Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: DIY Projects (Page 4 of 5)

Chicken update

April 17, 2012 / / 3 Comments

Remember those chicks that we got back before Valentine’s day?

They looked like this when we got them.

Soon they were to that awkward teenage phase and looked all gawky, but in a cute kind of way.

When they were about a month old, we started to take them outside for outings. We had to move them from the basement to the garage, because they were oh-so-smelly. Even then we had to change the paper in their box every single day, or we couldn’t stand the smell. They seemed to be more and more chicken like every day.

Although this little girl looks very hawk like, doesn’t she?

Once they were about 6 weeks old, I started taking them outside and letting them stay in the outside coop during the day.
But then I had to put the bigger chickens in a different pen to keep them from picking on the mini chickens. So that involved me carrying all the little chickens outside to the coop, moving the big girls to the run, etc. Then if it got too cold, I had to move everyone back. Spoiled much? Yes. They are.

When we went on vacation, I spent a good deal of time worrying about the best way to house all of my chickens. If I move the big chickens out of their pink coop, then they could use the old crappy red coop with the attached run. The pink coop is a little bit more protected and should be warmer, so I could put the little chicks in there. But what if it snowed? Would the little chicks be warm enough? I realized this is the first time I would be leaving my chickens, since we got chickens! Our last family vacation was last year before we started our great chicken project. I really don’t think I’m supposed to spend this much time and energy worrying about my little feathered friends.

We did get everyone settled, although I didn’t know if my girls would lay in this other coop. They really like to lay their eggs in their OWN box in their OWN coop.

Even if I moved their lay box into the other run, they wouldn’t go in there, and if they did lay an egg, I would just find it on the ground. Ugh.

Well, we DID leave them, and they made it through. Well, most of them did. We came home to find one of the little Americaunas dead in the coop. Not sure what happened because we had a girl coming to feed and water them, and they were apparently all ok the afternoon before our return. We are sad to have lost one, but I am trying to teach the kids (and myself) that these things happen with chickens, and we should be happy that four of the mini chickens and all the big girls made it.

Now my job is to acclimate the two sets of chickens. They have two side by side runs that I can put them in during the day, but I still worry about putting them all together.

Look how big they are getting! Almost like real chickens! And they are starting to sound more chickenlike and less like cheeping chicks, too.

The kids love them, and so do I. Even my husband, who a year ago was anti-chicken, has said how much he likes having them.

Hopefully within the next few weeks we can get things settled, and no more separatism between chickens. And we’ll settle into a summer routine and get back into our egg laying.

Yes, we love our chickens.

(Ok, we’re not to this stage, but we do love them)
And I’m not dressing them up in chicken clothes. Not yet, at least.

Linking to Camera Critters and Fresh From the Farm Friday>

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!

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

Paige Paints (part two)

February 8, 2012 / / 5 Comments

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.

Hello, Monday!

February 6, 2012 / / 2 Comments

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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)

February 3, 2012 / / 6 Comments

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.

One of my favorite gifts

January 8, 2012 / / 8 Comments

While I did not inherit much artistic talent from my dad, the artist, I have been blessed to be part of an artistic family. My sister, Amy, has done many portraits of my kids throughout the years. In fact, every three years when it’s her turn to give to me for Christmas, she’s drawn for me. This year (actually last year if you want to get technical) I asked if she could paint something of them all together, instead of single portraits. Originally I thought it would be a portrait of the whole family, but then I didn’t really have a family picture I liked, yadda, yadda. I settled on pictures from our excursion to the church family history museum. The kids had so much fun dressing up in costumes.

I decided to use this picture.

So for Christmas, Amy presented me with this beautiful painting of my kids.

She did a little editing to get the kids closer together, and even changed the colors a bit.

Of course, she added a neutral background so you can’t tell exactly where the picture was taken.

I LOVE that we now have an original painting of my children. I feel so lucky to have such talent in my own family so that I can just ask my sister to paint something for me…and she does! If someone asked me to paint their children for them, I think I would panic, then eventually I’d have to just say no.

Now I need to frame it up and decide where to hang this beauty in my home!
Thanks, Amy! I love it!

Fabulous Friday Frivolities

October 28, 2011 / / 1 Comment

I have a few random thoughts to share with you today. Not enough for their own posts, so I’ll just combine them in a random fashion.

