them, because my oldest son, Cole, doesn’t really do sports, and that’s ok. He has many other talents. But anyway, back to the softball. John has a cute little baseball team with all of his neighborhood friends, with one of the dads as a coach (not just any old dad, this guy played football for BYU back in the day, and he graciously coaches our little boys in all sports, and I’m very thankful!). Jenna is on a team with a friend, Natalie is on a team with a couple of her friends, and Megan’s on a team with three of her best sporty friends who she plays with on many of these rec leagues. I simply can’t sign a kid up for a sport unless there is at least one friend on the team, so that I’m not stuck driving them alone to every practice and every game.

Last night I took on the daunting task of putting all the games on the calendar. I used Google Calendar so that I could put repeating events on there, and make it easier to get every thing on, then I can transfer it all to the big desk calendar that is my “brain” and stays on the kitchen counter for everyone to see and add things to. Now I’m depressed. Because today’s schedule looks something like this:
3:00-4:00-Natalie’s practice at the rec center in American Fork
5:15–John’s game in Highland. It doesn’t start until 5:45, but we have to be there 1/2 hour early.

6:15-Megan’s soccer team starts the spring tournament. The first game is tonight at 7 at AF JR High. But since it’s a game, she needs to be there 30 minutes early, and I’m picking up at least one of her teammates, so I’ll have to leave at 6:15 to do that.
7:00-Jenna’s team practice at the rec center in American Fork

And this is MONDAY night. Monday night is Utah is supposed to be reserved for FAMILY HOME EVENING. How am I supposed to have a FHE when we are running all around the city taking kids to different sporting events? And dinner? You can forget about dinner on a night like this. I’m guessing it will be something in the crock pot that people can just eat when they are home.

And it’s not just tonight. Tonight is just the beginning. It looks like there is at least one sporting event/practice for every single day this week. Except Friday. And Sunday, of course. Add to that all the stuff we NORMALLY do, like piano lessons, bells practice, activity days, young women and young men, and it’s overwhelming. Oh, and did I mention it’s MAY? May is the last month of school, so each child will be having end of the year activities, field day, dance festivals, class parties and large assignments due. And, yes, it seems mom is required to be at or in charge of most, if not all of them. Dad? Yes, dad WILL help. He does go to his share of games, and he will be definitely going to a few of these things. When he’s in town. Did I mention that he seems to go out of town a lot now? And that this month he’ll be going to Japan? No, that won’t help me at all. I do have a 16 year old, but he doesn’t have his license yet.

So, Happy May! Take me out to the ball games, and then take me to the insane asylum. Or at least come and visit me there, because that’s where I’ll be by the time this month is over.

Oh my gravy.

Some things have gotten me thinking, and questioning. Some things make me go “Hmmm.”

**How is it that everyone on GLEE can instantly break into song? And they know ALL the words. I mean, I would love to live in a world where we sing everything, but how would I remember all the words? Oh, yeah, it’s television.

**It seems that every year when womens conference comes around, the weather takes a dive. It was gorgeous weather last weekend, and even Monday of this week were warm and nice. But today–the day before we are scheduled to tromp all over BYU campus, we have gald force winds, snow, rain, hail, and the temps seem to be about 31 degrees out there. We’re not young students anymore. We can’t handle sludging around outside in the snow and rain. I may end up in the Marriot Center for the entire two days.

**The elementary school band concert. It makes me go “hmmm.” Bless their hearts, those kids are trying very hard to make music. And bless their instructors! Those two women must be saints! Their last song was “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Natalie had told me it was her favorite song of the concert, so I was looking forward to it. Hmmm. Good for them for attempting such a challenging song.

**Jenna’s home sick today. Her throat hurts. I’m hoping it’s just an allergy thing and she’ll be fine with just a day of taking it easy and skipping school. Hmm.

**Do you think “Oh, my gravy” will take off as a new trend in speaking? I think that would be great.

**Yesterday I cleaned out all the shoes that have accumulated in our mudroom. I put them all on the island in the kitchen, sorted and paired up. When the kids came home to a counter full of shoes, they said, “hmmm”. Then they took all the shoes they wanted to keep up to their rooms, so that a person could hopefully finally walk through the mudroom without tripping. When all the shoes were claimed, there was a whole bag of shoes that no one wanted, and there were 6 singles. Six single shoes with no match? What? Where are the other shoes?

**Why is it that I am powerless to a cookie? Something about all that sweet loveliness in a little portable package makes me powerless to resist EATING IT. What?