—We’ll start with the chickens. The new chickens seem fine in our backyard. I can’t really tell if they are happy with their new arrangement or not, but I’ll assume they are. But they are so much LOUDER than our last group. The first day we got them, I kept thinking something was wrong or that the nasty dogs had wandered in and were terrorizing them. I would run to the back door to check on them, or go out and see. Their previous owner had said that they were very proud when they laid an egg and that they got pretty loud in sharing with the world about their accomplishments. So, I would hear them cackling and think there must be an egg waiting. Nope. They are just loud. I looked them up online and think that they are New Hamshire Reds

In the description it says they are “Friendly,Easily handled,Bears confinement well, Noisy, Docile” Loud. Great. Thankfully our neighbor’s houses aren’t right next to ours, and there’s only one neighbor that I’m worried about hearing them, but now it’s getting cold so our windows will be closed. Won’t have to deal with the loudness till spring. Hopefully. And hopefully I won’t worry about them constantly. And about dogs.

I am a little concerned about keeping them warm enough. We’ve got to get their windows covered with plexiglass or plastic (or make them some cute shutters or curtains…wouldn’t that be cute?) and I’m going to look for a heated water dish and maybe hook up a light in there to keep them a little warmer. The forums are split on heating their coops, though. Some say they need to get used to the cold, others mention that they can get frostbite, so… But we definitely can’t have them out there with open windows.

—Our Japanese exchange student experience is going well. Except that all the fun things I have planned have not worked out. Thanks, FAMILY. “I have volleyball”, “Basketball starts tonight”, “Don’t forget about pack meeting,” “I have to work late to take a conference call”, “My friend is having a party, can I go?” Even my plan for Saturday’s outing isn’t going to work unless we flake on two volleyball games and a basketball game. Ugh. But we have managed to take him to the Dinosaur museum, to OraNGE lEaf for some yummy frozen yogurt, and to Wendy’s for fast food.
We’ve taken him to basketball and played Wii. Tonight is our ward party, and we’ve told him we are all dressing up in Halloween costumes. I think he’s excited about it (or maybe nervous, now that I think about it) because this morning he asked, “Is today Halloween?” and I told him that yes, it was the Halloween party. Let’s hope we don’t scar him too badly.

–I’ve entered a contest (of course I have) and would appreciate your votes. I could possibly win an I-pad. Wouldn’t THAT be cool?! You don’t have to register or anything, just go to this website HERE and vote for my picture

There’s only 15 pictures entered, but I think you can only vote once per computer, because I keep voting, and my status isn’t changing. Maybe I need to go to the Library and vote from there. Or YOU could vote, right? Thanks!

–Halloween decor. Megan and Ryan (mostly Megan) made these cool window monsters that look really cool at night.

If you were to come trick-or-treating at our house, you would see them in their full glory. Fun! And free!

I’m trying to decide what to dress up as for Halloween. My parents came over and took some costumes for their party. I was surprised that they chose a devil and Nemo costumes. Don’t I have fun parents?

What are YOU going to be for Halloween?

There’s a new coop in town

October 22, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Not to dwell on the bad, but last week a dog got the last of my chickens. The worst part was that I looked out one morning and saw the dog with my chicken in her mouth. I ran out there in bare feet to try to rescue her, but it was too late. I screamed at the dog and she slunk off. I broke down and cried. Actually, I cried a whole lot. She was my favorite chicken. My only chicken left, and I couldn’t get the image of the dog killing her out of my mind. I think because I had not cried when the other ones were killed, but this time the kids were gone and wouldn’t see me crying.

I did contact the dog owner, though. (Not right then, but a day later, when I could speak of it calmly without crying.) They were very sorry and offered to pay for chickens and punish the dog and keep her in their own yard. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but we will reinforce the dog run so that chickens can’t fly out the top when a dog comes barking. We will try again. Even if we are in a neighborhood full of dogs and our yard is not fenced. I don’t want to be the girl who had chickens once. That day I started looking on the internet for “dog proof chicken runs” and “How to keep chickens safe from predators” and looking on KSL.com for chickens for sale.

Because now that we’re all into this chicken project, I was authorized to spend some money instead of just relying on things I could get for free. And I had been complaining about the coop and how it needed this modification and that fixing. Ryan wasn’t thrilled about fixing up what he called a piece of junk coop. Somehow one of the kids suggested I should call my ‘friend’ Nate Berkus
 and ask him to design a chicken coop for us. While that’s not a bad idea, and I am certain that any chicken coop designed and/or built by Nate would be FABULOUS, I don’t really think he’d jump at the chance to do that for his show. But I might just send him an email anyway.

When I started looking, I found that there are a lot of chicken coops for sale! Fancy ones, HUGE ones, little ones, etc. Wow.
I found this ad that had just been put up, and I called.

It seemed sturdy, safe, and oh, so cute! I arranged to come and pick up the coop and his three chickens on Friday. Ryan was off work, so he and I took the truck up to Riverton to pick up this coop. The bad thing was that this coop built out of an old playhouse was wider than the gate, so we had to lift the whole thing up OVER the 5 ft fence. Somehow we managed with the three of us. The coop barely fit in our small truck. It had to sit on top of the wheel wells and was hanging out the back. But we used the trusty tie downs and took it slowly back home. I had the three chickens in a rubbermaid box on my lap. They did not enjoy the ride, I tell you.

We got home and had to muscle it out of the truck and put it in the garden area by the other coop.

Look at that metal roof! No rain or snow dripping on the chickens in that little house.

The little run is quite short, and we still have this dog run, so we want to figure out a way to attach that and give them a little more room to run around in, and still be safe from dogs.

But it makes me happy to have chickens again. And who doesn’t love a coop built from a cute pink play house?! (Ryan says we should paint it barn red, which would also be cute. We’ll see about that.) On their first day here they laid three eggs for us, so I’m pleased with their work, as well. We are returning the loaner chicken to her rightful owner, and going with these three. They came prenamed, so I guess we’ll stick with that, even though I don’t think that Lexi, Juliette and Violet are great chicken names. They even have little colored bands on their legs and a key written on the inside wall of the little house that says which color means which name (Violet is the blue one, etc.) Cute. So we’ll just go with that. If you’d like to come and visit our new little family of chickens, feel free to come on over. We’ll even give you a fresh brown egg if you’d like.

Ain’t that a peach?

September 12, 2011 / / 5 Comments

The peaches are ripe. Wow. I should have thinned out my peaches early in the season, but I’m such a novice at this, that I really don’t even know when to do that. I’ll find out for next year. These are the peaches that we picked up off the ground. We haven’t even started picking off the trees yet.

So, on Saturday, after Cole had taking the ACT (go, Cole!) and John had played a soccer game (go, John!) and we had all had lunch (hooray for lunch!) I decided we had to get serious and do something with these peaches. I have canned peaches before, but never on my own. I had my mom help me one year. Last year, I didn’t can peaches at all, I just froze a bunch for smoothies and we ate a bunch. I also gave a LOT away. But I don’t have the excuse to be out of town this year (last year I went to Georgia with Ryan right when the peaches ripened).

So, I started the blanching and the cutting and realized that the kids HAD to help, or I would be buried in peaches for EVER! And Jenna’s hands are just the right size to stick them into the bottles and arrange the peaches. Who knew?

Megan was the blancher, Natalie the peeler, cutter, and Jenna put them into the bottles. I did the syrup, the lidding, the washing, and got everything ready for processing.

Oh, was it HOT.

What with the boiling water for the blanching, the boiling water for the syrup, boiling the water for the lids, and the canner, I didn’t have enough burners on my stove!

And I’m sure you can’t tell from the pictures how STICKY everyone is, but suffice it to say we were completely covered in sticky. I felt wasteful throwing away all the bruised and yucky parts of the peaches. I could have made Jam from them! But we gave a LOT of peach peels to the chickens and threw a lot of peach guts away because we just had to focus on the bottling.

By the end of the day we had 20 quarts of peaches canned.

Aren’t they beautiful?

I was also so tired that I took the kids out to dinner rather than fix something for dinner. So, 20 quarts are done, and I have many many more peaches on the tree. I’ve got to get more aggressive in my advertising of free peaches, and I’ve got to get busy and can some more.

Bring on the sticky…

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