**I finally got caught up on my LOST episodes. So John Locke is now the evil one? He’s like Satan? Hmmm. And they have to keep him on the island and not let him out to the rest of the world. Is that about right?

**I need a topic for Relief Society this Sunday. At first I was planning on teaching this Sunday, then another lady asked if I would teach in June, and she would teach in May. No problem. But she just asked me this week if I would indeed teach in May. Which would be this Sunday. Which is in four days, and I have NO CLUE what to teach! Hmmm. Or rather, Help!

I don’t think I’ve blogged about some of my recent painting projects. How irresponsible of me!

I have been wanting to paint the kids’ bathroom for quite some time, and this year I finally got to it.

First we painted the walls green. And by “We” I mean mostly “Me”, although I let the kids have a turn painting if they wanted to.

Once I had the base coat right, I tried a process called “Smooshing”, which is done with a mix of glaze and paint and plastic. While the paint/glaze is wet, you lay plastic ( used garbage bags that I opened up) on the painted area, then you kind of move the bag around a bit, or smoosh it. It’s actually kind of fun, but I found myself getting paint ALL over myself.

When you peel that plastic off, it leaves this effect.

I don’t know how anyone gets good pictures in a bathroom, I tell you. But I’ll do my best. I also made curtains for the windows (we’ve been in this house almost 9 years and can you believe I have NEVER put curtains up in this room? Shameless, I tell you!) and fancied up a shower curtain.

I had some beach decor stuff sitting around waiting for a place to live, and I thought they would work well, so those went on the walls.


When it was done, I LOVED it. I love the effect, and I want to find an excuse to do that again in some other room. Sorry the color looks different in each picture. That’s what you get when you take pictures at all different times of the day.

Now I’m itching to repaint the main floor. Not change the color (at least not yet), but just to make the old tired paint look fresh and new. But that will have to wait until school gets out.

Dear Monster that lives in our house,

Please stop eating the library books. If you must eat books, there are plenty of books on the kids’ bookshelves that they hardly ever look at. Why don’t you try some of those out. They aren’t as new and crunchy as the library books, but I’m sure if you eat enough of them you will be satisfied.

Ditto for the new socks. If you could just eat the socks with holes in them, that would make my life a little bit better. And there’s no shortage of those worn out socks, either. Eat to your heart’s content! You’ll find them on the floor in any one of the kids’ rooms. Really! Help yourself!

And let’s stop taking the lids from the tupperware, shall we? I mean, what use do you have for JUST a lid? Use it as a Frisbee? If you must take the lid, please take the container along with it.

I’m not asking for much. I’ll still let you stay here and live under the children’s beds. You are free to eat the leftovers and watch tv after everyone else goes to sleep. I’m only asking for a little consideration, here.

Sincerely,
Paige

It’s Monday after our Spring Break Vacation. Or, as it should be called–Vacation recovery day.

My grand list of things to do today includes, but is not limited to:

**Laundry. Lots and lots of it.

**Clean out and wash my incredibly tired car. And if I were really nice, I’d stop by Grease Monkey and top off the fluids, but that’s probably more than I could wish for.

**Exercise. And the “vacation binge eating” must stop.

**Find and return the overdue library books.

**Find all the baseball mitts. Practices start today for John’s team, and I’m sure the girls’ teams will be starting up soon, as well. Everyone needs mitts, and we need to get outside and start throwing and catching.

**Figure out the kindergarten skirt situation. You don’t want to know.

**Maybe buy some groceries. These kids, they insist on eating.

**Get all the activities for the month on the calendar. Since we were planning our vacation and the left at the beginning of the month, I’m shocked that the month is almost 1/2 over, and I am kind of still in a fog. What’s going on? What’s due when?

**Encourage the kids to practice
a-the piano
b-the flute
c-the saxophone
d-their throwing and catching
e-their “talent” for the primary talent show this week

**Vacuum up all the bird fluff. With 9 birds in our kitchen for a week, there’s some feather/seeds/fluff residue around.

**Preen. For my flower bed. And it’s time to get the garden ready to plant!

But first, it looks like I’m going to go and plunge a toilet. Somehow that one moves to the top of the list.

Whew! Let’s see how I do, shall we? What’s on YOUR list?

Last night I was watching an episode of “Hoarders”. Ryan came in and said, “Don’t look around the room, then.” I looked around our bedroom, and it seriously wasn’t much better than what I was seeing on the tv. A pile of laundry on the chair, stacks of books on the nightstand, a stack of boxes of plumbing parts over in the corner. Oh, no! I’m a hoarder! Or at the very least, I’m not very good at organizing and staying organized. I guess I know what should be on the top of my to-do list today.